JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOLUME 17, ISSUE 1, NOVEMBER 2012

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Broadcast Monitoring and Applications

Agbaje M. Olugbenga, Awodele O., and Idowu S.A.

Abstract Broadcast monitoring is the process of tracking and observing activities on broadcasting channels in compliance with intellectual property rights and other illegal activities not conforming to broadcasting laws using the computer or human system. The problem here has a unique challenge from the pattern recognition point of view because a very high recognition rate is needed under non- ideal conditions. There is also a problem in comparing a small audio sequence with a large audio stream (the broadcast) searching for matches. Broadcast monitoring could be active or passive. In this paper we did a review of the various application and techniques useful to broadcast monitoring systems. Index Terms Audio stream, Broadcast monitoring, Fingerprinting, Watermarking

1 INTRODUCTION
Broadcast monitoring can be defined the process of tracking and observing activities on broadcasting channels in compliance with intellectual property rights and other illegal activities not conforming to broadcasting laws using the computer or human system. It is also the process of receiving and reviewing media that is transmitted on a broadcast channel to determine if a particular media item has or has not been broadcasted. Broadcast monitoring may be performed to ensure an advertisement has been inserted on a broadcast television system as defined in an advertising agreement or broadcast monitoring may be used to ensure some media is not broadcast (e.g. licensed content). For example during international crises, tampered or forged media could be used for propaganda and manipulating public opinion. Therefore, it is appropriate to apply multimedia authentication in the area of broadcasting for secure information distribution devoid of manipulations [3]. It should be noted that mathematical algorithm and protocols alone cannot solely achieve information security

but require procedural techniques and the stand of laws to achieve the desired result. For example, the privacy of letters is provided by sealed envelopes delivered by an accepted mail service. Broadcast monitoring typically involves scanning

through a video or audio file for a watermark or other identifying characteristic. The Figure below shows how broadcast monitoring can be used to ensure that broadcast media is or is not broadcasted. This example shows that a studio uses a broadcast monitoring service to determine if media has been sent at a time when it is scheduled or if it is sent without proper authorization. The broadcast monitoring service or system provides a code to the studio that is embedded into the media that will be transmitted by a television station. The broadcast monitoring service or system has located one or several receivers in geographic regions where the television signals are broadcasted. These receivers forward the code(s) to the broadcast monitoring service which creates a report of the systems or geographic areas where the program codes have been detected.

M.O Agbaje is with the Computer Science Department, Babcock University. O. Awodele is with the Computer Science Department, Babcock University. S.A Idowu is with the Computer Science Department, Babcock University.

2012 JOT www.journaloftelecommunications.co.uk

JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOLUME 17, ISSUE 1, NOVEMBER 2012

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Fig. 1. Broadcast Monitoring Diagram

Monitoring media broadcast content has deserved a lot of attention lately from both academy and industry due to the technical challenge involved and its economic importance (e.g. in advertising). The problem here has a unique challenge from the pattern recognition point of view because a very high recognition rate is needed under non ideal conditions. The problem consists in comparing a small audio sequence with a large audio stream (the broadcast) searching for matches. There are several types of organizations and individuals interested in monitoring the broadcast of their interest. For example, advertisers want to ensure that they receive the exact airtime that they have purchased from broadcasting firms. Musicians and actors want to ensure that they receive accurate royalty payments for broadcasts of their performances and copyright owners want to ensure that their property is not illegally rebroadcast by pirate stations. In 1997, a scandal broke out in Japan regarding television advertising. At least two stations had been

routinely overbooking air time. Advertisers were paying for thousands of commercials that were never aired. The practice had remained largely undetected for over twenty years because there were no systems in place to monitor the actual broadcast of advertisements. This broadcast monitoring can be implemented by putting a unique watermark in each video or sound clip prior to broadcast. Automated monitoring stations can then receive broadcasts and look for these watermarks identifying when and where each clip appears. Monitoring content in audio broadcast system consist

of tagging every segment of the audio stream with metadata establishing the identity of a particular song ,advert or any other piece of audio corresponding to feature programming. Practical application of this tagging include remote monitoring of audio marketing campaigns, evaluating the hit parade, and monitoring announcements from political parties during election

