Boxed Out of Set-Top Data

Report Uncovers Ops’ Extreme Reluctance to Share

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 3/15/2010 7:54:00 AM

One big reason set-top box data isn’t becoming widely used as a measure of TV advertising is that cable, satellite and telco TV operators simply aren’t willing to share that data.

Or even talk about it publicly.

The Council for Research Excellence, a group funded by Nielsen, set out in late 2008 to analyze the state of set-top data and its viability as a mechanism for audience measurement. It’s a potentially powerful tool for analyzing actual TV viewing on a second-by-second basis.

Over several months last year, the CRE researchers contacted 30 companies and organizations involved (or potentially involved) in collecting, processing or aggregating set-top data and requested that they fill out brief surveys, with assurances that the information would be used anonymously.

The results? The CRE was stonewalled by half of them, including nine of the 10 biggest pay TV companies, with Cox Communications the sole exception.

“The number of study non-participants is disappointing; it leaves users of STB data in the dark about important methodological and technical issues,” the CRE said in its report, released last week.

Those refusing to fill out the surveys: Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems, AT&T, Verizon and Bright House Networks. Also declining to play ball were Rentrak (which has deals with AT&T and Dish to commercialize set-top data) and Kantar Media (formerly TNS Media).

Nielsen naturally participated, as did TiVo, Google and Canoe Ventures. But, as CRE’s report noted, Canoe is not currently processing set-top data.

Why are so many of these companies unwilling to answer a few basic questions?

“Because of competitive pressures and suspicion of motives, there is a considerable reluctance by many companies to reveal detailed information on their procedures,” the CRE’s report said.

Specifically, one issue was that CRE is a Nielsen-funded group: “Quite a few were suspicious of Nielsen’s connection with the CRE and worried that, despite the guarantees of confidentiality, Nielsen would somehow gain access to their specific responses. This is emphatically not the case,” the report’s authors wrote.

Other reasons, according to the CRE, included the position that there was “nothing in it for them”; concern about raising the profile of set-top box data and stirring up privacy concerns; and that procedures were still in development.

Besides the lack of industry participation, the other major problem CRE found with set-top data today is that it’s nonstandard across distributors and aggregators: “There is virtually no uniformity between aggregators in terms of data obtained or processing rules. Everyone does it differently. There are no standards.”

To solve that second problem, though, the pay-TV providers will first need to be more forthcoming about set-top data — and open their kimonos.

Main findings from the Council for Research Excellence’s survey of set-top box data:

Nine of the 10 largest pay TV distributors declined to participate; Cox was the exception.

All set-top data being collected includes channel-change information; other metrics include muting, program guide, VOD, DVR playback and trick-mode use.

“Virtually no uniformity” among aggregators on the way data is obtained and processed.

Frequency of set-top data uploads varies but is generally daily or more frequently.

SOURCE: CRE