Methods and apparatus to apply household-level weights to household-member level audience measurement data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12423717-B2
Application number	US-202318187068-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 21, 2023
Priority date	Sep 25, 2015
Publication date	Sep 23, 2025
Grant date	Sep 23, 2025

Abstract

Methods and apparatus to apply household-level weights to audience measurement data at a household-member level are disclosed. An example method to determine demographics of populations to measure media audiences of populations includes determining demographics for members of a first household of a sub-population. First demographics of a first member of the first household are different than second demographics of a second member of the first household. The example method includes calculating a first household-level weight for the first household based on a demographics distribution of the sub-population and aggregate demographics of a population. The example method includes applying the first household-level weight to the first demographics of the first member, applying the first household-level weight to the second demographics of the second member, and estimating a demographics distribution of the population to measure a media audience of the population based on the weighted first demographics and the weighted second demographics.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computing system for estimating audience measurements by applying household-level weights to household-member-level demographics, the computing system configured to perform a set of acts comprising:
obtaining household-member-level demographics data for respective members of a first household, wherein the respective members of the first household include at least a first member and a second member, and wherein the household-member-level demographics data for the first member and the household-member-level demographics data for the second member indicate the first member and the second member belong to different demographic constraints;
obtaining household-member-level demographics data for respective members of a second household;
obtaining aggregate demographics data of a population;
determining a first household-level weight for the first household and a second household-level weight for the second household based on the household-member-level demographics data for the respective members of the first household, the household-member-level demographics data for the respective members of the second household, and the aggregate demographics data of the population;
obtaining tuning data indicating that a media presentation device of the first household was tuned to a media event; and
estimating an audience measurement of the population for the media event based at least in part on applying the same household-level weight to all of the respective members of the first household, wherein applying the same household-level weight to all of the respective members of the first household comprises scaling up, by the first household-level weight, the household-member-level demographics data for the first member of the respective members of the first household and scaling up, by the first household-level weight, the household-member-level demographics data for the second member of the respective members of the first household.

2. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the tuning data does not indicate which of the respective members of the first household were exposed to media presented during the media event.

3. The computing system of claim 2 , wherein the media presentation device is a set-top box or a television.

4. The computing system of claim 3 , wherein:
the first member of the first household belongs to a first demographic constraint, and
estimating the audience measurement of the population for the media event includes estimating a quantity of audience members of the population belonging to the first demographic constraint by adding the first household-level weight scaled according to a quantity of the respective members of the first household that belong to the first demographic constraint together with household-level weights of other households scaled according to respective quantities of members of the other households that belong to the first demographic constraint, wherein the other households both (i) include at least one member of the first demographic constraint, and (ii) include a media presentation device that the tuning data indicates was tuned to the media event.

5. The computing system of claim 4 , wherein:
the set of acts further comprises generating, using the household-member-level demographics data for the respective members of the first household and the household-member-level demographics data for the respective members of the second household, a data structure storing data indicative of which of multiple demographic constraints the respective members of the first household belong to and which of the multiple demographic constraints the respective members of the second household belong to, and
determining the first household-level weight and the second household-level weight includes determining the first household-level weight and the second household-level weight using the data structure.

6. The computing system of claim 5 , wherein the data structure is a matrix that stores data indicative of respective quantities of the respective members of the first household that belong to respective demographic constraints of the multiple demographic constraints and respective quantities of the respective members of the second household that belong to the respective demographic constraints.

7. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the population includes the first household, the second household, and additional households, wherein the first household, the second household and the additional households are collectively representative of a television viewing audience, wherein the additional households include a first subset of households that are represented amongst the tuning data and a second subset of households that are not represented amongst the tuning data.

8. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the first household-level weight represents the first household relative to the population and the second household-level weight represents the second household relative to the population.

9. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the set of acts further comprises:
producing ratings for the media event based on the estimated audience measurement of the population; and
outputting an indication of the produced ratings for the media event.

10. A computing system to estimate an audience measurement for demographic marginals of a population, the computing system configured to perform a set of acts comprising:
obtaining household-member-level demographics data for respective household members for each of a plurality of weighted households, wherein the plurality of weighted households are included in a subpopulation of the population, wherein the subpopulation is represented amongst tuning data;
obtaining aggregate demographics data of the population;
determining respective household-level weights for each of the plurality of weighted households based on the household-member-level demographics data for the subpopulation including the plurality of weighted households and the aggregate demographics data of the population, wherein the household-member-level demographics data indicates that first and second members of a first household of the plurality of weighted households belong to different demographic marginals;
obtaining the tuning data, wherein the tuning data indicates that media presentation devices of a tuned-in subset of the plurality of weighted households were tuned to a media event, wherein the tuned-in subset includes the first household;
selecting, based on the household-member-level demographics data, first ones of the tuned-in subset of the plurality of weighted households including one or more household members that belong to a first given demographic marginal of the population, wherein the selected first ones of the tuned-in subset includes the first household based on the household-member-level demographics data indicating that the first member of the first household belongs to the first given demographic marginal;
estimating an audience measurement of the media event for the first given demographic marginal of the population based at least in part on scaling up, for each of the selected first ones of the tuned-in subset of the plurality of weighted households, a quantity of the one or more household members that belong to the first given demographic marginal by the household-level weight of the selected first one of the tuned-in subset of the plurality of weighted households;
selecting, based on the household-member-level demographics data, second ones of the tuned-in subset of the plurality of weighted households including one or more household members that belong to a second given demographic marginal of the population, wherein the selected second

Assignees

• Nielsen Co Us Llc

Inventors

• Sheppard Michael
• Sullivan Jonathan
• Lipa Peter
• Terrazas Alejandro

Classifications

• H04N21/44222

  Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programmes or purchase activity (monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33) · CPC title

• G06Q30/0204

  Market segmentation · CPC title

• H04N21/258

  Client or end-user data management, e.g. managing client capabilities, user preferences or demographics, processing of multiple end-users preferences to derive collaborative data {(arrangements for services using the result on the distributing side of broadcast systems H04H60/66; profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/30)} · CPC title

• H04N21/42684

  Client identification by a unique number or address, e.g. serial number, MAC address, socket ID (network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming H04L61/00) · CPC title

• H04N21/44213

  Monitoring of end-user related data (arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33) · CPC title