Oki has developed “Audience Rating Information System” for IPTV, which will be offered to the Japanese market. The system collects viewership data to enable broadcasting companies to improve their services.

IPTV service is expected to grow as telecom carriers in Japan will increase their IPTV service provisioning with the start of next-generation network services, and the ITU working on setting international standards. Current ground-based broadcasting systems have functions to collect viewership data such as user preference and viewer history, as it is important for broadcasting companies to collect such information. However, with current IPTV services, there are no equivalent user information collection functions.

To respond to such needs, OKI has developed IPTV Audience Rating Information System to enable service providers, with the authorization of users, to obtain information about when and which channel and programs the users watched. The system will collect the viewership data in the form of an “audience rating library” on the user’s device, which will then be encrypted, sent to and registered in the database server at the IPTV distribution center. This information will then be printed out as viewership reports which service providers can offer to program producers.

The server offers scalability enabling service providers to increase the number of servers as viewership increases. The audience rating library can be embedded in the STB or in the IPTV. Those who have STBs or IPTVs without the embedded library can connect a home gateway that has the audience rating library to collect viewership data. This system has already been tested in IPTV applications that utilize mutli-casting.

While recognizing user concern about maintaining privacy, OKI will include opinions from both IPTV service providers and users as it works towards standardization. OKI will add the system to its product lineup that includes OKI MediaServer, the video distribution server for IPTV, home gateways and set-top-boxes.