Comments on: y'see guys, the santa gig pays shit...

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

es_de_bah — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 19:44:06 -0800

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?

By: k8t

k8t — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:11:08 -0800

Ratings? Like G, PG, PG-13, R?

By: es_de_bah

es_de_bah — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:15:33 -0800

ratings like what shows are watched the most, by who, when? those types of ratings...

By: es_de_bah

es_de_bah — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:21:29 -0800

big_brother

By: Wild_Eep

Wild_Eep — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 21:33:31 -0800

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.

By: Wild_Eep

Wild_Eep — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 21:34:47 -0800

Here's an expanded list

By: chrchr

chrchr — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 21:47:08 -0800

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.

By: richter_x

richter_x — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 03:03:29 -0800

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"

By: jellicle

jellicle — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 04:48:11 -0800

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.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 08:14:06 -0800

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.