y'see guys, the santa gig pays shit...

August 4, 2006 7:44 PM

Can/do cable companies use digital cable boxes to get ratings information? What about "on-demand?"

It seems like it'd be simple enough to do, and lord knows that info is considered priceless. Anyone in the biz know?

posted by es_de_bah to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

Ratings? Like G, PG, PG-13, R?
posted by k8t at 8:11 PM on August 4, 2006

ratings like what shows are watched the most, by who, when? those types of ratings...
posted by es_de_bah at 8:15 PM on August 4, 2006

big_brother
posted by es_de_bah at 8:21 PM on August 4, 2006

TiVo does... they publish a list with the most-recorded shows and other stuff. It's not exactly Nielsen ratings, but it's still aggregate data.
posted by Wild_Eep at 9:33 PM on August 4, 2006

Here's an expanded list
posted by Wild_Eep at 9:34 PM on August 4, 2006

I happen to work for the company that tracks ratings for video on demand. As far as I know, the data isn't publically available anywhere, however.
posted by chrchr at 9:47 PM on August 4, 2006

I read somewhere that cable companies cannot sell their data to companies with respect to what we watch. After thinking about this, companies like Nielsen make sense, as they are either volunteer or for pay. I think this came up in discussion of telcos getting in to the TV business, and that they claimed they could sell/mine the info as they considered themselves an "information service"
posted by richter_x at 3:03 AM on August 5, 2006

There's no law against cable companies tracking every channel change you make, every time you press volume up/down, every time you use the program guide, and so on. And they do. And the data is available.

The industry magazine is called Broadcasting and Cable; here's one story.

My cable provider has begun experimenting with ultra-targeted ads - certain shows have ads that are all for businesses within a few blocks of my home.
posted by jellicle at 4:48 AM on August 5, 2006

The problem is that they know what the TV's showing, but not who's watching it. Demographics are the key in ratings nowadays. When you do a Nielsen ratings booklet, they want to know who is watching the TV at all times, with age and sex.

So the automatic info isn't quite as valuable as you would think.
posted by smackfu at 8:14 AM on August 5, 2006