Tracking your every media move

Thousands -- perhaps millions -- will watch tonight’s NBA Finals tipoff in a sports bar, hotel or airport lounge. The people at Nielsen Media Research don’t know for certain, which seems odd, insofar as their TV ratings system governs career expectancy for much of Hollywood.

With billions and billions of dollars in ad time predicated on those ratings, you might assume the methodology would be beyond reproach, sort of like balloting in Florida. Yet until they figure out a way to plant a chip in everyone’s ear at birth (something a research executive half-jokingly proposed to me recently), ratings actually fall into the best-we-can-do-for-a-reasonable-price category.

That may be about to change. Technology is hurtling along, offering a wide assortment of Orwellian options to gauge viewing and listening preferences. As with medicine, however, those advances are coming faster than we can sort out their implications and decide just how much information we all want our corporate big brothers to possess.

So enter, in a closely monitored test underway in Philadelphia, the “portable people meter,” or PPM. It’s a device the size of a pager that people carry around with them, picking up encoded signals in the media they consume. The individuals need do nothing, with the PPM automatically identifying what the users are watching or what radio station they’re listening to.

Creepy, you say? Not so, says Arbitron, which is conducting the trial with the cooperation of Nielsen. After all, the current TV ratings sometimes require letting people install boxes in their bedrooms, and the radio version, almost Jurassic by today’s standards, asks you to keep a diary of your listening habits.

“What we’re asking people to do is less invasive than allowing meters in their homes,” said Roberta McConochie, Arbitron’s director of client relations for the venture, who recently briefed research executives in L.A.

Still, that’s just one of the innovations that could alter how media use is measured. TiVo, the digital video recorder loved in Los Angeles and New York City and mostly ignored in between, has announced plans to make “second-by-second specific viewing patterns” within TV programs available on a subscription basis. In a nutshell, that means selling advertisers data on which programs are most likely to keep viewers glued through ad breaks, an attribute referred to in the trade as “stickiness.” Or oiliness, depending on your point of view.

TiVo is received by fewer than 1% of U.S. homes, but those 700,000 tech-savvy types constitute a far larger (if less representative) sample than Nielsen. Although individual viewer information isn’t being doled out, whether that sample (also known as “paying customers”) feels queasy about being turned into lab rats is one of those bridges yet to be crossed.

The benefits of Arbitron’s portable system are fairly clear, considering the variety of places where people can watch TV or hear radio. “People’s lifestyles have morphed into on-the-go media consumption,” McConochie said, noting that teenagers and kids -- age groups hard-pressed to clean up their rooms, never mind record their media use -- are “much better captured by PPM.”

Perhaps the most amazing part about the PPM, however, is that it’s taken this long to get there. After all, advertisers recently committed $9.2 billion for next season’s network prime-time lineups alone, so you would think they want to ensure they’re getting every last eyeball -- especially with the advent of TiVo, remote controls and other devices that help people avoid commercials.

Beyond the dollars at stake, it’s intriguing to hear how the PPM provided radio-usage data “quantum leaps ahead of what people are capable of reporting in a diary,” McConochie said, such as previously unheard-of single-day ratings. In one example, Howard Stern’s tune-in soared when Pamela Anderson came into the studio, suggesting not all scantily clad guests are created equal.

Equally fascinating is the PPM’s capacity to capture channel-surfing so long as the airwave-rider stays perched on a channel at least 10 to 12 seconds, meaning it would register if you catch a few minutes of “Gladiator” (again) on HBO.

Nevertheless, I felt a chill drift up my spin when McConochie cited the device’s ability to track which “retail environments” people patronize -- using the same silent code to cross-reference what stores they shop in with their viewing patterns -- or perform a similar trick linking TV viewing and movie attendance. Without being paranoid, it all sounds a little like “The Matrix,” minus the slow-motion.

Yet whether you dread or embrace it, the day is coming when media consumption will be indexed with buying patterns to form one vast database -- all in the name of conveying more precise targeting information to those who see the public as a commodity to be bought and sold. That’s terrific news for advertisers but a bit scary to anyone inclined to question if Rupert Murdoch and other guardians of pipelines into the home can be trusted not to abuse the privilege.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep watching my TiVo and try to banish the sneaking suspicion that the little fellow in the company’s logo -- and God knows who else -- is watching me right back.

‘West Wing’ Gets Focus

If you need a demonstration of just how serious networks are about reaching younger demos, look no further than the focus groups scheduled last week asking 25-to-36-year-olds to help NBC determine how to woo them back to “The West Wing.”

Kelton Research, a firm that lists NBC among its clients, offered to pay participants who “are a current ‘West Wing’ watcher, or if you used to watch and no longer do ... to discuss the show and provide NBC and Warner Bros. with the feedback they need to shape next season.”

For the record, I have met people in the 25-to-36 age group, and while many seem nice enough, I don’t want them deciding what direction “The West Wing” should take.

The e-mail stated the research will be used to craft characters, plot lines and promos, though promos will apparently be the primary use. You can practically see the log lines destined to arise from that input: “Blond Ambition -- Donna Moss and Ainsley Hayes (guest star Emily Procter) leave the West Wing for a sun-splashed spring break in Florida, where they meet a good-looking bachelor (former “Dawson’s Creek” star James Van Der Beek) who is a Republican lobbyist. Will love or politics conquer all? Wednesday at 9 -- right after ‘For Love or Money.’ ”

Series creator Aaron Sorkin should be flattered. He left the show after writing the vast majority of episodes, and they need to consult an entire demographic to replace him.

Then again, he turns 42 this month, so he wouldn’t be eligible for the focus group either.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.