# US 12,015,826 B2 · Methods and apparatus to correct errors in audience measurements for media accessed using over-the-top devices

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- Number: US 12,015,826 B2
- Document ID: US12015826B2
- Status: Granted
- Kind: B2
- Application number: 18/327,634
- Filed: 2023-06-01
- Published: 2023-10-05
- Granted: 2024-06-18
- Earliest claimed: 2015-07-02
- Assignees: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
- Applicants: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
- Inventors: Kumar Nagaraja Rao; Kamer Toker Yildiz; Jennifer Haskell; Cristina Ion; Mimi Zhang
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US12015826B2

## CPC

- H04N 21/4663: {involving probabilistic networks, e.g. Bayesian networks}
- G06Q 30/00: Commerce
- G06Q 30/02: Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
- G06Q 30/0241: Advertisements
- G06Q 30/0251: Targeted advertisements
- H04N 21/252: {Processing of multiple end-users' preferences to derive collaborative data}
- H04N 21/25883: {being end-user demographical data, e.g. age, family status or address (arrangements for identifying locations of users in broadcast systems H04H60/52)}
- H04N 21/25891: {being end-user preferences (retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18)}
- H04N 21/44222: {Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programmes or purchase activity (monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33)}
- H04N 21/44226: {on social networks}
- H04N 21/4532: {involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences (monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18)}
- H04N 21/4661: {Deriving a combined profile for a plurality of end-users of the same client, e.g. for family members within a home (user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306)}
- H04N 21/4667: {Processing of monitored end-user data, e.g. trend analysis based on the log file of viewer selections}
- H04N 21/812: {involving advertisement data (advertising per se G06Q30/02)}
- G06Q 10/40: Business processes related to social networking or social networking services
- H04N: PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
- G06Q: INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR

## Abstract

An example system comprising at least one memory, programmable circuitry, and instructions to cause the programmable circuitry to obtain first time information corresponding to one or more first times that a panelist accessed first media via a television, obtain second time information corresponding to one or more second times that a household accessed second media via an over-the-top device, the second time information matching the first time information and associated with corrected demographic information of members of the household, determine that a first genre of the first media matches a second genre of the second media, determine that a member of the household accessed the second media via the over-the-top device based on historical media access events of the panelist, and attribute the access of the second media to the member of the household to create a corrected demographic impression record.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A system comprising:
at least one memory;
programmable circuitry; and
instructions to cause the programmable circuitry to:
obtain first time information corresponding to one or more first times that a panelist accessed first media via a television;
obtain second time information corresponding to one or more second times that a household accessed second media via an over-the-top device, the second time information matching the first time information and associated with corrected demographic information of members of the household;
determine that a first genre of the first media matches a second genre of the second media;
determine that a member of the household accessed the second media via the over-the-top device based on historical media access events of the panelist; and
attribute the access of the second media to the member of the household to create a corrected demographic impression record.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The system of claim 1, wherein the programmable circuitry is to utilize the corrected demographic information to access at least one demographic bucket, the member of the household and the panelist associated with the at least one demographic bucket.

### Claim 3 (depends on 2)

The system of claim 2, wherein the programmable circuitry is to:
obtain third time information corresponding to a total time the first media was previously accessed by a group of panelists corresponding to the at least one demographic bucket, the group of panelists including the panelist; and
determine a probability that the member of the household accessed the second media based on dividing the first time information by the third time information, wherein the first time information matches the second time information and the probability is indicative that the member of the household likely accessed the second media via the over-the-top device.

### Claim 4 (depends on 1)

The system of claim 1, wherein the programmable circuitry is to determine whether to attribute the access of the second media to more than one member of the household based on the historical media access events of the panelist.

### Claim 5 (depends on 4)

The system of claim 4, wherein the member is a first member and the programmable circuitry is to:
attribute the access of the second media to all members in the household; and
execute an elimination analysis to determine whether to eliminate a second member of the household from the attribution of the access of the second media.

### Claim 6 (depends on 1)

The system of claim 1, wherein the member is a first member, the panelist is a first panelist, and the historical media access events of the panelist are first historical media access events of the first panelist, the programmable circuitry is to:
attribute the access of the second media to all members of the household;
compare the second media to second historical media access events of a second panelist, the second panelist having demographics corresponding to a second member of the household; and
remove the attribution of the access of the second media from the second member of the household when the second media conflicts with the second historical media access events of the second panelist.

### Claim 7 (depends on 6)

The system of claim 6, wherein the programmable circuitry is to remove the attribution of the access of the second media from the second member of the household when the second time information conflicts with third time information corresponding to one or more third times that the second member of the household historically accesses media.

