Audience measurement systems and methods for digital television

• US 20070055987A1
• Filed: 11/09/2006
• Published: 03/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/1998
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Nielsen Media Research, Inc. (Nielsen Holdings plc)
• Original Assignee: Nielsen Media Research, Inc. (Nielsen Holdings plc)
• Inventors: Lu, Daozheng, Kempter, Paul, Feininger, William
• Application Number:
  US11/595,117
• Publication Number:
  US 20070055987A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 2201/90 characterised by the use of signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/37 for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/39 for identifying broadcast space-time use of Electronic Programme Guides H04H60/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/45 for identifying users
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/58 of audio determination or detection of speech characteristics in general G10L25/00; speech recognition in general G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/82 the transmission system being the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4392 involving audio buffer management
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/658 Transmission by the client directed to the server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/165 Centralised control of user terminal subsequent to an upstream request signal H04N7/17345; Registering at central by two-way working H04N7/17309

Abstract

A television audience measurement system measures viewing of a television program viewed on digital television located in a statistically selected site by (i) retrieving an audience measurement data packet from a television set in order to identify the television program, (ii) detecting an audio code embedded in the television program in order to identify the television program, (iii) extracting an audio signature from the television program in order to identify the television program, (iv) identifying the television program through use of a software agent, and (v) selecting at least one of the retrieving means, the detecting means, the extracting means, and the software agent in order to identify the television program.

Claims

1. A television audience measurement system for identifying a viewer selected television program from among a plurality of television programs simultaneously broadcast in a broadcast channel, the television audience measurement system comprising:

a channel detector that detects the broadcast channel in which the plurality of television programs is broadcast; and

,

a comparator that sequentially compares an audio component of the plurality of television programs broadcast in the detected broadcast channel with an audio signal of the viewer selected television program so as to identify the viewer selected television program.