You too could make up to $300 a year by coughing up this much data via an installed app on your phone—which Symphony Advanced Media used on Wednesday to help NBCUniversal estimate how much Netflix content Americans watch. (credit: Symphony Advanced Media)
The Television Critics Association's latest press tour in Pasadena, California included a long talk with an NBCUniversal executive about the changing nature of online video streaming. According to a Variety report, the executive unveiled a boatload of data that it sourced from a media tracking firm, much of which estimated how many people were watching the most popular series on platforms like Netflix and Amazon Video.
Alan Wurtzel, NBCU's president of research and media development, attributed its ratings estimates (the likes of which Netflix has never announced) to Symphony Advanced Media, whose free "Media Insiders" app tracked the viewing habits of "about 15,000" participating users between September and December 2015. The app does so, according to Symphony, by turning your smartphone into an unabashed tracking beacon—meaning, it turns your microphone on, keeps tabs on your location via GPS, and studies your browsing, app, SMS, and phone call history—in exchange for paid rewards.
In NBCU's case, the most interesting data was anything that tracked what programming viewers watched, meaning the tracking app's combination of microphone and app surveillance allowed Symphony to hear when certain shows were broadcast around the house using platforms other than a standard TV signal, such as a smart TV, tablet, or game console—which assumedly gathers more data than a standard Nielsen tracking box. Both Symphony and Nielsen base their national-viewing estimates on smaller sample sizes.
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