US Patent 9584858 Empirical ad pod detection

A system and method for analyzing the viewing behavior of end users that are viewing video content to determine the likely presence of one or more advertisements being viewed and to assess the viewers who stop viewing during the course of such advertisements. The system periodically or continuously receives tune data reflecting the viewing behavior of end users, analyzes the cumulative viewing behavior reflected by the received tune data, and delivers a report of the analysis to advertisers, agencies, media sellers, or other parties that are interested in measuring the effectiveness of advertisements on end users. The analysis by the system can be done over multiple different types of content-distribution platforms.