In the coming years, video-on-demand (VOD) will be a major offering of the television medium, with its share of viewership growing steadily. And as the consumer moves towards downloading archived digital content, there will be a need for measuring VOD ratings, pay-per-view events & even dated TV shows. In this futuristic scenario, marketers will target audiences by profile, target group & finally - individually.

The Future
Imagine a television set circa 2007. Apart from some streaming video (similar in effect to the current telecast programs), the most used channel will be the EPG (Electronic Program Guide) channel. But, while the EPG channel will display information on what programs are due to be telecast on which channels, this may not remain its main focus.

The EPG page will provide detailed information on archived programming content, recordings of live events, movies, re-runs of old serials, etc. Some of this may be available free of cost, but most of it is likely to be available for a fee (pay-per-use basis).

To successfully implement VOD, 2 technologies are of prime importance:
• Digital Rights Management and
• VOD Audience Measurement.

Digital Rights Management (DRM)
Digital content is making the current rights-acquisition model outdated. The new model is based on a "rights-tracking databases" along with software - generally referred to as Digital Rights Management (DRM). Designed to provide content owners a tool for distributing their digital content with far more flexibility than the existing copy-protection systems, there are 2 approaches to implementing DRM : either the "content viewing software" has to be aware about the DRM software, or the DRM software has to operate at the operating system (or hardware) level.

With the world's most used Operating System (Microsoft Windows) having incorporated DRM, there is practically no market left for DRM vendors to build in their software into Operating Systems. Their only approach is to "DRM enable" viewing software.

To get an idea of the importance of DRM, here is a status of the leading DRM firms:
ContentGuard: Time Warner has bought Xerox Corp's stake in DRM co. ContentGuard, thus becoming an equal partner with Microsoft. ContentGuard is the 2nd major DRM firm to be "taken over" by a group comprising of media major.
Intertrust: Some time ago, another group led by media major Sony Corp took over DRM firm InterTrust. Microsoft: In April 2004, Microsoft was forced to settle a lawsuit filed by InterTrust ifor using patented Intertrust's DRM technology as part of the core design of Microsoft's .NET technology as well as its XP Operating System.

These take-overs as seen as a turning point for the next digital media revolution - namely distribution of digital content on a pay-per-use basis like VOD.

VOD Audience Measurement
Currently technology digital people meters which are used to record television programming viewership are computerized audience-measuring devices that basically record media exposure by the second. These meters pick up special signals ("watermarks") embedded in TV programs, and document exactly how long a specific program was viewed. Each watermark uniquely represents the content and may optionally contain other attributes like producer, genre, channel, etc.

It is obvious that for digital audience monitoring, content producers & TV channels must embed these special signals (watermarks) into their content.

Digital Watermarks
From the service providers' point, monitoring video-on-demand (VOD) content using the existing people meter infrastructure will be the practical route. To achieve this, the VOD format must be "watermarked" (encoded) in the same way as the broadcast format.

While there has been steady progress in this field, full-fledged VOD measurement is estimated to be not less than a year away. U.S. based firms Anystream & Rentrack have announced software & services for encoding VOD programming similar to TV. And firms like Medialink already offer digital watermarking systems to content producers.

Since for a long time to come, most VOD format will be converted from broadcast content, this conversion process should by default, carry the digital watermarks. In other words, during the content production process, software tools which convert broadcast content into VOD must keep the digital watermarks intact (or create compatible watermarks). Once this is achieved, it should be easy to deploy the existing digital people meters to measure viewership of VOD content.

Audience of One
VOD is a customized, download service, which holds the key to "audience of one". Not surprisingly, measurement of VOD viewership holds the key to targeting the future consumer. Digital cable operators, by virtue of their set-top boxes, also have accurate information on VOD viewership. However, set-top boxes may not be able to track number of times a downloaded content is played.

Any wonder Nielsen has strategically tied up with Anystream for VOD monitoring, while Rentrack has allied with U.S. cable major Comcast Corp ?