US 12,294,764 B2
Methods and apparatus to identify inconsistencies in audience measurement data
Michael Sheppard, Holland, MI (US); and Edward Murphy, North Stonington, CT (US)
Assigned to The Nielsen Company (US), LLC, New York, NY (US)
Filed by The Nielsen Company (US), LLC, New York, NY (US)
Filed on Oct. 31, 2022, as Appl. No. 18/051,291.
Prior Publication US 2024/0147007 A1, May 2, 2024
Int. Cl. H04N 21/466 (2011.01); H04N 21/258 (2011.01)
CPC H04N 21/4667 (2013.01) [H04N 21/25866 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computing system comprising:
a processor; and
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, having stored thereon program instructions that, upon execution by the processor, cause performance of a set of operations comprising:
obtaining, at a server associated with an audience measurement entity, audience measurement data corresponding to a plurality of media devices;
determining, using the audience measurement data, a set of cumulative audience metrics and a set of event-level audience metrics,
wherein the set of event-level audience metrics corresponds to metrics associated with media impressions corresponding respectively to a series of events, and
wherein the set of cumulative audience metrics corresponds to metrics associated with a cumulative number of unique users having accessed media at the same series of events;
comparing ones of the set of cumulative audience metrics with one or more limits based on the set of event-level audience metrics at a corresponding event of the series of events to detect one or more inconsistencies in at least one of the set of cumulative audience metrics or the set of event-level audience metrics;
detecting an inconsistency of the one or more inconsistencies based on a difference between a first cumulative audience metric of the set of cumulative audience metrics and a second cumulative audience metric of the set of cumulative audience metrics being greater than an event-level audience metric of the set of event-level audience metrics associated with a target event of the series of events,
wherein the first cumulative audience metric is associated with the target event, and
wherein the second cumulative audience metric is associated with a preceding event relative to the target event; and
causing, in response to detecting the inconsistency of the one or more inconsistencies, the server of the audience measurement entity to stop processing the audience measurement data thereby reducing computational resources associated with the server processing the audience measurement data.