System and method for the near-real time capture and reporting of large population consumer behaviors concerning television use

A system for near-real time capturing and reporting of viewers' cable television use for televisions coupled to a cable television network including at least one head end, said system comprising:

• a first subsystem for generating encoded media assets for transmission through the cable network, said preparation subsystem including means for assigning a range of codes to be associated with the media assets and with entities that own the media assets to form assigned asset data;
• a second subsystem, coupled to said first subsystem, comprising:
• at least one set top box coupled to an associated television for receiving said encoded media assets and for obtaining data of television events as they occur, said at least one set top box generating a message corresponding to each one of said data of television events as they occur;
• at least one set top box event dispatching means for receiving each of said messages and for routing said messages to collection means within said second subsystem;
• means for generating statistics from said television event data coupled to said at least one set top box event dispatching means;
• means for extracting the code from the encoded media assets and creating asset tag timestamps therefrom;
• and
• a third subsystem, coupled to said first subsystem and to said second subsystem, said third subsystem comprising means for merging said asset tag timestamps with:
• said statistics generated in said second subsystem;
• information related to published broadcast schedules and to head-end channel line-ups;
• and
• said assigned asset data;
• to generate, in near-real time, viewership consolidated data.