Scanning Your Car Radio?

The Sacramento Bee ran a story yesterday entitled The signs have ears in which a company (Alaris Media Network) claims that their freeway billboards scan passing cars and determine which stations their radios are tuned to, then tailor the ads displayed based on the information gathered. This seems highly unlikely to me – we’re talking about radio receivers here, not transmitters, what kind of signal would be detectable (especially from a radio encased inside a metal vehicle hundreds of feet from the sign and moving at high speed). Does anyone else think that this is just a scam to sell more advertising?

Posted on November 25, 2002
Filed Under Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Comments

4 Responses to “Scanning Your Car Radio?”

  1. Fredrik on December 15th, 2002 8:27 am

    I suppose the measuring unit will be placed in proper distance to the sing. The unit will include cluster analysis to generate an ABC analysis of the listener.

    “60% of traffic listen to country between 4 and 5 p.m., lets sell som trucks”

    Fredrik

  2. Phyllis R. Neill on December 23rd, 2002 5:09 am

    MOBILTRAK, the company providing this technology to Alaris Media, uses a patented passive technology to detect which radio stations passing cars are tuned into. To learn more about this technology, visit their web site at http://www.mobiltrak.com.

  3. Craig on December 23rd, 2002 9:51 pm

    I’d love to hear from someone with enough expertise to tell me if MOBILTRAK’s claims are valid – here’s their explanation of how it works.

  4. R Zeff on December 27th, 2002 3:37 pm

    Any engineer (such as myself) wouldn’t believe this BS.

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