2012 JOT www.journaloftelecommunications.co.uk

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processes. Alternative to audio stream or media monitoring include: 1. 2. 3. 4. Low tech(human listener) Digital content tagging Watermarking Fingerprinting.

monitoring infrastructure and the watermarks to be present in the content. Leading monitoring companies have developed and deployed extensive infrastructures that have been designed to identify certain encoded audio and video signals as they are distributed. Watermarking music or video is planned by all major entertainment companies, those who possess closed networks, as well as, those involved in advertising [2].

In a broadcast monitoring system a unique data is added to the video or audio signal before transmission. Advertisement monitoring and audience measurement companies have also used embedded signaling for some time. Verance Corporation has introduced a service to monitor television and radio broadcast media using their audio watermarking technology. In general terms, it can be called 'broadcast monitoring and reporting'. Any broadcast content can be digitally encoded or watermarked so that airplay can be monitored, reported or confirmed. A variety of other names are also used, including broadcast data system, radio airplay monitoring, radio airplay verification, airplay information system, etc., Broadcast Data Systems (BDS), a division of Nielsen Entertainment, has been providing radio airplay data to record companies since 1989 and is regarded as the standard music monitoring service utilized by the music industry. In addition, Billboard and Billboard's Airplay Monitor magazines use Nielsen BDS data in the determination of their airplay charts. At present, a variety of technologies are used to monitor the playback of sound recordings on broadcast outlets. Digital watermarking is a better alternative to all of the deployed technologies because it couples automated detection with extremely high reliability. A single PC-based monitoring station can continuously monitor up to 16 channels of audio broadcasts 24 hours a day with no human interaction. The results of the monitoring are assembled at a central server and made available to interested licensees for a fee equivalent to the price they currently pay for monitoring data. Unlike currently deployed systems, there is an extremely low statistical chance of misdetection. Additionally, the system can distinguish between otherwise identical versions of a song, which are watermarked for different distribution channels, further improving the quality of the reported data. Deployment of such a system requires two things: a

2 COMMUNICATION REVIEW
2.1 Types of Communications
Communications can be of different types based on the type of requirements: Point-to-point communication: In this type,

communication takes place between two end points. For instance, in the case of voice communication using telephones, there is one calling party and one called party. Hence the communication is point-to-point. Point-to-multipoint communication: In this type of communication, there is one sender and multiple recipients. For example, in voice conferencing, one person will be talking but many others can listen. The message from the sender has to be multicast to many others. Broadcasting: In a broadcasting system, there is a central location from which information is sent to many recipients, as in the case of audio or video broadcasting. In a broadcasting system, the listeners are passive, and there is no reverse communication path. Simplex communication: In simplex communication, communication is possible only in one direction. There is one sender and one receiver; the sender and receiver cannot change roles. Half-duplex communication: Half-duplex

communication is possible in both directions between two entities (computers or persons), but one at a time. A walkie-talkie uses this approach. The person who wants to talk presses a talk button on his handset to start talking, and the other person's handset will be in receiving mode. When the sender finishes, he

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terminates it with an over message. The other person can press the talk button and start talking. These types of systems require limited channel bandwidth, so they are low cost systems. Full-duplex communication: In a full-duplex

2.3 Advantages Of Digital Transmission

Digital transmission is much better than analogue transmission because digital systems are comparatively immune to noise. Due to advances in digital electronics, digital systems have become cheaper, as well. The advantages of digital systems are:

communication system, the two partiesthe caller and the calledcan communicate simultaneously, as in a telephone system. However, note that the communication system allows simultaneous transmission of data, but when two persons talk simultaneously, there is no effective communication! The ability of the communication system to transport data in both directions defines the system as fullduplex.[4] .

