A paradigm comparison for collecting tv channel statistics from high-volume channel zap events

Abstract

The current approach used to obtain official television chan-nel statistics is based on polls combined with specialized re-porting hardware. These are deployed only on a small scale and batch processed every 24 hours. With the enhanced capabilities of present-day IPTV set-top-boxes, network op-erators can track channel popularity and usage patterns with a degree of precision and sophistication not possible with ex-isting methods. One such network operator, Altibox, is the largest provider of IPTV in Norway with a deployment of over 320,000 set-top-boxes. By tapping into the high-volume stream of channel zap events sent from these set-top-boxes, very accurate viewership can be obtained and presented in near real-time. In this paper, we examine two programming paradigm