Only Nielsen Wins

Only Nielsen Wins
Number	19
Broadcast Date	May 12, 2014
Episode Length	1:12:34
Hosts	Brian Brushwood, Tom Merritt
Guests	Eklund

Ratings for online shows is complicated and almost nobody gets everything they want out of it except the ratings company. Also why net neutrality matters to Cord-cutters.

Guest

• Eklund
• @Eklund

Opening Video

• HBO GO: Girls: Your Body, Your Choice

Primary Target

• Nielsen’s Plan to Count TV Viewers Across Screens Faces Obstacles

Starting with this fall’s new programming season, Nielsen, will begin reporting TV ratings that will finally include viewership on just about everything, including mobile devices.

TV viewership on mobile devices will only be credited toward overall television ratings if the digital version of an episode carries the exact same ads in the exact same time slots

That means commercials that don’t have online rights will screw up those ratings

Tos programs will be counted separately under Nielsen’s digital ratings

Secondary Target

• On average, Americans get 189 cable TV channels and only watch 17

Nielsen reported US homes receive an average of 189.1 channels and watch 17.5 of them.

Channels growing dramatically but number watched is not

In 2008 avg. of only 129.3 channels and 17.3 were watched.

Signals Intelligence

• Google’s YouTube quality reports will help ISPs “upsell” customers

Google rolled out a Video Quality Report for Canada as demonstrated by Keith McCallion at the COntent Delivery Summit in New York.

Google data shows the throughput that at least 90 percent of users receive based upon a month’s worth of data and billions of measurements per day.

Google will then upsell you to a faster package if it’s available that would allow better streaming.

Gear Up

• Why your iOS device may be a better cable box than the Apple TV

Gigaom story by Geoffrey Goetz, pointing out you can get more streaming video on an iPad or iPhone than on Apple TV

on average each cable provider can only access content on six of the 10 of the most watched networks’ apps.

Includes chart of what cable cos support what channel apps

Under surveillance

• The masked men and women of 'Star Wars' tell their stories in 'Elstree 1976'

Kickstarter for a documentary called “Elstree 1976”

Follows 10 people who appeared in Star Wars at Elstree studios in North London and wore some kind of face-obscuring mask or helmet

The £30,000 goal covers the costs of editing, clearing the rights to old footage, DVD production, and promotion.

Will be released online and on Disc.

Front Lines

• Netflix raised their prices as promised. $1 a month in the US and £1 a month in the UK and €1 a month in the Eurozone

That means monthly rates for new customers are now £6.99 per month €8.99 or $8.99. Exisiting Netflix customers are exempt for the next two years. Netflix also says it will reintroduce the old pricing levels but those plans will only get you standard def and one user per account.

• Suddenlink Communications, has signed an agreement with Netflix to offer the streaming-video service through TiVo set-tops

Three smaller cable operators, RCN Telecom Services, Atlantic Broadband and Grande Communications, launched Netflix on their boxes last week.

• DirecTV (who is about to be bought by AT&T by all accounts) doesn’t seem to understand why any company would do pay TV over the Internet

During DirecTV’s earnings call, CEO Mike White said it’s not a complex technology challenge it’s a matter of making money. QUOTE: “it’s a question of you have to pay for retrans.. at what point does the price point become $34.99, $39.99 or $44.99 before you get beyond what consumers will bear. When we have done over-the-top research in the past, it has shown a sharp falloff at $12. But who knows? We’ll see.”

• Beginning in June, Netflix will stream episodes of Breaking Bad in 4K.

The process involves scanning the original camera negative in 4K and doing all of the work including image clean up and color grading in 4K resolution. The remastered episodes will also have 5.1-channel surround sound.

• Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Iger explained why his company spent $500 million to buy Maker Studios

“We’re excited about entering the short-form video space in a much more assertive manner. Maker’s production talent and leadership will create exciting new opportunities to derive value from our content and create new content as well.” I think that makes it clear don’t you?

• TCL is the third largest LCD TV maker. They have partnered with Roku to include its service in some models of their TVs

This summer they intend to launch a distribution channel for Internet-based TV channels. They have more than 100 TV channels available and are talking to Hollywood studios to get the latest movies.

