A per-object-granularity tracking mechanism for interactive TV viewership estimation and program rating

TV program rating provides television programmers and commercial advertisers an estimate of audience size and composition and are a barometer of peoples' viewing habits. We introduce a digital TV commerce solution powered by HotMedia TV. We propose a method and system for TV audience estimates and program rating using a per-object-granularity tracking mechanism for interactive TV content tracking. The major components of the proposed tracking architecture are an interactive TV content creation tool, a tracking information delivery framework, an interactive TV content receiver and tracking servers. Our mechanism enables a broadcast station or a rating agency to automatically perform tracking functions in real time, based on viewer's action as well as on the content of audiovisual programming.