Request for Proposals - The Set Top Box and Audience Research

Friday, August 15th, 2008
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Request for Proposals – ‘The Set Top Box and Audience Research: The State of the Art’ – A Council for Research Excellence Initiative

In June, 2005 Nielsen Media Research, with the support of its clients, created the Council for Research Excellence (CRE) to help direct some of its research and development initiatives. The Council has identified some initial areas of concern and seeks proposals from independent researchers, institutions and research companies to design, execute and report the findings of their research. This request has been authorized by the Council committee which is charged with investigating methods and metrics of audience research derived from TV set top boxes.

With the ability to time-shift video consumption, come the demands for greater accountability and increased data granularity within the commercial Broadcast/ Cable industry. For these reasons, Set-Top Box (STB) data are increasingly being heralded as the future of television audience measurement.

The goal of the committee is to conduct a comprehensive examination of how various vendors’ STBs capture and report tuning, from which will emerge learning as to the viability of using STB data as a measure of video tuning behavior.

Specifically, the committee seeks proposals to review current methods and metrics involving data collected by way of TV set top boxes. This initial study should serve the purposes:

  • To identify and describe current vendor practices of collecting, processing and reporting data from set top boxes
  • To educate the Nielsen client community and the broader media and research industries about the major offerings
  • To identify important methodological issues regarding the collection and application of audience data from set top boxes
  • To map out key issues for the industry’s ongoing review, tracking and analysis, such that STBs will be a dynamic measurement tool.

The review needs to be current, accurate and sufficiently thorough to help guide the committee’s thinking on possible research efforts it may conduct in the future.

Timetable

“¢ Submission Deadline: September 12, 2008
“¢ Anticipated Award Date: September 30, 2008
“¢ Data Collection : 4th Quarter 2008
“¢ Anticipated Completion date: January 15, 2009

More: The Request For Proposals