Power Outage at Superbowl

[tornado]

I had always wondered if or how they'd know how many people watch or change channels during halftime - but I found out something this past week.....
Do you know the people at the cable company do have the ability to know exactly what channel you are viewing?

...that "they" do have a way of knowing exactly what channel you're watching or have on if you have most any of the modern cable systems with the "smart box"....
even though I don't really think they want to widely disseminate the knowledge that they have that ability....

I was having a problem with that little black cable box that the remote switcher operates (smart-box), so while I was on the phone, live talking with a Comcast service rep...he was going thru some steps to see if he could "reboot" my box and get it working...
In the process, he asked me to change channel to a certain channel that I had said was inoperative - then the guy on the other end of the phone actually knew exactly when I changed to that channel....
I was amazed that he indicated he knew I was on channel 52 and he said that indeed the cable box told him that but that he wasn't supposed to have let me know that he knew that...
Thus - the cable company probably doesn't so much care what you are watching so much as they use their data to know how many people are viewing any given channel in any time slot - then sell the data for advertising, etc......
but it was kinda eerie finding out that someone sitting 1000 miles away working for Comcast - can instantly know what channel you are tuned to.

[BUBalum05]

I had always wondered if or how they'd know how many people watch or change channels during halftime - but I found out something this past week.....
Do you know the people at the cable company do have the ability to know exactly what channel you are viewing?

...that "they" do have a way of knowing exactly what channel you're watching or have on if you have most any of the modern cable systems with the "smart box"....
even though I don't really think they want to widely disseminate the knowledge that they have that ability....

I was having a problem with that little black cable box that the remote switcher operates (smart-box), so while I was on the phone, live talking with a Comcast service rep...he was going thru some steps to see if he could "reboot" my box and get it working...
In the process, he asked me to change channel to a certain channel that I had said was inoperative - then the guy on the other end of the phone actually knew exactly when I changed to that channel....
I was amazed that he indicated he knew I was on channel 52 and he said that indeed the cable box told him that but that he wasn't supposed to have let me know that he knew that...
Thus - the cable company probably doesn't so much care what you are watching so much as they use their data to know how many people are viewing any given channel in any time slot - then sell the data for advertising, etc......

I don't doubt that at all T. I'm not sure about cable company provided DVR's, but I know Tivo keeps/shares metrics not only of when/what people record, but also what they rewind and skip on recorded shows too.