Coded/non-coded program audience measurement system
AssigneeThe Nielsen Company (US), LLC
InventorsDaozheng Lu, David H. Harkness
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An audience measurement system identifies a program which is broadcast from a signal source and to which a receiver is tuned. The audience measurement system includes a code reader for reading an ancillary code of the program to which the receiver is tuned, a channel status detector for determining channel status relating to channels to which the receiver is tuned, a memory for storing ancillary codes read by the code reading means and for storing channel status determined by the channel status determining means if ancillary codes are not readable by the code reading means, and a communicator for communicating the ancillary code and/or the channel status to a central office computer.
Claims26
-78. (canceled)
A noninvasive audience measurement system for collecting program identifying data associated with a program which is transmitted from a signal source and to which a receiver is tuned without physically contacting electronics of the receiver, the audience measurement system comprising:
- a code reader to noninvasively read a program identification code associated with the program to which the receiver is tuned without physically contacting the electronics of the receiver;
- a prompter responsive to the code reader to prompt a user of the receiver to manually enter a channel identifier identifying the currently tuned program without changing the channel if the reader was not able to read the program identification code;
- a channel detector to collect the channel identifier which is manually entered by the user of the receiver, the channel identifier being collected without physically contacting the electronics of the receiver;
- a timestamper to associate a time with the program identification code and/or the channel identifier;
- a memory to store the program identification code and/or the channel identifier;
- and
- a communication device to forward at least one of the time-stamped program identification code and the time-stamped channel identifier to a remote processing site.
An audience measurement system comprising:
- a code reader to attempt to read a code broadcast with a program to which a receiver is tuned without physically contacting electronics of the receiver;
- a prompter responsive to the code reader to prompt a user of the receiver to manually enter a channel identifier when the code is not present or is not readable by the code reader;
- a channel detector to collect the channel identifier which is manually entered by the user of the receiver and without physically contacting the electronics of the receiver;
- a timestamper to associate a time with the code and/or the channel identifier;
- a memory to store the code and/or the channel identifier;
- and
- a communication device to forward the code read by the code reader if the code is read by the code reader and to forward the channel identifier collected by the channel detector only if the code is not read by the code reader.
A method for collecting program identifying data associated with a program which is transmitted from a signal source and to which a receiver is tuned, the audience measurement system comprising:
- reading a program identification code associated with the program to which the receiver is tuned without physically contacting electronics of the receiver;
- prompting a user of the receiver to manually enter a channel identifier identifying the currently tuned program without changing the channel if the program identification code was not read;
- collecting the channel identifier which is manually entered by the user of the receiver in response to the prompting without physical contact with the electronics of the receiver;
- associating a time with the program identification code and/or the channel identifier;
- storing the program identification code and/or the channel identifier;
- and
- forwarding at least one of the time-stamped program identification code and the time-stamped channel identifier to a remote processing site.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.