Complete and Utter Nonsense,i timeshift most episodes for the explicit reason to enjoy the show more,nothing spoils the programme more than a rampaging 4 year old and a wife asking questions about every last detail so i will watch something else then watch the show at my leisure,just because people timeshift stuff doesn't make them any less a fan of the show,just means their lifestyle prohibits watching shows live,

Final figures are more important now, as a growing proportion of people have Sky+ and Virgin+ for time shifting. Will be interesting to see what the big bang is, has the pandorica opens been released yet?

But suppose two people at the same address watch it on iplayer at different times?

The other problem I see about counting iplayer figures (call me a conspiracy nut if you want), is that they may start charging for the shows. I think Five and Sky only have a few shows that are free on their players. Must go the red bow tie for my son has just arrived!

The BBC couldn't charge for iplayer, I'm fairly sure it would breach their charter as it's funded by the licence fee.

I think it's highly unlikey, but there have been mutterings that some who don't hold licence fees can watch for free.

At some point they may be forced to use some form of access code system though - probably tied to a licence fee number.

I imagine they'll just take that hit as a known weakness. They either count every stream/download instance and accept that keen fans skew things, or count from unique addresses and accept they'll under count a little due to multi-occupancy households. If I were them I'd go for the latter so as not to encourage this kind of peculiar let's-skew-it behaviour.

I think Dr thete has summed up my point, though. For an already popular show like Doctor Who, a few people repeatedly streaming an episode isn't making any noticeable difference. But if you're going to do it, it's more effective for a low viewer niche thing. You might get a thrill of seeing a higher "streamed/downloaded" count. But if someone takes notice it won't be long before they realise it's just a few very keen people (so maybe they'll treat it a little like a high AI).

The point of the licence fee is that those who hold a valid licence have the privelege of watching tv as it airs, while those who don't have to wait for several hours at the most!

Bow ties. Are. Cool

Can I just clear up some of the issues about IP addresses. I will try not to get too technical.

If, for example you have Sky broadband in your house you will connect to the internet via a router. Or if you have virgin you will connect via a modem and router. It is the Router/modem that assigns the IP.

Every computer that accesses the net through your broadband service, when they are out on the net will have the same IP address. For example, something like 80.0.178.45 (that is not my IP address before anyone says it!).

Every computer that connects to your broadband though, has a mac address which is unique, however this is separate from the IP address.

Therefore, 2 computers accessing iPlayer from the same broadband service will have the same IP. So if they both watched Doctor Who the BBC/BARB could quite easily pick out the unique views, by only recording one from each IP address.

There are ways to change the IP address the your modem/router assigns you but this really isn't something the average computer user is going to try.

Also, unless you are pay for a static IP address (meaning your IP will always be the same) it is possible that your IP address will automatically change. This doesn't happen often though unless you regularly turn of your modem/router or your ISP have been having problems. For example, I have a dynamic IP but have had the same IP for about 3 months now.

So while it is possible to get records from the same source while giving different IP addresses this number would be very small and something that could be accounted for when reporting the stats.

Also, while there are other ways to connect to the net other than broadband, watching something like iPlayer via dial up, 3G dongles or phones is almost impossible as those methods offer such slow connection speeds.

With a phone that you can connect to your homes wifi and download an iplayer program to of course will still be connecting to the net via your broadband and have the same IP address as any other computers connecting via the same broadband.

Presumably, rather than using IP addresses, could they use the same cookies as I assume they do to allow the "resume play" and "recently played" features to work? (I fully admit to not knowing how cookies work so the above may be utter nonsense!)

K

Cookies are computer specific though.

If, they implemented this for example and I went to The Big Bang on iplayer on one computer they could put a cookie on my computer to say I had watched it.

However, I could then just go to another computer in the house, watch it again and the iplayer site would think I was a unique viewer as the 2nd computer I was on wouldn't have the cookie to say I had already watched the programme.

The other method they could use though, as suggested by someone above would be to make you log into iPlayer.

With this they could set different tiers of membership. One account per household but those with a TV licence also get access to programmes as they air.

Whereas those without a TV licence only get access to the programs that have already aired on normal tv or the live parts of iplayer. As you only need a licence to watch iplayer online if you are watching programmes as they air.

I'm probably going to make myself sound a tad thick now....I presume 'timeshifted viewing' is for example if I sky+ the episode and watch it later.
And if so.....how on earth do they calculate those figures?

That is right.

I don't know the specifics of how it works but only people with a BARB box that sends the data back to BARB about what you are watching will also have the information on what they Sky+/Virgin+/whatever also sent back to BARB.

If you don't have a BARB box, then what you watch and when will bare no effect on the ratings that are released.

edit - just found this thread which is quite useful for seeing how a BARB box works: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=787913

fantastic...thank you

This is what I was getting at, but wasn't sure. It is "total requests/streams/downloads", not "viewing figures" that gets bumped by this behaviour. The iPlayer dept in the BBC love reporting that their baby is getting gazillions of requests, but the "we care about detailed meaning of the stats" bits of BBC & BARB know it's more complex. But main point is that with something so popular among users that behave typically, it's difficult for that behaviour to make much of a difference. If this is the only reason you're repeat streaming, you don't need to. If you simply enjoy watching it lots, may I commend you on your good taste.

You really dont get this iplayer, requests, viewing figures, BARB thing at all .

I'm loving this thread .

If no one in the industry are concerned about overnights, where has the rumours of disquiet come from that have led to William Hill taking bets on Matt Smith being axed due to low ratings?

(See DS Cult page).

Because bookies never miss a chance to take money from people.

They've done it only because of a few newspaper reports making a thing of the overnights.

There is not one jot of evidence for any disquiet from the BBC. They are perfectly happy with the ratings, as they have stated, and Moffat and Smith are entirely safe.

I might be missing something but why can't iplayer display a pop-up asking " Is this the first time you have watched this program ? " and if you say Yes then it is counted as a unique view.

This is coming from the same company who had Robert Carlyle at 2/1 as the next Doctor after David Tennant.

A good question. One which someone should ask the BBC.

Maybe you are right. But unless you work for the BBC and within the right sections of the BBC, how can anyone really know what the executives think. For example it is obvious the public will be told "we are very happy with the ratings" as they are not going to say "we are extremely disappointed with the ratings". Last of the Summer was not going to be axed back in January. It was going to be assessed on the ratings this next series gets Now before that series has aired it has been confirmed as "axed".

The BBC is a business. It says one thing for PR purposes but acts differently behind closed doors.

Would the other TV channels be happy leting the BBC add their iplayer ratings to the main overnights as the other channels versions of iplayer are not as successful?