New York, July 7 — Nielsen has announced organizational changes which will give set top box data greater visibility in the ratings company. In addition to announcing STB analyses from Charter systems in St. Louis, Greenville/Spartanburg, and Reno, Nielsen told clients about organizational changes designed to integrate STB data “formally within our existing audience measurement product leadership teams.”

The letter to Nielsen’s clients also announced that Matt O’Grady will be responsible for testing and incorporating STB data into Nielsen’s national and multi-platform products. Cheryl Idell will have integration responsibilities for local products.

Kantar (formerly TNS Media Research), Rentrak and TiVo have existing products and client bases already using these data. Rentrack’s Station Essentials product, using AT&T and Dish Network data, has been adding clients to its sec-by-sec no-demographics alternative to traditional NSI local market data. It’s not clear from the announcement if Nielsen is upping the ante or if they are just publicizing previous efforts.

The July 7 announcement was nuanced so as not to discredit the current local and national TV measurement services which serve all DMAs with a combination of people meters, household meters and paper diaries. “While STB data is incomplete on its own, we believe combining the stability and granularity afforded by this data with the representative quality of our panels will provide enhanced capabilities, analytics and insight,” says Nielsen’s Dave Thomas and Steve Hasker.

The new Nielsen tests will compare the ratings currency to STB data “to determine if the STB data can help supply greater fidelity to our ratings projections and enable more granular reporting, including to additional stations and regional networks.”

Arbitron is going high tech with their portable people meter rolling out a replacement for the 80’s-like pager-looking device with hardware that uses cell phone technology.

The new wireless PPM 360 technology will use a cellular network to collect data from Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM) panel. PPM ratings using the existing cradle technology will be available in 50 markets for the Summer 2010 book.

“We have multiple solutions for data capture and retrieval,” says Arbitron spokesperson Jessica Benbow. “While this version is on a cell phone delivery system, the existing PPM technology retrieves data from the meter through a docking station and sends it to Arbitron through a landline or a cell modem depending on status of the household and the availability of cell coverage. That system will remain intact simultaneously as this system is deployed.”

Arbitron’s president says the enhanced PPM will liberate audience measurement from the home and make it easier to follow the mobile consumers. “This platform is designed to be an integrated component to our existing radio services and drive future innovation for media measurement,” says William Kerr, Arbitron President and CEO.

Arbitron has decided to keep the name of the cell phone carrier secret. Rollout plans for PPM 360 will be announced after field testing of the new system concludes at the end of 2010.

High Definition TV has been good to TV manufacturers, program producers and consumers. HD helps sell more high-end TVs to consumers who like the Big Picture and richer viewing experience. Now new research suggests there might be good HD news for media buyers and sellers, too.

A comprehensive study of commercial viewing to a dozen of the largest network TV advertisers suggests that commercial tuneaway is lower in HD households. Higher audience retention means bigger commercial ratings which might translate into future cha-ching for broadcast and cable ad sales executives.

A new Kantar Media study reports that viewers tune away from commercials about half as often on HD channels compared to the standard definition (SD) feed for the same network. Ad supported HD channels have an average tuneaway of 3.73 percent of commercial seconds compared to 6.8 for SD viewing.

The analysis is based on nearly 124,000 thirty second spots for advertisers in the automotive, communications, retail, QSR, insurance and prepared foods categories. October 2009 data from 100,000 set top boxes in Kantar’s DIRECTView sample were used for the analysis. The complete results will be presented at the Advertising Research Foundation AMS 5.0 conference in NYC on June 22-23.

Broadcast also benefits from HD. High Def broadcast channels have 31 percent less tuneaway compared to the same commercials on SD channels  (2.2 vs. 3.2).

“This may be another measure of engagement,” says Leslie Wood, president of Media Trust and a study co-author. “If a person is watching on the HD channel, they care more about their TV experience.”

