Heroes returned to prime time NBC a couple of weeks back with a bang. Like millions of people around the world, I have eagerly enjoyed the last few episodes. As I was glued to my television set, millions were watching Heroes in a very different way…through torrents. The reality of the new digital landscape is startling. Heroes comes out online in HDTV hours before national broadcast completely free of drug, Tide, Coke, and soap commercials and at extremely fast download speeds. The lack of commercials and fast download speeds is a huge issue for advertisers and shows how in-show marketing is the wave of the future. But without good metrics (unless you are getting it from us), you have no idea to really understand the true value of a show like Heroes.What is interesting is that in syndicated markets like Spain, Heroes is a couple of episodes back compared to what is airing in the United States. What is stunning is to see the way newly released English episodes spread around the world and to see potential new markets that were previously thought to have no interest in Heroes. This is a great opportunity for NBC or for Heroes’ production company to introduce new markets to the new Heroes storyline they are planning.So how do you figure out where to push for syndication or market additional products on a global scale? The traditional method would be to hire a bunch of families who are avid TV viewers and poll them to see the traction for a particular show. I was stunned to learn that is exactly what is going on! So why does this not work? Well things are different now. People are viewing content on many different platforms. While there might be metering technology on a TV set-top box, is there metering technology on the numerous other platforms families are now viewing content on? Nope. So like all things old, metering technology is on its way out and network centric monitoring is on its way in. Scope is the first step in that direction as we quickly realized that meters and panels were dying.