Look for a new standard for defining and reporting television viewing to launch April 2005.

That’s when Nielsen Media Research U.S. adds PVR audience numbers to its TV ratings people meter service south of the border – a year ahead of the original timetable – and Canada will likely follow suit and adopt many of the same guidelines.

The biggest transition for the television industry, says Scott Brown, SVP strategic relationship for Nielsen Media Research U.S., will be the move from reporting live viewing and recording to measuring live viewing and playback.

Since the early 1980s VCR usage has been reported as ‘viewed’ when it is recorded. With the advent of PVRs and other sophisticated technology, the definition of ‘viewing’ is switching to when the program is actually viewed or played back – as long as it’s within seven days of the original broadcast. Any viewing after more than seven days is not counted in the ratings. The digital encoding that allows meters to recognize a program and the channel being watched also time- and date-stamps the original broadcast.

In Canada, both BBM Canada and Nielsen Media Research have the technology to measure time-shifting and will deploy the new meters when PVR penetration makes it viable to do so.

When will that be? David Purdy, senior director of digital television for Rogers Communications in Toronto, believes the penetration rate of PVRs will largely depend on price. Rogers began renting its digital boxes with integrated PVR in February for $19.95 a month, but most BDUs are still selling their units at upwards of $600. The Cogeco high-definition digital video recorder is now available for $750, for example.

‘It’s premature to predict how quickly it will be adopted,’ says Purdy. ‘You do look at adoption rates of things like DVD players to try to get some sort of indication how quickly a product might be introduced. I think rental makes the product more accessible for some folks.’

Lisa Eaton, Nielsen Media Research Canada’s VP of client services, says in addition to monitoring PVR adoption in Canada, the company will also be looking at the reporting standards in the U.S. and will have them assessed by its advisory board members before rolling the service out here.

Ron Bremner, VP television for BBM Canada, says the organization has been expecting a ramp up of PVRs in Canada and is ready for it. To measure PVRs, it will use the portable people meter technology that it’s already rolling out in Quebec.

Bremner says BBM has already decided to use seven-day playback to define viewing for all recorded or time-shifted viewing.

‘On balance,’ observes Bremner, ‘we think closing the books after seven days makes the most sense. If not, you could theoretically be changing audience of a program for months to come.’

Bremner says the practice in Europe and the U.K. has been to report playback, not recording, even for VCR use. But the North American standard to report recording had already been established.

The assumption in the U.S. was that whatever is recorded would be played back, but that’s not necessarily true, says Bremner. Using that standard creates slight over-estimates of audiences in the current world.

‘Most of what is recorded is played back in the first 24 to 48 hours. What comes later is the stragglers. Broadcasters may say that [seven days] doesn’t give them all the audience, but I think in this case you’d rather err on the side of reporting audiences that are really relevant, and that is audiences that are delivered in that specific week.’

Although some advertisers would derive benefit from exposure months down the road, Bremner believes most advertisers, particularly those with short-term promotions, would prefer the seven-day cutoff.

The broadcast committee of the Association of Canadian Advertisers hasn’t yet discussed the PVR measurement guidelines they’d like to see, but Bob Reaume, the ACA’s VP of media and research, hopes that playback within seven days becomes the standard.

‘The latest U.S. research shows that two-thirds of all playback is within 48 hours, so that’s not a problem. Talent cycles are done on a weekly basis – and what if a commercial is out of cycle? It gets so complicated.’