More

reliable

transmission between ones

because and

only is

discrimination required.

zeros

Less costly implementation because of the advances in digital logic chips. Ease of combining various types of signals (voice, video, etc.). Ease of developing secure communication systems.

2.2 ANALOG VERSUS DIGITAL TRANSMISSION

In analogue communication, a signal with varying amplitude is transmitted over a medium. Reproducing the analogue signal at the receiving end is very difficult due to various transmission impairments. Hence, analogue communication systems are badly affected by noise. The electrical signal output from a transducer such as microphone or a video camera is are examples analogue signal. In a digital communication system, 1s and 0s are transmitted as voltage pulses. If the pulse is distorted due to noise, it is not very difficult to detect the pulses at the receiving end. Hence, digital communication is much more immune to noise as compared to analogue communication. The output of a computer is a digital signal. The digital signal has a fixed number of amplitude levels. For instance, binary 1 can be represented by one voltage level (5 volts) and binary 0 can be represented by another level ( 0 volt). If this signal is transmitted through the medium, the receiving end needs only to detect these levels. Even if the signal is slightly impaired due to noise, still there is no problem.

Though a large number of analogue communication systems are still in use, digital communication systems are now being deployed. Also, the old analogue systems are being replaced by digital systems. In this paper, the focus is mainly on digital communication systems.[4]

2.4 Types Of Broadcast Monitoring

a. Passive Monitoring: i. Recognize the content being broadcast ii. Compares received signals against a database of known content iii. Very expensive as large frames need to be compared iv. Useful for monitoring of competition b .Active Monitoring: i. Rely on information that is broadcast along with the content ii. Relatively easier to implement iii. Identification information is easily interpreted iv. Requires cooperation of broadcasting mechanism

APPLICATIONS OF BROADCAST MONITORING

In a broadcast monitoring environment, specialized

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equipment is used to monitor and track television channels or radio stations. Upon detection of a watermark, data are analyzed and broadcast details rapidly confirmed and precisely reported. Electronic watermarking can be traced back as far as 1954. Emil Hembrooke of the Muzac Corporation filed a patent entitled Identification of sound and like signals [1] in which it described a method for imperceptibly embedding an identification code into music for the purpose of proving ownership. The following are the applications of digital watermarking to various intellectual property owners. A. Content owners and copyright holders

3.1 Broadcast companies Verance Corporation Verance Corporation is the leading provider of tools and
services to track manage and enhance the use of media content globally. Its broadcast monitoring and reporting service, ConfirMedia has been selected by the Advertising Council for the monitoring of radio advertising campaigns nationwide. ConfirMedia is a broadcast and cable airplay information service employing Verance's proprietary audio watermarking technology to monitor and report the airplay of encoded commercials, music compositions, and programs on all major television and radio Radio wave stations.

1. Evaluation of true reach of media assets. 2. Confirm and prove content broadcast and usage. 3. Determine contractual compliance and

This is the World's Largest Airplay Monitoring and Information Service. Radio Wave is the first and only airplay monitoring system designed specifically for radio stations streaming over the Internet, and is the leading information provider on music played over streaming broadcasts.

immediately identifies new sales opportunities. 4. Identify potential misappropriation of assets.