The finding could also be a win for set top box providers.  “Return path data can provide important insights into consumers’ digital viewing behavior,” says George Shababb, president of Kantar Media Audiences. “The ability to isolate the tuneaway effect of HD versus SD is unique to these data,” he says.
Wood notes that it isn’t clear if HD makes people spend more time with commercials or if the household characteristics of HD homes  — such as income, family size, etc. — differentiate SD and HD commercial viewing. Either way, it’s good news. “Greater audience retention and its implied higher commercial rating are a powerful rationale for networks considering adding a HD feed,” she says.

Breakthrough research is nice – but actionable findings are what matters most to media buyers. “These data suggest that HD channels reach a more engaged viewer which can have repercussions for our advertisers,” says Kevin Moeller, partner and Insights Director at MediaCom. “If HD programming results in a more engaged viewer it will encourage media communications planning and buying teams to rethink media plans.”

Although these preliminary data suggest an additional payoff to networks’ HD investment, one sales veteran is cautious about cashing in.

“I am not wild about centering a sales effort on the potential of this incremental gain,” says Harvey Ganot, a partner at New Markets Now and former President of Advertising Sales at MTV Networks. Ganot says charging more for HD is a double-edged sword: if HD is worth more, does that mean standard definition is worth less? “Advertisers are getting the HD advantage for free now. Why would they want to pay more?” Logistical issues would also make an HD-only sales effort difficult. “Segmentation and micro-placement of schedules in an HD environment are time consuming and labor intensive tasks,” Ganot adds.

Higher HD commercial ratings may not justify bigger ad sales rates down the road. But if it helps justify networks’ continued investment in high def distribution and technology, it’s bound to help broadcast and cable CFOs sleep better at night.

Dave Zornow is president of TNG Research, a media research and applications development company in Nyack, NY. He is also co-author of the study, “Using Return Path Data to Understand Contextual Advertising Engagement on TV,” which will be presented at the ARF AMS Conference in New York on June 22.

by Dave Zornow

If you find yourself going online to learn what’s going on around town, you’re not alone. More Americans are using digital tools to complement face time with neighbors and friends to keep current on what’s up — downtown.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, one in five adults (20%) used digital tools to talk to neighbors and keep informed about community issues. Online blogs about community issues (21%), emailing (9%) and texting (4%) with neighbors are some of the ways that we are now wired (sometimes wirelessly) to our communities.

Interactive marketing consultant Richard Dysinger says people use digital media to  communicate because it’s faster and easier. Although the average letter is read within a week of being sent, “the average text message is read within fifteen minutes of being sent and emails on average are read within 48 hours,” he says. “This level of immediacy coupled with a buffered level of intimacy is at the heart of the new age of communication.” It’s another example of how technology is shrinking the world — making small towns even smaller. “Digital media and social media have facilitated  communication across a vast virtual network. We have gone from six degrees of separation to three,” Dysinger says.

Pew reports that there’s still a place for conversations on the front porch or over the back fence: Almost half (46%) of all Americans talk face-to-face with neighbors about community issues. The phone is used by about one in five adults (21%) — about the same number who say they stay connected with digital connections.

What’s the message here? If you are trying to get the message out about a community issue or event — or even run for public office — word of mouth is still your best friend. But more and more words are being digitized for posting, emailing and texting across town as well as around the world.

This story was also cross posted at NyackNewsAndViews.com

Source: Neighbors Online, Pew Internet & American Life Project, 4/9/2010

At the 1964 World’s Fair, AT&T introduced a new product that combined the telephone and television into a surefire hit for businesses and consumers. Three million Picturephones were predicted to be in use by the 1980’s. Instead of Picturephones, we now remember the 80’s by a different cultural failure: disco music.

