Front Office by Mary Collins

Set-Top Data Could Be Boost For Stations

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Over the coming months, we will expect to hear more from audience measurement companies such as TNS Media Intelligence, Nielsen and Rentrak and from industry initiatives such as the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement and Canoe, on developments that will move the industry toward these six outcomes that Morgan has identified.

For our part, we will be dedicating part of our upcoming annual conference to discussing how stations and station groups are supporting these initiatives and monetizing the opportunities they provide.

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Media Finance Focus 2010, our 50Th annual conference will be held May 23-25 at the Renaissance Hotel in Nashville. With the theme of Refocus...Revitalize...Rebuild: Roadmap to Success, it will also address the many other emerging technologies that can support a renaissance of the local broadcasting business.

To paraphrase that once popular opening line for The Six Million Dollar Man: "We can rebuild; we have the technology."

Mary Collins is the president-CEO of the Media Financial Management Association, a professional society addressing the diverse needs of the industry's financial and business professionals. Her column appears here every other Friday.

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PhillyPhlash Nickname posted over 2 years ago
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Or is it possible -- make that likely -- that these set-top devices, along with all digital TVs, contain digital circuitry that is capable of doing much more than just delivering general viewership data -- potentially making TV a discreet (and privacy-invading) intelligence-gathering system, perhaps even a weapon of harassment via piggybacked digital frequencies, even if TV execs are unaware? From a privacy standpoint, interactivity could be less than benign. Here's another bulletin for you: The electromagnetic spectrum has been weaponized.

http://nowpublic.com/world/digital-tv-switch-opens-electronic-door-censors-and-spies

http://nowpublic.com/world/u-s-silently-tortures-americans-cell-tower-microwaves

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