### Claim 8

A non-transitory machine readable storage medium comprising instructions to cause programmable circuitry to at least:
obtain first time information corresponding to one or more first times that a panelist accessed first media via a television;
obtain second time information corresponding to one or more second times that a household accessed second media via an over-the-top device, the second time information matching the first time information and associated with corrected demographic information of members of the household;
determine that a first genre of the first media matches a second genre of the second media;
determine that a member of the household accessed the second media via the over-the-top device based on historical media access events of the panelist; and
attribute the access of the second media to the member of the household to create a corrected demographic impression record.

### Claim 9 (depends on 8)

The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the instructions are to cause the programmable circuitry to utilize the corrected demographic information to access at least one demographic bucket, the member of the household and the panelist associated with the at least one demographic bucket.

### Claim 10 (depends on 9)

The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the instructions are to cause the programmable circuitry to:
obtain third time information corresponding to a total time the first media was previously accessed by a group of panelists corresponding to the at least one demographic bucket, the group of panelists including the panelist; and
determine a probability that the member of the household accessed the second media based on dividing the first time information by the third time information, wherein the first time information matches the second time information and the probability is indicative that the member of the household likely accessed the second media via the over-the-top device.

### Claim 11 (depends on 8)

The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the instructions are to cause the programmable circuitry to determine whether to attribute the access of the second media to more than one member of the household based on the historical media access events of the panelist.

### Claim 12 (depends on 11)

The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the member is a first member and the instructions are to cause the programmable circuitry to:
attribute the access of the second media to all members in the household; and
execute an elimination analysis to determine whether to eliminate a second member of the household from the attribution of the access of the second media.

### Claim 13 (depends on 8)

The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the member is a first member, the panelist is a first panelist, and the historical media access events of the panelist are first historical media access events of the first panelist, the instructions to cause the programmable circuitry to:
attribute the access of the second media to all members of the household;
compare the second media to second historical media access events of a second panelist, the second panelist having demographics corresponding to a second member of the household; and
remove the attribution of the access of the second media from the second member of the household when the second media conflicts with the second historical media access events of the second panelist.

### Claim 14 (depends on 13)

The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions are to cause the programmable circuitry to remove the attribution of the access of the second media from the second member of the household when the second time information conflicts with third time information corresponding to one or more third times that the second member of the household historically accesses media.

### Claim 15

A method comprising:
accessing, by executing an instruction with programmable circuitry, first time information corresponding to one or more first times that a panelist accessed first media via a television;
accessing, by executing an instruction with the programmable circuitry, second time information corresponding to one or more second times that a household accessed second media via an over-the-top device, the second time information matching the first time information and associated with corrected demographic information of members of the household;
determining, by executing an instruction with the programmable circuitry, that a first genre of the first media matches a second genre of the second media;
determining, by executing an instruction with the programmable circuitry, that a member of the household accessed the second media via the over-the-top device based on historical media access events of the panelist; and
assigning, by executing an instruction with the programmable circuitry, the second media to the member of the household to create a corrected demographic impression record.

### Claim 16 (depends on 15)

The method of claim 15, further including using the corrected demographic information to access at least one demographic bucket, the member of the household and the panelist associated with the at least one demographic bucket.

### Claim 17 (depends on 16)

The method of claim 16, further including:
accessing third time information corresponding to a total time the first media was previously accessed by a group of panelists corresponding to the at least one demographic bucket, the group of panelists including the panelist; and
determining a probability that the member of the household accessed the second media based on dividing the first time information by the third time information, wherein the first time information matches the second time information and the probability is indicative that the member of the household likely accessed the second media via the over-the-top device.

### Claim 18 (depends on 15)

The method of claim 15, further including determining whether to assign the second media to more than one member of the household based on the historical media access events of the panelist.

### Claim 19 (depends on 18)

The method of claim 18, wherein the member is a first member and further including:
assigning the second media to all members in the household; and
executing an elimination analysis to determine whether to eliminate a second member of the household from the assignment of the second media.

### Claim 20 (depends on 15)

The method of claim 15, wherein the member is a first member, the panelist is a first panelist, and the historical media access events of the panelist are first historical media access events of the first panelist, and further including:
assigning the second media to all members of the household;
comparing the second media to second historical media access events of a second panelist, the second panelist having demographics corresponding to a second member of the household; and
removing the assignment of the second media from the second member of the household when the second media conflicts with the second historical media access events of the second panelist.