BILLION DOLLAR QUESTION

[Music] every day of the year throughout the united states more than two and a half million dollars is being spent to induce you and the millions of your fellow televiewers to twist that dial to the channel of your choice what is your choice does anyone really [Music] know [Music] in less than 10 years television has become big business [Music] the networks have built huge new studios expressly to house this fabulous new medium of entertainment and advertising live programming is becoming more varied more spectacularly spectacular it's a battle of widths of budgets of know-how and the stakes are high vast quantities of television film are being produced by the major film studios [Music] new film production plans have sprung up and are turning out more and more entertainment for the nation's ever increasing television audience america's top entertainment personalities and technicians are filming programs and commercial material for television trade journals of the advertising industry of the world of business and finance and the entertainment field agree that last year alone saw the expenditure of 600 million dollars for commercial telecasting time 400 million dollars for television production and programming [Music] a billion dollars a year and no one is really sure who's watching what program the television industry has relied on four principal types of audience measurement survey the telephone or coincidental survey is one of them a relatively small number of houses are called a series of questions is asked concerning the program and channel being viewed a projection of the telephone survey is called aided recall questions are asked about programs that have been viewed the day before these samplings inherently allow substantial room for error another method involves a door-to-door questionnaire survey the housewife has asked a series of questions concerning the program she is presently watching and programs viewed the previous day memories are fallible there is room here too for human error [Music] another kind of survey is more mechanical in character to approximately 900 television receivers out of the 40 million in use throughout the country the survey company has attached a device which records the moves made by the channel tuner together with the time of day each move was made that there is considerable room for doubt as to the survey's infallibility is the fact that in one area of two million television homes only 61 such devices have been installed another survey method asks a certain number of families to maintain diaries in which facts on program preferences and actual tune ins are supposed to be kept often this task is delegated to the youngsters with possible error the inevitable result the inadequacy of these principle survey methods causes the nation's business advertising and television executives to ask and re-ask the question the billion-dollar question what programs are america's 40 million tv receivers most frequently viewing the answer to the billion dollar question is polometer an automatic electronic tuning recorder of television reception it is a mobile unit which picks up amplifies identifies catalogs and automatically counts programs being viewed by home television audiences without enlisting aid or cooperation of set users polometer is the only device of its kind engineered and developed for the pelometer corporation by cal best electronics laboratories in los angeles manufacturers of advanced electronics devices during and since world war ii volometer's operation embodies the basic precept that an electronic signal can be picked up as it is emitted from the antenna of an operating television receiver the complex compact polometer unit installed in a vehicle is so designed that it is able to pick up those signals let's look at kilometer in operation in simplified animation in the homes along a particular residential street television receivers are in operation tuned to various channels an identifying electronic signal from each antenna is picked up by the pelometer it is amplified registered and cataloged the pelometers totalizers instantly revealed the number of receivers in operation during the survey segment as well as the specific channels tuned in [Music] the palometer unit can make its survey and computation for an entire neighborhood in a matter of minutes having seen the way pollometer works through the medium of animation let us now see the actual proof let's look at kilometer in operation to do that we'll go inside this particular residence in front of which the palometer unit vehicle is now parked note that the pelometer vehicle is in the street approximately 40 feet from the front of the residence the average distance almost every home is situated from the street [Music] as is the case in millions of american homes the center of attention in this real life scene in a real life home is the television receiver our guests let me introduce them here is mr dan schuler of the nationally known firm of reuben h donnelly corporation which has handled judging operations for such firms as libra brothers general foods chrysler corporation and hundreds of others for over a quarter of a century our other authority is mr bob vogel also affiliated with the firm of ruben h donnelly corporation we are about to test polometer and verify its performance by means of an iron-clad test of the operation here's the way the test will be made mr schuler this television receiver will be put in operation i have in this sealed envelope a list of 15 channel numbers no one has seen the list in this envelope except members of our staff at ruben h donnelly corporation mr vogel has an identical list in the envelope which he holds in his hand presently i will open this envelope and tune to the channels listed there on but before i do that i will ask mister bogle to go outside to the kilometer unit parked at the curve when my colleague gets to the polometer unit he will open his sealed envelope and check the performance of the device after i have tuned the receiver to the channels on my list he will inform us all as to whether or not the pelometer received the signals a fact he will verify by checking the data against the list in his envelope which is identical with mine mr schuler now tears open his sealed envelope and takes out the list of channel numbers he is about to begin to test in the pelometer van mr vogel has his channel number list and is prepared to watch the performance of the polarimeter unit the receiver is turned on it is operating i will now turn the channel tuning knob to the 15 numbers appearing on my list we will learn whether or not the pelometer unit keeps a correct tally mr schuler's hand reaches for the tuning dial and the test begins two thirteen eleven seven nine eleven thirteen two four five two thirteen the first run-through of the pelometer test is completed mr schuler will now run it a second time for a double check on the efficiency of the unit seven nine eleven thirteen two four five four two thirteen seven four in the pelometer vehicle mr bogle checks the channel counters against his list the channel numbers as tuned by my colleague mr schuler are identical with the numbers on my list the test has been run through twice and each run through was identical the unit's counters have totalized the number of times each channel tuned we've just had proof of the performance of the pelometer this is dan schuler speaking for my colleague bob bogle of the reuben h donnelly corporation this concludes our project test on palmer proof positive a performance test authenticated by the nationally known firm of reuben h donnelly corporation for efficiency has been borne out by means of an unbiased authoritative test operation [Music] comprehensive testing of the pelometer proves a single unit of the device can survey average neighborhoods at the rate of 2500 operating receivers per quarter hour 10 000 an hour 18 hours a day every day thus the pelometer provides a continuous survey in quantity selective surveys can establish the television preference of particular income groups racial groups ethnical groups simply by routing the pelometer unit through the specific neighborhood under statistical scrutiny thus for the first time qualitative surveys of television audiences are possible through the pelometer in contrast to survey methods now in use throughout the industry the pelometer offers still another outstanding advantage it offers speed in arriving at reliable factual statistics completed surveys along any given basis of compilation can be available in 24 hours and the statistics so gained by the pelometer are accurate free of the hazard of human error the pelometer can make a blanket survey of the entire american television audience per quarter hour 2500 per hour 10 000 per 18-hour day 180 000 no longer need the television industry operate under the handicap of not knowing to what degree its costly efforts are being received at this particular moment of this specific day all across america the secret need no longer be a secret the billion dollar question how can the television industry learn what television channel is being received when and where the answer is polometer you