At first, I was skeptical of these numbers. How could there be more daytime viewers (76,356) than prime viewers (63,601). So I quickly prestidigitated another chart to challenge its predecessor:

Key: DV equals Daytime Viewers and TV equals Total Viewers

For comparison purposes, let's take the stats from Monday as an example. This data (second column) indicates that there were 76,356 set top boxes turned on to daytime programming. Of these 76,356 daytime on-turned set top boxes:

Note: in response to my mid-summer analysis a friend from Australia, John Grono (GAP Research), pointed out, and I concurred: "In your example (and using broad thumb-nails sketches of tuning paradigms), the tuning during daytime could have been done by "stay-at-home mum", during the fringes could have been done by "just-home-from-school kids", while during the evening could have been "just-home-from-work-and-just-had-dinner working parents." That is, there could be (but not likely) zero or little duplication in the data as each of these dayparts could have been tuning by different individuals in the homes. Of course, the likelihood that someone who tuned during daytime or early fringe but didn't tune during the evening is low. However, the inverse is not true. There is a high likelihood that there are chunks of the evening tuning that was tuning for the first time that day and was unduplicated with earlier dayparts."

Upon analysis of the set-top-box data, a few ideas sprang to mind on the value of publicly disclosing, sharing and publishing this information in some form by platform/distributor (cable, satellite, telco) and ad auctioneer (Admira, Google TV, Invidi), technologist (Invidi, Macrovision, Navic, OpenTV, Visible World), researcher (Nielsen, Rentrak, TiVo, TNS), dataminer (Allant, Axciom, Experian) and even predictive modeler (Ads-Vantage, Quantcast, Simulmedia, TRA):

Scheduled Meet

In response to the responses I received from the article, I proposed the formation of a set-top-box think tank. Get the professionals involved. Engage inquisitors to have a more profound public dialogue about dwell time, unattended tuning, capping sessions, data hygiene and all that other arcane terminology.

I am pleased to announce that a meet is set for April 30 to dialogue about issues and data affecting the evolution of set top box reportage. Medians in attendance include: