BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Over the top, online video streaming (OTT) over the Internet has been rapidly growing. For example, in addition to mediums such as traditional cable television, many content publishers are placing their videos online. In some cases, some content may only be watched online. The growth of OTT video streaming has increased to the point that online video traffic now consumes a large portion of global Internet traffic.

The content presented to a viewer may be encoded and served by different content providers. For example, while from the viewer's perspective, the playing of requested content and any accompanying advertisements may appear to be a single stream, the content requested by a viewer may be served by a content publisher, while the advertisements played in conjunction with the requested content are often served by third parties, and not directly by the content publisher. However, even though the advertisements are not under the control of the content publisher, issues with the advertisements may impact the viewer's satisfaction with the requested content provided by the content publisher. Thus, it would be beneficial if content publishers could better understand when failures or issues with respect to third party advertisements occur.

