Flexible commercial monitoring

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11910069-B2
Application number	US-202217745356-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 16, 2022
Priority date	Nov 27, 2018
Publication date	Feb 20, 2024
Grant date	Feb 20, 2024

Abstract

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture (e.g., physical storage media) to implement flexible commercial monitoring for television audience measurement are disclosed. Example television audience measurement systems disclosed herein include a flexible commercial detector to detect whether a first watermark decoded from a television program broadcast signal is a bridge watermark that indicates a portion of the television broadcast signal including the bridge watermark is associated with a flexible commercial insertion event, the flexible commercial insertion event corresponding to insertion of a flexible commercial in the portion of the television broadcast signal. Disclosed example television audience measurement systems also include a commercial metric calculator to credit audience exposure associated with the portion of the television broadcast signal to a flexible commercial crediting metric in response to a determination that the first watermark is the bridge watermark.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus comprising:
at least one memory;
computer readable instructions; and
processor circuitry to execute the computer readable instructions to at least:
detect that a portion of a media broadcast signal corresponds to a flexible commercial insertion opportunity in which one or more flexible commercials are to be inserted in the portion of the media broadcast signal, the one or more flexible commercials to replace one or more existing commercials included in the portion of the media broadcast signal;
insert a first flexible commercial of the one or more flexible commercials in the portion of the media broadcast signal, the first flexible commercial encoded with one or more first watermarks that identify the first flexible commercial; and
encode the portion of the media broadcast signal including the first flexible commercial with one or more second watermarks that identify the portion of the media broadcast signal as corresponding to the flexible commercial insertion opportunity, the one or more second watermarks to not identify the first flexible commercial.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the one or more first watermarks are encoded in a first watermarking layer and the one or more second watermarks are encoded in a second watermarking layer different from the first watermarking layer.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor circuitry is to:
insert a second flexible commercial of the one or more flexible commercials in the portion of the media broadcast signal, the second flexible commercial encoded with one or more third watermarks that identify the second flexible commercial; and
encode the portion of the media broadcast signal including the first flexible commercial and the second flexible commercial with the one or more second watermarks that identify the portion of the media broadcast signal as corresponding to the flexible commercial insertion opportunity, the one or more second watermarks to not identify either of the first flexible commercial or the second flexible commercial.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein the one or more second watermarks include a plurality of the second watermarks encoded successively in the portion of the media broadcast signal including the first flexible commercial and the second flexible commercial the processor circuitry, and respective ones of the plurality of the second watermarks include a same type value to identify the portion of the media broadcast signal as corresponding to the flexible commercial insertion opportunity.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the respective ones of the plurality of the second watermarks include timestamp values, and the processor circuitry is to cause the timestamp values of the plurality of the second watermarks to increment throughout the portion of the media broadcast signal as corresponding to the flexible commercial insertion opportunity.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor circuitry is to detect that the portion of a media broadcast signal corresponds to the flexible commercial insertion opportunity in response to detection of one or more cue tones or digital codes in the media broadcast signal.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the flexible commercials include a dynamic advertisement to be broadcast to one of a plurality of regions to which the media broadcast signal is to be broadcasted.

8. At least one non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer readable instructions that, when executed, cause at least one processor to at least:
detect that a portion of a media broadcast signal corresponds to a flexible commercial insertion opportunity in which one or more flexible commercials are to be inserted in the portion of the media broadcast signal, the one or more flexible commercials to replace one or more existing commercials included in the portion of the media broadcast signal;
insert a first flexible commercial of the one or more flexible commercials in the portion of the media broadcast signal, the first flexible commercial encoded with one or more first watermarks that identify the first flexible commercial; and
encode the portion of the media broadcast signal including the first flexible commercial with one or more second watermarks that identify the portion of the media broadcast signal as corresponding to the flexible commercial insertion opportunity, the one or more second watermarks to not identify the first flexible commercial.

9. The at least one non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the one or more first watermarks are encoded in a first watermarking layer and the one or more second watermarks are encoded in a second watermarking layer different from the first watermarking layer.

10. The at least one non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the instructions are to cause the at least one processor to:
insert a second flexible commercial of the one or more flexible commercials in the portion of the media broadcast signal, the second flexible commercial encoded with one or more third watermarks that identify the second flexible commercial; and
encode the portion of the media broadcast signal including the first flexible commercial and the second flexible commercial with the one or more second watermarks that identify the portion of the media broadcast signal as corresponding to the flexible commercial insertion opportunity, the one or more second watermarks to not identify either of the first flexible commercial or the second flexible commercial.

11. The at least one non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the one or more second watermarks include a plurality of the second watermarks encoded successively in the portion of the media broadcast signal including the first flexible commercial and the second flexible commercial the processor circuitry, and respective ones of the plurality of the second watermarks include a same type value to identify the portion of the media broadcast signal as corresponding to the flexible commercial insertion opportunity.

12. The at least one non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the respective ones of the plurality of the second watermarks include timestamp values, and the instructions are to cause the at least one processor to cause the timestamp values of the plurality of the second watermarks to increment throughout the portion of the media broadcast signal as corresponding to the flexible commercial insertion opportunity.

13. The at least one non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the instructions are to cause the at least one processor to detect that the portion of a media broadcast signal corresponds to the flexible commercial insertion opportunity in response to detection of one or more cue tones or digital codes in the media broadcast signal.

14. The at least one non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the flexible commercials include a dynamic advertisement to be broadcast to one of a plurality of regions to which the media broadcast signal is to be broadcasted.

15. A method comprising:
detecting, by executing an instruction with at least one processor, that a portion of a media broadcast signal corresponds to a flexible commercial insertion opportunity in which one or more flexible commercials are to be inserted in the portion of the media broadcast signal, the one or more flexible commercials to replace one or more existing commercials included in the portion of the media broadcast signal;
inserting a first flexible commercial of the one or more flexible commercials in

Assignees

• Nielsen Co Us Llc

Inventors

• Fuhrer Brian
• Kramer Marie

Classifications

• H04N21/8358 Primary

  involving watermark {(protecting executable software by watermarking G06F21/16; image watermarking in general G06T1/0021; watermarks inserted in still images for transmission purposes H04N1/32144; inserting watermarks during video coding H04N19/467)} · CPC title

• H04H60/31 Primary

  Arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services · CPC title

• H04N21/2547

  Third Party Billing, e.g. billing of advertiser · CPC title

• H04N21/44204

  Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched (monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31) · CPC title

• H04N21/812 Primary

  involving advertisement data (advertising per se G06Q30/02) · CPC title