3.2 Broadcast Monitoring Techniques

5. Communicate content rights and intent. Multi-Band Spectral Entropy Signature (MBSES) B. Broadcasters and agencies 1. 2. Verify contracts and invoices for ultimate accuracy and accountability Reduce in-flight discrepancies by improving media stewardship C. Broadcasters and networks 1. Electronically verify affidavits/invoices. 2. Replace electronic or manual affidavits/invoices. 3. Compare schedules versus detections for faster invoice development. 4. Report or electronically transmit available The Multi-Band Spectral Entropy Signature (MBSES) is very robust to degradations commonly found on amplitude modulated (AM) radio. The MBSES was said to obtained perfect recall (all audio ads occurrences were accurately found with no false positives) in 95 hours of audio from five different am radio broadcasts. The system is able to scan one hour of audio in 40 seconds if the audio is already fingerprinted (e.g. with a separated slave computer), and it totaled five minutes per hour including the fingerprint extraction using a single core off the shelf desktop computer with no parallelization[1]. Digital audio fingerprinting An audio fingerprint is a compact content-based signature that summarizes an audio recording [6][7]. Fingerprinting techniques are used to some extent in broadcast monitoring to allow content owners or producers to track use of the content, distribution and/or audience reach. Digital audio fingerprinting involves affidavit/invoice databases.

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analyzing a signal in some way in order to create a set of representative data that will be used as a reference at a later date in order to compare against a new fingerprint taken in the same manner from a candidate signal. The two are compared in order to see if they are the same, thereby identifying the candidate fingerprint as being from the same source as the reference fingerprint. Digital fingerprinting only works if there is a stored set of data to which a candidate fingerprint can be compared. Digital audio watermarking Digital audio watermarking, as is suggested by its name, can be visualized as similar to watermarking of images by photographers or content owners, or watermarking of notes by banknote issuers to prevent or inhibit unauthorized copying, to prove ownership or to prove authenticity. Generally, the purpose of the watermark is not to physically or technically prevent copying but to make unauthorized copies either of little value or noticeably invalid. This same purpose generally applies to digital audio watermarking [8]. Low Tech (Human Listener) Low tech involves the use of human listener to monitor broadcasting media. This is done either by listening to various radio or TV stations to see if they contravene any broadcasting law and report them for sanctioning.

Sadit

Tellez(2005),Progress

in

Pattern

Recognition,

Image Analysis, Computer Vision, and Applications ,Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2009, Volume 5856/2009, 587-594, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-10268-4_69, Robust Radio Broadcast Monitoring Using a Multi-Band Spectral Entropy Signature. [2]. Scott Moskowitz ( ), What is Acceptable Quality in the Application of Digital Watermarking: Trade-offs of Security, Robustness and Quality 33160 scott@bluespike.com [3].Juergen Seith, Digital watermarking for digital media, University of Cooperative Education Heidenheim, Germany, 2005. [4]. Dr. K.V. Prasad (2003), Principles of Digital Communication Systems and Computer Networks. [5]. R. Horak (2002). Communications Systems and Networks, Third Edition. Wiley-Dreamtech India Pvt. Ltd., 2002. This book gives comprehensive coverage of many topics in telecommunication and details of the transmission media. [6].Cano, P., Batlle, E., Kalker, T., and Haitsma, J.,(2005), A Review of Audio Fingerprinting, The Journal of VLSI Signal Processing, Volume 41, Number 3. 2005. [7]. Mathieu Ramona Et Al(2012),A Public Audio , Blue Spike, Inc. 16711 Collins Avenue No. 2505, Miami Beach, Florida

4 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

We have reviewed the basics of broadcast monitoring and applications. Although many technical problems have to be addressed, there are many more yet to be solved. The acquisition of monitoring equipment and the deployment of suitable software that can detect and recognize watermarked audio streams under the influence of noises in communication is also a challenge to be further researched.

Identification Evaluation Framework For Broadcast Monitoring, Applied Artificial Intelligence, 26:119136, 2012 Copyright # 2012 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0883-9514 print=1087-6545 online DOI: 10.1080/08839514.2012.629840 [8] Ning Chen, Jie Zhu(2008), Multipurpose audio watermarking 1775 (Online). algorithm,Journal of Zhejiang University Science A ISSN 1673-565X (Print); ISSN 1862-

5 REFERENCES
[1]. Antonio Camarena-Ibarrola, Edgar Chvez and Eric