How do you know if your audience is laughing, talking or sleeping?

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Individual real-time audience analysis leverages infrared and optical cameras to detect whether viewers are watching television while lying under a blanket, lying down on the couch, or laughing.

Individual real-time audience analysis leverages infrared and optical cameras to detect whether viewers are watching television while lying under a blanket, lying down on the couch, or laughing. © TVision

Historically, television audience viewing analyses have been based on households rather than individuals and the currency of TV advertising has been based on 30-year-old technology. Audience insights from computer vision analyses will deliver more valuable individual attention-based viewing engagement statistics.

The mission of TVision Insights is to fix the broken parts of television advertising. LDV Capital is excited to invest in the TVision team alongside Accomplice, Jump Capital, ITOCHU Technology Ventures, and other investors.

TVision is an audience measurement company pioneering the way in which brand advertisers, TV networks, and over-the-top content [OTT] platforms measure attention. Using TVision’s data showing how many seconds viewers actually pay attention to what they are watching, media teams can optimize their allocations and networks can improve their programming. Advertisers can see higher returns on ad spending, and networks can make better, more engaging programming.

TVision relies on cameras and computer vision to deliver real-time individual viewer analyses for advertisers and content programmers. They leverage proprietary facial recognition technology that allows users to understand engagement and sentiment in viewers’ natural watching environments.

Nielsen has been around for years, and to date they track household viewing using 30-year-old technology.  

Yan Liu, co-founder and CEO, said, “When I was running my own digital ad agency, I was able to leverage lots of data and tools for digital media. Then I started to work with other agencies that handled TV ads. I was surprised that there is very little data available for optimization. By providing better data to the TV world, we can make it much more efficient."

TVision’s per-person ratings panel size has surpassed all its competitors to become the largest in Boston, which is the eighth largest designated market area (DMA) in the country, comprising 600 households and more than 2,000 people. TVision currently captures and reports on viewer attention across 285 channels and 99% of the content on Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.

The living room is the new research lab for advertisers and media programming companies, who can rely on this data instead of using expensive, non-real-time focus groups. Advertisement and content measurement can be tested in real time and on an individual basis.

At what point in a show do people leave the room, and when are they distracted by other people in the room? To help answer these questions and more, TVision also captures real-time data on actual in-room engagement based on demographic, time, and program, such as during the first 2016 presidential debate.

TVision reported that viewers paid the most attention during the debate when Hillary Clinton responded to Donald Trump, “You live in your own reality.” TVision captured viewers’ attention based on key demographics, finding that Hillary Clinton scored +26% with Hispanics, Donald Trump received +8% more attention from male viewers, Hillary led +13% with African Americans and Hillary got +3% more attention from female viewers.

At the 2016 Oscars, TVision reported that viewers paid the most attention when Lady GaGa received a standing ovation on stage and at home as she addressed campus assault. The top "smiled moment" was when Leo won the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, garnering a Smile Index rating of  2.75.

Check out TVision’s other exciting audience attention deep dives for Super Bowl 50, the Patriots vs. Broncos AFC championship game, the 2016 American Music Awards , and the 2015 Emmys.

TVision never stores images or videos, so viewers do not need to  be concerned that cameras are watching them while they watch television.   

Dan Schiffman, co-founder and CRO, said, “We take privacy very seriously. It is honestly our primary concern. We do not store or transmit any images or videos ever. We analyze the living room scenario in real time, store the data as 0s and 1s with no personally identifiable information, and then upload that data to our servers for analysis. We own our data, and we rely on our panel homes to provide it. We would never compromise that trust.”  

LDV Capital invests in people who are building visual technologies to solve problems and empower businesses and humanity. The TVision Insights team is another great example of domain experts leveraging visual technology to solve problems and build a valuable business. We are honored to collaborate with them.

Programmers and advertisers can finally understand in real time when their audiences are laughing, crying, sleeping, or mad. We hope content production, advertising, and entertainment around the world will become more contextually relevant and inspiring for all viewers.