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Comment by fn-mote

10 hours ago

This seems like a credulous argument based on no facts you have provided.

If you explained how the box was hooked up, it would be easier to judge whether there was a chance you were correct.

As it is, your description isn’t even clear whether or not the box contains a microphone.

Nielsen is global Company that is used for pricing ads on TV stations around the world. Their way of doing it from what I know personally is that they sign up people to put this ACR boxes voluntarily and then based on extrapolation of data - they can tell you pretty close what was the viewership across demographics. Similar to how election polls are done - you just need a good sample.

It's been done for at least good 15 years.

nielsen's ACR method is embedded into millions of devices and vendors. No need for a microphone, it's processing the audio signal being sent out. A microphone would be a wasted conversion..

(your car infotainment also likely has nielsen tech in it most likely, as they bought arbitron and gracenote)

  • Notably, the TV was caught making audio recordings and transcripts of conversations, and sending them to LG, independently of all this.