AT&T is estimated to have spent up to $500 million developing the Picturephone. Why wouldn’t you want to see the person to whom you were speaking? If facial expressions weren’t important, why did those thoughtful Internet pioneers invent all of those emoticons to express what words alone couldn’t do? AT&T failed partially because they charged $21 a minute for the bandwidth hungry picture phone in a pre-fiber, barely satellite communications age. Today we can do it for free via iChat or Skype — but even free hasn’t made consumers want to be heard and be seen.

Last week Google announced a new service which will join two commonly used communications technologies. Google TV will marry TV with search to improve the consumer experience and, in Google’s words, “change the future of television.” Anyone who has ever tried to use a remote control to text search a TV interactive program guide can see the possibilities of searching “all of your channels, recorded shows,  YouTube and other Websites” in one place.

Long before the industry anointed  “convergence” as the holy grail of media synergy, AT&T learned that consumers can be a fickle bunch. Google, a dominant communications company of the 21st century, might want to take a history lesson from AT&T, which was the largest communications company of the 20th century.

Google and their technology partners hope to sell new TVs (from Sony) or new HDMI-connectible set top boxes (from Logitech) to merge your desktop and set top digital words. Google TV Product Lead Rishi Chandra says Google TV will let viewers use the voice search feature of Android phones to query Google TV. NewTeeVee.com provided a play-by-play of the new service as demoed at the Google I/O conference. First, Chandra searched for live TV content and scheduled TV programming to program a DVR.

Then he searched for House, and Google TV returned search results Hulu, Fox.com and Amazon. Clicking on the Amazon search result led to the website of Amazon’s VOD service. The search bar can also be used to directly input urls and search saved bookmarks. “It’s just as easy to go to any site on the web as it is to go to any channel on your television,” says Chandra.

Google’s business model is to make money by bringing search to TV and extending the reach of advertising through Adwords. In an interview on the Fox Business Channel, Google CEO Eric Schmidt says that because Google TV seamlessly combines TV and computers, “we know a lot more about what people are doing and can make more relevant television advertising  — which should be worth alot of money.”

Will Google succeed where AT&T once failed and Apple TV and Microsoft’s Media Center have stalled? There’s only one way to end an article that talks about almost 50 years of TV and technology: Stay tuned.

Sources: DavidZondy.com, Porticus.org, Google TV, NewTeeVee.com, Digital Daily, Fox Business Channel, BobLucky.com

See Also: Engadget, timeline.com, BusinessInsider.com

How long does it take for a format or technology to migrate from one medium to another?  Take wide-screen pictures for instance.  In the early 1950s they were in your neighborhood movie house.  Only a half-century later, wide-screen TVs were on display at your local electronics emporium.  I have a feeling 3D is going to move a lot faster than that.

3D was around in the early 1950s too, but not seriously.  Used mostly in low-budget novelty films, audiences considered it a joke and it soon vanished.  One of the first was Bwana Devil, a jungle epic with spears thrown directly at the audience for shock value.  It was perhaps best known for its ad slogan “A lion in your lap.”

This time the studios are very serious about 3D.  They’ve discovered a gold mine.  Witness Avatar and Alice in Wonderland.  And the TV set makers aren’t sleeping through it.  They’re pushing their own 3D systems.

The cinema 3D technology is essentially an improved version of the 1950s spear-tossing films in that the glasses worn by the audience are “passive.” They contain a lens material that filters out the portion if the picture each eye is not supposed to see.  The new TV systems tend to use “active” glasses, mechanical devices that open and close shutters rapidly to admit the proper images for each eye.

How long before 3D is an everyday item for the home?  I’m guessing less than 10 years.  Expect the consumer electronics marketers to position it as necessary for “true HDTV.”  That lion is coming to your living room.  Don’t let it scratch-up your furniture.

Paul Rule is President of Marquest Media Research.

Statistically speaking, the Mac and the Republican leadership have alot in common.

MacDailyNews’ recent headline “Apple Mac owns 90% market share for ‘premium’ PCs costing over $1,000″ comes as quite a shock to anyone who spent the first 10 years of their Mac ownership being ridiculed by PC friends and IT departments.

