Audience Tracking Becomes High-Tech

In a world with hundreds of television channels, figuring out who’s watching what is about to get easier.

For decades, viewing habits have been tracked through devices attached to TVs and radios in the sample. Thousands of households also kept paper diaries during the crucial television “sweeps” periods in February, May, July and November.

That low-tech system is getting a major upgrade.

The two major companies that produce television and radio ratings are testing next-generation technology that would give advertisers the data they need to decide where to spend their billions of dollars.

The most promising is the “portable people meter,” a beeper-like device being developed by Arbitron, which logs programming seen or heard anytime, anywhere by whomever is wearing it.

People need to do nothing more than wear it during the day and place it in a home docking station each night so data can be transmitted to Arbitron.

The device uses sensitive microphones to pick up codes embedded in television, radio and even streaming Internet broadcasts--and it includes a motion detector to verify someone is actually wearing it.

“With the portable people meter, we know that you carried it and what it was exposed to,” said Thom Mocarsky, a spokesman for Arbitron, which compiles radio ratings.

With diaries, he said, Arbitron has to guess whether a blank diary page means “they didn’t listen to radio or forgot to log in.”

Arbitron just completed the first phase of testing, strapping meters on 1,500 testers in Philadelphia. The results were more comprehensive than data collected by current means--in large part because viewing and listening outside the home was included.

Nielsen Media, which provides television ratings, is watching the tests closely, with an eye toward forming a joint venture with Arbitron to roll out the technology nationally.

Nielsen is testing its own meter to monitor similar embedded codes. Unlike the Arbitron device, the Nielsen meter attaches to individual television sets.

Both systems could become essential as digital television eventually replaces the analog technology now in use.

“Digital changes the way television is transmitted, so the channel-based measuring system goes away,” said Nielsen spokesman Jack Loftus. “Everyone is going to encoding, and the race is on to see whose code is better.”

The constant tracking afforded by personal people meters, Arbitron believes, will eventually eliminate the need for sweeps weeks, when quality programming is often bunched together on the same nights to the frustration of viewers.

Currently, national and local television ratings are measured by Nielsen Media Research using electronic devices supplemented four times a year by paper diaries.

Nationally, 5,000 randomly selected homes are equipped with a meter on each television in the house to log which channels are watched. A second measurement is made by assigning each household member a separate button on the device, which is turned on and off when the person starts and stops watching television.

Detailed demographic statistics for various age groups are gleaned from the data.

Radio ratings are collected entirely using paper diaries.

Advertisers are excited about the reams of new data and say they can’t wait for the technology to be perfected.