Abstract:

Digital set top boxes (DSTBs) offer broadcasters, agencies and advertisers a potential measurement technology and sample size to provide set tuning data, virtually down to the second, for even the most fragmented TV markets based on what eventually may come close to a census of homes in the market. This paper reviews the opportunities that DSTBs provide the industry and reveals the lessons learned from a proprietary test of such technologies executed in Atlanta in 1997 for BellSouth. These include findings regarding commercial retention and program environment. The key issues, principles, guidelines and business issues concerning the collection and dissemination of DSTB data being developed jointly by the AAAA (American Association of Advertising Agencies) and the ARF (the Advertising Research Foundation), via the new Digital TV Open Data Standards Task Force, is also reviewed.