I remember the day when an IT director for a progressive media company refused my request for a friendly and fuzzy early Mac so my research department could crank out something more client friendly than what was available on our IBM PS/2 running Lotus 1-2-3 and printing on a dot matrix printer. “Thou shalt not use the ‘M’ word here,” she told me.

Too bad I wasn’t working at some cutting edge cool place like MTV. Wait, come to think of it I WAS working at MTV. Which just shows you how far Mac acceptance in the marketplace has come.

But I digress from the 90 percent statistic shocker. “Nine out of 10 premium PCs purchased from US retail brick-and-mortar stores or online sites (including major chains and Apple Store) during [the] fourth quarter was a Mac,” says Joe Wilcox from BetaNews.

It’s incredible and not quite believable that the company that had a perennial sub 10 percent share of sales currently is responsible for 9 out of ten PCs sold. It’s also not quite true, either. The numbers aren’t flawed. It’s the base that’s in question.

Once upon a time, you needed to spend close to $3,000 for a state of the art PC. Every year the specs would change…but the price would be more-or-less the same. Over the last ten years things gradually changed where each time you bought a new PC you got more — literally for less. Now you can buy a middle of the market machine for less than $1000.

So it’s not so amazing that Apple dominates the $1,000 and up market. The twin shockers here are how cheap it is to buy a PC and how Apple has consistently received a premium price (for delivering, arguably, a premium product) while the margins on Windows machines have steadily declined.

This is a trick that researchers and marketers know well. If you don’t have a good story against total the total market, change the base to something that’s more relevant to the target which tells a better story.

Sometimes, researchers are called to task for “manipulating the base” to tell that better story. As it happens, politicians frequently employ the same trick although they rarely get called out for this behavior.

This week, conservatives and Republican leaders are screaming about a $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2011, the largest peace time budget in history. Deficits are projected to shoot up to a record $1.6 trillion this year. When the late Senator Everett Dirksen once mused “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money,” he never could have imagined that some day we’d have a multi-trillion dollar national deficit.

But conservative leaders are doing one worse than eager researchers. By disregarding the $1.4 billion deficit Obama inherited in addition to two wars, a teetering banking system, failing automakers and soaring unemployment, they aren’t just manipulating their numbers, they are manipulating their followers, too.

Without context, Apple’s 90 percent share is impressive but meaningless. The same can be said for a deficit so huge it defies comprehension. It’s easy to say “we can’t afford a $1.6 trillion deficit.” But we couldn’t afford the wars and Medicare Prescription Drug bill that helped wiped out the surpluses at the start of the last decade.

Content is king and talking points to the base have their place.  But context is the glue that holds it all together.

Back when HBO was new and before ad supported cable hit its stride, a handful of UHF stations in major markets offered a subscription over-the-air TV service to compete with cable. Now a Silicon Valley start-up wants to dust off that business plan with a digital twist. The San Jose MercuryNews says

Sezmi’s service differs from those of traditional pay-television operators. Its customers get local broadcast channels via the public airwaves. But the company also relies on those airwaves, via deals with local broadcasters, to send pay-TV channels to its customers. It also plans to send on-demand and Internet programming to consumers via customers’ broadband connections.

The startup promises an integrated media experience, delivering broadcast, cable and select Internet sites (READ AS: YouTube) in one place managed with a DVR. They also offer 6,000 VOD titles, too.

There’s a free three month trial in LA and the SF Bay area. Southern California testers will see Comedy Channel, TNT and CNN but deals haven’t been secured yet for Bay area viewers.

The secret sauce to Sezmi is a small digital antenna called the  “Smart Reception System.” The company says “for the first time, advanced techniques used in other applications such as wifi and wireless have been applied to TV reception.” Translation: it’s a digital antenna in an enclosure which should cover 85 percent of LA. Maybe.

