1<!DOCTYPE html> 2 3 4 5<html itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage" class="no-js" lang="en"> 6 7<head prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> 8 <meta charset="utf-8"> 9 <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> 10 <meta name="siteBaseUrl" content="https://gidley.co.uk/"> 11 <meta name="author" content="Ben Gidley"> 12 <meta name="description" content="A blog about not much really"> 13 <meta name="keywords" content="blog,personal,gidley"> 14 <meta name="generator" content="Hugo 0.160.1"> 15 <title> 16 17 18 OpenTV: Actionable Rails Analytics | Gidley's Gossipings 19 20 21 </title> 22 <meta itemprop="name" content="OpenTV: Actionable Rails Analytics"> 23 <meta itemprop="description" content="OpenTV: Actionable Rails Analytics - A blog about not much really"> 24 <meta property="og:site_name" content="Gidley's Gossipings"> 25 26 <meta property="og:url" content="https://gidley.co.uk/post/opentv-invents-actionable-rails-analytics/"> 27 <meta property="og:site_name" content="Gidley's Gossipings"> 28 <meta property="og:title" content="OpenTV: Actionable Rails Analytics"> 29 <meta property="og:description" content="Most analytics on a TV interface end up in the same place: a dashboard someone checks once a quarter. This is useful for a retrospective, useless in the moment when a rail is actively showing the wrong things to the wrong person. 30Actionable Rails Analytics, is built on a simpler premise â measurement should feed straight back to the person and systems managing the rail itâs measuring, not into a report about the rail. Engagement signals on individual tiles get tracked live, and that signal directly is available to the editor curating the rails."> 31 <meta property="og:locale" content="en"> 32 <meta property="og:type" content="article"> 33 <meta property="article:section" content="post"> 34 <meta property="article:published_time" content="2026-09-09T00:00:00+01:00"> 35 <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2026-09-09T00:00:00+01:00"> 36 <meta property="article:tag" content="Opentv"> 37 <meta property="article:tag" content="Tv"> 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 <link rel="canonical" href="https://gidley.co.uk/post/opentv-invents-actionable-rails-analytics/"> 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 <link id="theme-css" rel="stylesheet" href="https://gidley.co.uk/theme.min.a78645a0b9bef4be97be07208e1fc85fbcb577b50a1c3d5b3090070f5db0d5ae.css" integrity="sha256-p4ZFoLm+9L6Xvgcgjh/IX7y1d7UKHD1bMJAHD12w1a4=" media="screen" crossorigin="anonymous"> 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67</head> 68 69<body class="bilberry-hugo-theme"> 70 71 72 73 <nav> 74 75 <div class="container"> 76 <ul class="topnav"> 77 78 79 80 <li><a href="/page/about/">About Me</a></li> 81 82 83 84 85 <li><a href="/plain/cv/">CV</a></li> 86 87 88 89 90 <li><a href="/familytree" 91 target="">Family Tree</a></li> 92 93 94 95 96 <li><a href="/games/">Games Played</a></li> 97 98 99 100 101 <li><a href="/page/oldsites/">Old Sites</a></li> 102 103 104 105 106 <li><a href="/travels/map/">Places I've Been</a></li> 107 108 109 </ul> 110 111 112 </div> 113</nav> 114 115 116 117 <header> 118 119 <a id="back-to-top-button"> 120 <i class="fas fa-angle-up"></i> 121 </a> 122 123 <div class="container"> 124 <div class="logo"> 125 <a href="/" class="logo"> 126 127 128 129 130 131 <img src="https://seccdn.libravatar.org/avatar/bf16a3820793c00bd5f14f0e56d0bdd9?d=mm&size=200" alt=""> 132 133 134 <span class="overlay"><i class="fa fa-home"></i></span> 135 </a> 136 </div> 137 <div class="titles"> 138 <h3 class="title"> 139 <a href="/"> 140 Gidley's Gossipings 141 </a> 142 </h3> 143 144
145 <span class="subtitle">A blog about not much really</span> 146 147 </div> 148 <div class="selectors"> 149 150 151 </div> 152 153 154 <div class="toggler"> 155 156 <i class="fa fa-bars" aria-hidden="true"></i> 157 </div> 158 </div> 159 </div> 160</header> 161 162 163 <div class="main container"> 164 165 <div class="article-wrapper u-cf single"> 166 167 <a class="bubble" href="https://gidley.co.uk/post/opentv-invents-actionable-rails-analytics/"> 168 <i class="fas fa-fw fa-pencil-alt"></i> 169</a> 170 171<article class="default article"> 172 173 174 <div class="content"> 175 <h1 class="article-title"> 176 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/post/opentv-invents-actionable-rails-analytics/"> 177 OpenTV: Actionable Rails Analytics 178 </a> 179 </h1> 180 181 <div class="meta"> 182 183 184 <span class="date moment">2026-09-09</span> 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 <span class="categories"> 192 193 194 195 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/categories/tech/">Tech</a> 196 197 198 </span> 199 200 201 202 <span class="author"> 203 204 205 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/author/ben-gidley/">Ben Gidley</a> 206 207 </span> 208 209 </div> 210 211 212 213 214 <p>Most analytics on a TV interface end up in the same place: a dashboard someone checks once a quarter. This is useful for a retrospective, useless in the moment when a rail is actively showing the wrong things to the wrong person.