2014 Summer Movie Draft

• draft.diamondclub.tv
• 1 DTNS: $245,539,157
• 2 /Film: $148,456,086
• 3 GodsMoneybags: $135,783,034
• 4 The Morning Stream: $81,302,137
• 5 Amtrekker: $62,804,550
• 6 Night Attack: $0

On Screen

• Brian: Game of Thrones (HBOGo), Her (bought on Prime), Cosmos (Hulu), Finished all of Rick and Morty (Adultswim.com FREE!), Kids watching: Mako Mermaids (Netflix), Clifford the Red Dog
• Tom: Arrow (OTA), Agents of Sheild, (OTA), Game Of Thrones,(HBOGo) Cosmos, Orphan Black
• Eklund: Jim Henson's Creature Shop (SyFy), The Right Kind of Wrong (Movie Rented On Demand), Cosmos (OTA), Phineas and Ferb Marathon with sick kid, and lots an lots of hockey playoff games

Dispatches From The Front

Brian,

Giving up on AdultSwim.com? Say it's not so. I'm the Technology Director for Adult Swim Digital and the site operations fall under my watch. A friend forwarded your show to me with the time code where you called out a few of the problems you're having. Usually it doesn't take a popular Youtube channel mention to get my attention on something so serious like an interruption in video playback, but that's how it happened this time around. However, since that's how our paths crossed let me know how I can help. Can you tell me a little bit more about the problem you experienced? Do you recall the name of the episode in question? Going by the name of your show, I'm going to jump out on limb and say you weren't looking at an episode premiere authenticated through a cable subscription login, but knowing for sure will help me track down the problem. Auth/Free episodes are deployed differently through our CMS. Glad to help where I can, and I'm also a big fan of your previous work on Scam School.

Best,

Win, Adult Swim Digital and Games

Hi Tom & Brian,

I am 36 years old and I have never lived in a house with a cable TV. My parents didn't have cable and I have never gotten cable myself. I have a Windows Media Center PC and a nice antenna from Antennas Direct with some HD Homerun tuners. Me and my wife record most of our TV from the major broadcast networks and everything else we get online.

I support what Aereo is doing, particularly for areas that broadcast TV is difficult to get with an antenna. However if Aereo winning means the OTA broadcasts get nerfed then I hope they lose. I depend on the high quality content being broadcast freely and I don't want to have to start paying for channels that have been free for decades.

My household is probably in the minority, particularly among tech enthusiasts but as such my opinion differs greatly from those you have expressed on your show regarding Aereo. I couldn't stay silent any longer. I felt I had to speak for us, I assume to be few, who are under 40 and still depend on broadcast TV.

Thanks. Love the show.

Rob

I discovered Yahoo Pipes is still working and I made a feed sans Spoilerin Time. In case you care to share it with anyone else:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=f04d6e1e41448aed4833857d77b84e80&_render=rss

Tony Bullard

Hey guys love the show. Thanks for the state of the cordkillers address thing. I'm a audio only listener via the RSS feed using PocketCasts (which supports Chromecast FYI) Ive had absolutely zero issues with the hosting being on archive.org for what it's worth. Downloads seem fast when I grab spoilerin' time early and I never notice the show because it just shows up in the morning.I liked the 'how-to' special and would like to see more...I think I'll film myself setting up my Plex server/Chromecast and maybe a walkthru on my Harmony remote. Also, if I ever do watch the video, I have zero issues with the chat in the lower third. Kinda like it even.

I prefer the combined feed for the main show and spoilerin' time. My 'workflow' consists of checking what you spoil in the patreon email, if I'm caught up I download it myself from archive.org. if I still have to watch Game of Thrones then I wait for it in the RSS feed. I like the update on kids shows by the way Brian :) my kids are burning through bubble guppies and Clifford and who knows. By the way barbie's dream house adventures is packed with nerd references like star wars and indiana Jones. If you use a DNS service for your Netflix by the way you can greatly vary what kids shows are available on Netflix since the nickolodean deal only ran out for the USA but Dora/Diego and lots more are still on UK and Canadian Netflix.

Lastly, I loved the bookclub like review of The Shield as I've just watched the first season roughly in line with Toms viewing.

Thanks guys. Love the content.

Joel

Links

• http://www.cordkillers.com/blog/2014/5/12/cordkillers-ep-19-only-nielsen-wins
• patreon.com/cordkillers
• Dog House Systems Cordkiller box

Preceded by: "Does Hulu Make Sense Now"

Only Nielsen Wins

Followed by: "Discs!"