Examining the unexplored: shattering the quiet on stage in the television realm
In the ever-evolving world of television, the concept of "unknown viewing" has undergone a significant transformation, mirroring advancements in technology and shifts in audience behaviour.
**Early Television and Unknown Viewing:**
The early days of television, from the 1920s to the 1940s, were marked by limited broadcast reach and simple content. Primitive sets and signals often resulted in weak signals, and viewers were relatively few and known primarily within local areas. Unknown viewing in this era was minimal due to the limited broadcast reach and mostly public viewing.
**Broadcast and Cable TV Era:**
The advent of broadcast and cable TV in the mid-20th century brought about the occasional appearance of unknown or unauthorized viewing, often in the form of signal intrusions or hijacks. These incidents displayed unexpected or silent content, sometimes without sound or with unknown content, creating a mysterious viewing experience for audiences.
**Streaming Era and Unknown Viewing:**
With the rise of streaming services, unknown viewing has become more complex and significant. Streaming platforms allow on-demand, asynchronous viewing, often without the formal markers of traditional broadcasts. This private nature of individual or small-group streaming sessions can create a feeling of unknown viewing from outside observers.
Defining and measuring silence on a TV set can be challenging, but new meters have been developed to detect silence on TV sets. These meters, now rolled out to the entire panel by late 2023, listen for program audio, inaudible watermarks, SI and SK codes from Sky set-top boxes, and check for content served via IP.
The quest to unpack unknown viewing continues, with a focus on understanding the way people use their TV sets. The understanding of "unknown viewing" has shifted from accidental or unauthorized broadcasts to a nuanced, data-informed but often private and silent engagement in streaming services. This evolution reflects broader technological advances and cultural changes in how audiences engage with moving images and sound over the past century.
In 2014, unknown viewing accounted for only 10% of the time that Barb was reporting with the TV set. However, this percentage dropped sharply in late 2021, averaging 44 minutes per day for all individuals aged 4+, before further refinement saw this drop to an average of 34 minutes over 2022 and 39 minutes for 2023.
Profiling this audience can help advertisers decide where to place their pause ads, a strategy pioneered by Channel 4. If these meters detect no audio or content, but the TV set is on, silence is registered. In March 2023, there was another step change in the average minutes with the TV set classified as unknown, falling by over half from 41 minutes per day in February to just under 20 minutes.
The reduction of unknown time with TV sets is a continuous process, with a goal to extend content-level understanding to cover 4-screens. This would provide ideal insights for broadcasters, advertisers, and their agencies, enabling them to tailor their content and advertising strategies more effectively.
Revealing the unknown of what content viewers are watching on YouTube is high on the to-do list, as understanding how audiences consume content across different platforms becomes increasingly important in today's media landscape.
Technological advancements in data-and-cloud-computing have enabled the development of new meters that monitor TV sets for silent or unidentified content, reflecting the shift in unknown viewing from accidental broadcasts to private and silent streaming sessions. The ongoing reduction in unknown time with TV sets, as observed in 2023, mirrors the evolution of entertainment from traditional broadcasting to media consumption through streaming services like movies-and-tv.