</p> 215<p>Actionable Rails Analytics, is built on a simpler premise â measurement should feed straight back to the person and systems managing the rail it’s measuring, not into a report about the rail. Engagement signals on individual tiles get tracked live, and that signal directly is available to the editor curating the rails.</p> 216<p>In practice that means the numbers live in the same screen you use to build the page. Turn Stats on in Rails Builder and every rail carries its own impressions, clicks, plays, completions and purchases, with the movement against the previous period, sat directly under the tiles it’s describing.</p> 217<img src="/images/2026-09-rails-builder-stats.png" alt="Rails Builder editing the Home Mobile template with the Stats toggle on â the Now&Next rail shows its tiles above a metrics strip: 106,788 impressions up 19.1%, 13,806 clicks up 24.4%, 15,091 plays up 12.5%, 957 completions up 26.4%" style="max-width: 100%; height: auto;"> 218<p>So if a rail is under-performing you see it while you’re editing it, and the fix â reorder it, reweight it, swap the content â is one click away in the same tool.</p> 219<p>Zoom out and the same data rolls up to the template. Impressions, clicks and plays for the whole page, plus a ranked list of rails by whichever metric you care about â which is usually the fastest way to spot that something you thought was a headline rail is being beaten by a channel list.</p> 220<img src="/images/2026-09-rails-stats-summary.png" alt="Template-level metrics for Home Mobile: impressions 557,224 up 11%, clicks 46,901 up 20.5%, plays 45,461 up 14.1%, alongside a Top Rails list ranked by impressions" style="max-width: 100%; height: auto;"> 221<p>And you can drill into a single rail to see the trend against the preceding period, week by week.</p> 222<img src="/images/2026-09-rails-stats-detail.png" alt="Detail view for one rail's impressions â a line chart comparing the last 7 days against the preceding 7 days, with a table of weekly totals underneath" style="max-width: 100%; height: auto;"> 223<p>This shows up in how the rail behaves at the point you make the decision on what to do next. This works alongside all the automatic features to put content in rails (recommendations, segmetadata driven etc)</p> 224<p>That’s the last of the OpenTV Invents posts before IBC â I’m on the NAGRAVISION stand (1.C81) all week if you want to talk through any of the three.</p> 225 226 227</div> 228 229 230<div class="footer"> 231 232 233 234 <div class="tags"> 235 <i class="fa fa-tags"></i> 236 <div class="links"> 237 238 239 240 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/tags/opentv/">Opentv</a> 241 242 243 244 245 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/tags/tv/">Tv</a> 246 247 248 </div> 249 </div> 250 251 252 253</div> 254 255</article> 256 257 258 </div> 259 260 261 <div id="comments-container"> 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 </div> 270 271 272 </div> 273 274 275<footer> 276 <div class="container"> 277 278 279 <div class="recent-posts"> 280 <strong>Latest posts</strong> 281 <ul> 282 283 284 <li> 285 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/post/opentv-invents-actionable-rails-analytics/">OpenTV: Actionable Rails Analytics</a> 286 </li> 287 288 <li> 289 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/post/opentv-invents-personalized-reviews/">OpenTV: Personalized Reviews</a> 290 </li> 291 292 <li> 293 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/post/2026-iplayer/">iPlayer: Up to 27% of all viewing</a> 294 </li> 295 296 <li> 297 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/post/writing-with-ai/">Writing with AI</a> 298 </li> 299 300 <li> 301 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/post/magnificent-humanity-misplaced-foundation/">Magnificent Humanity, Misplaced Foundation</a> 302 </li> 303 304 <li> 305 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/post/parenting-agi-why-chains-will-backfire/">Parenting AGI: Why Chaining Our Creations Will Backfire</a> 306 </li> 307 308 <li> 309 <a href="https://gidley.co.uk/post/nikon-flexible-picture-control-fuji-look/">Can a Nikon look like a Fuji? 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