These features will make cable and satellite subs yawn as most of this has been done before. Except the price:$4.99 for basic service and $24.99 for premium channels. The gotcha is paying $300 for Sezmi’s proprietary equipment. You also can’t Sezmi unless you have a broadband internet connection — which means you are still most likely tied to an MSO or a Telco.

In May, 2008, USA Today reported that Sezmi  “is counting on phone companies, and perhaps also wireless carriers, to market the service as a bundle with Internet service.” The California beta tests suggest that plan may not panned out as telcos have aggressively pushed services like FiOS and U-Verse.

Sources: Sezmi, San Jose MercuryNews, Wikipedia, USA Today, 5/2008, Technologizer 11/16/09

See also: PC Magazine

Saturday’s October 3, 2009 headline “Palin Holds Own In VP Debate” in the BattleCreek Enquirer tells all you need to know about how Alaska’s Sarah Plain when she went mano a mano with Joe Biden on October 3. The article, which Google News featured prominently at 7a, was at the top of the list of “related” Friday articles about Palin’s chances in 2012.

Only problem is that the BattleCreekEnquirer was a year too late.

A closer read of the story shows that it should have been filed with a dateline of October 3, 2008 — not 2009. The error was amplified by Google’s news-bot-algorithm-thingee when this retro story was grouped with recent comments by former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt said a 2012 Palin nomination would be catastrophic for the party.

Web publishers use CMS (content management systems) to manage stories, dates, bylines and ad placement. Obviously something snafu-ed in Battle Creek followed by the clueless electronic editor-in-chief-bot at Google (There’s no truth to the rumor that the new Google News slogan is “All The Dated News That’s Fit We Publish.”).

One of the funnier quips about this slip out belongs to GeeWizard, a comment poster on the BattleCreekEnquirer website.

I’m excited to see Palin, a fresh face in politics. I’ll bet she’ll be sad to quit her position as Governor of Alaska once the American people unanimously vote her into the White House. She’s not like other slimy politicians who are only interested in self-promotion and million dollar book deals. She loves her state and would stay with it forever if she could. GO PALIN!!

Wait….what year is this?

Damn computers. Can’t live with em. Can’t sue ‘em when they screw up something stupid, either. But I bet there will be hell to pay at the editor’s desk in Battle Creek come Monday morning.

Sources: Battle Creek Enquirer, October 3, 2009, The Atlantic, CNN VP Debate Transcript

It’s the stuff from which Sci Fi is made. The Web Search-opoly, which has shook the bedrock of the advertising world, has invested in a company that can cause earthquakes. (Sort of. The investment is real, the earthquakes are a possibility)

What’s best is that Rule #6 of Google’s corporate philosophy is “you can make money without doing evil.” Larry Page and Sergey Brin, meet Lex Luthor and Dr. No.

It’s also about energy and using the heat of the earth to produce clean power without greenhouse gases or fragile geopolitical alliances. Google has invested $6.25 million in AltaRock Energy which plans to drill two miles below the surface to tap geothermal energy in a place about two hours north of San Francisco.

AltaRock hopes to use engineered geothermal systems to pump cold water below the surface to fracture rocks and create fissures. The water, heated under intense pressure, returns to the surface as steam used to turn electrical turbines.

However, the NYT did a little digging (I couldn’t resist) and found that a similar venture in Basel, Switzerland was shut down after it triggered man-made earthquakes which persisted for months after the drilling stopped. AltaRock says they aren’t sure that the Basel project caused the Swiss quakes although local officials in Switzerland are sure that they did.

Regarding geothermal energy, Google says we need “more aggressive government policies to help catch up to other nations, including expanded R&D funding, a national renewable portfolio standard, and reliable tax incentives.”

Here’s the pitch: Corporate greed vs. community need by do global gooders gone bad  at the cross roads of good intentions and the San Andreas fault. Wannabe script writers for History and Discovery Channels — are you listening?

Source: NYT, XConomy, GreenTechMedia, Earthetech