• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, October 17, 2008

NBC's all-encompassing TAMI measurement -- which tries to put together all viewings of a single TV episode -- reveals a lot about TV. But the picture is still hazy.

It shows, for the most part, what many research experts already knew -- that alternative media, the Internet, no-advertising downloads, VOD, and mobile, actually are a drop in the bucket to the bigger take of TV.

The most complicated statistic seems to be how it accounts for Internet viewing - streaming, to use the business vernacular. It's the biggest piece of the alternative digital TV puzzle.

The problem for the Internet has been how to account for those who click onto a specific episode -- only to leave the Web area a minute or so later. The question: How many watch all the way through? No one knows for sure. NBC tries to get around this by breaking up each episode into six-minute increments, which is one stream -- and then it adds all these streams to an overall total. This would seem to inflate the total.

NBC says: "A stream is counted at the beginning of clip/segment. A single episode is the sum of these clips/segments, typically six for an hour long show. If a user watches all six clips/segments of a given episode, that will generate six streams."

In part, we can understand what NBC was trying to accomplish - determine that those viewers that started watching an episode online, are watching it throughout.

Take "Heroes," which posted 24.5 million exposures on television for its two-hour season opener. But it also had a big eye-opening streaming total of 8.1 million. It also had 58,886 via downloads, 44,167 VOD screenings, and 26,162 viewings on mobile for a total of 32.8 million.

An episode of "The Office" had 15.5 million impressions on TV, and a big 6.9 million streams online. It also grabbed 37,515 downloads, 33,389 VOD plays, and 37,775 views on mobile, for total impressions of 22.5 million.

Those stream data seems huge. This means, according to NBC, the Internet viewing is about half that of traditional TV. If that were the case, NBC should be getting much more from advertisers -- not just on a CPM basis, which it already does, but on a total unit cost. After all, there is way less commercial time. Internet viewers of popular TV shows are also more valuable because they're more motivated and engaged.

Many in the business would like an all-encompassing rating to measure one show against the other. But remember, on the Internet, on VOD, there isn't the same time frame to match up with most linear TV (even accounting for DVR playback). Nor it is the same experience. A person can watch the second episode of the season of "The Office" tomorrow on traditional TV; another viewer can watch the same episode 65 days from now on Hulu.com.

NBC's compilation of this data, though, should be commended -- if for nothing more than that it actually prompts more questions than answers delivered. That's okay. We are all looking for a clearer picture .