That’s sketch that your phone is reporting that much. What else does it know.
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WINS AM vs FM General Question
- Thread starter Steve Green NEPA
- Start date
I believe it does. I know many morning shows are uploaded as podcasts later in the day, I would think many of them would encode https://starcom.es/wp-content/uploa...Content-_-Futuri-Nielsen-Study-April-2019.pdf
Like everything owned by Google, you should know you're being watched with every search, click, cell phone ping, map navigation, or in this case, song ID'ed. I enabled this feature fully aware of the privacy tradeoffs, but also fully aware that we live in a world where you're not going to avoid being tracked without disconnecting from the grid and living in a cave like a hermit.
Do you use the internet, watch TV, shop at Amazon, or even walk into Target or Walmart or other corporate retailers with the phone your pocket turned on? You're being tracked and profiled. If you don't like it, move to Europe where they have some actual privacy regulations, but even those are more like detours than roadblocks in our modern data harvesting culture.
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The encoding has a station ID code and the time.
Beyond that, I don't know whether there is a syncronization of the code time with real time.
The AI result on encoding gives:
Nielsen Portable People Meter (PPM) coding is
a system that embeds imperceptible audio signals, or "watermarks," into broadcast content. The codes are detected by devices worn by panelists to passively measure media exposure for radio and television ratings.
The coding process involves:
- Encoding An algorithm adds a unique code to a broadcaster's audio stream.
- Psychoacoustic masking The code is made inaudible to human hearing by adding it to frequencies that are masked by other sounds in the program's audio.
- Station identification Each broadcast outlet has a unique ID number that is part of the embedded code, which allows the PPM device to identify the specific station.
- Timestamping The encoding algorithm also includes a time stamp in the audio signal.
A good question. I will "ask around" with some friends who know more about this than I do.
Recordings in the studio are not encoded. Encoding is done at a station's transmitter right before the audio is "put on the air".
A podcast is created in the studio after, generally, editing out music and other undesired elements. It is not encoded because it is not broadcast directly at a specific time; the PPM encoder puts a time stamp on detections.
Not really. There are multiple challenges in using non-standard devices, with the first being unequal sensitivity and directionality. A sample can't introduce un-quantifiable variables.
Again, the issue involves introducing a variable... the different brands and models of cellular phones... into the process. I agree that using cellular phones to detect audio usage makes great sense, but I think the MRC would likely not approve.
It seems to me someone looked into this a while ago. Certainly it would have been easier for Nielsen to use existing devices rather than pay for their own. This system was way more expensive than the diary because of the device. However, we know that phone manufacturers have been VERY uncooperative in a number of ways. They know they have a valuable device, and it has access to a lot of information. The government has tried to co-op phone information, and so far, it usually can't be done without a warrant.
We know that Emmis offered to pay phone manufacturers to install or activate the FM chips in phones, and most (if not all) refused. That tells me that if anyone from Nielsen asked, the answer would be a pretty prompt no.
We know that Emmis offered to pay phone manufacturers to install or activate the FM chips in phones, and most (if not all) refused. That tells me that if anyone from Nielsen asked, the answer would be a pretty prompt no.
There's always a million reasons why something can't be done while looking in the rearview mirror.
The fundamental reason the PPM didn't use smartphones in the beginning is because the smartphone didn't exist yet. The first PPM experiments were run in Philly starting in January 2001, more than 6 years before the first iPhone debuted.
You hit the most valid point.
The PPM was a work in progress when I first was taken to see the developmental lab on the third floor in Columbia; the device was as big as a brick and looked like those very early cellular phones.
In 2002 I was asked to join an Arbitron/Nielsen (when Nielsen did not own Arbitron) and broadcast industry committee that met regularly in Columbia or NYC and got CDs of all the test data from Philadelphia.
Nielsen dropped out of cosponsoring the PPM several years later, and the "radio people" thought that the meter would challenge the existing in home monitoring of TV by Nielsen, also using a meter (but wired). Nielsen did not have any way of knowing that the iPhone would make television very portable, giving an advantage to the wearable PPM.
Obviously, the change in technology created by the smartphone made Nielsen suddenly want to own Arbitron as the latter was over a decade more advanced in the technology and, importantly, the owner of many critical patents.
@kevtronics
had asked a few weeks ago about a decidedly out-of-market station showing up in PPM ratings quite disproportionately to the station's actual signal, Kev.
As long as there possibly exists an avialable loophole like the one you theorize, you can bet the rent that in these modern times it will be utilized by people who have fewer scruples than those for whom it was otherwise intended. Call it for what it is: digital embezzlement.
Interesting question!
had asked a few weeks ago about a decidedly out-of-market station showing up in PPM ratings quite disproportionately to the station's actual signal, Kev.
As long as there possibly exists an avialable loophole like the one you theorize, you can bet the rent that in these modern times it will be utilized by people who have fewer scruples than those for whom it was otherwise intended. Call it for what it is: digital embezzlement.
Interesting question!
Occasionally a PPM partipant or family will go on a trip or vacation. They take the meters so as to not loos “points” and rewards. They listen to the radio, and the PPM registers it if the station(s) are encoded. Or a family goes on a day trip and takes the meters. The listening, if above minimum, shows in the market that is home to the person with the meter.