The body speaks in its own language, and Mediaprobe listens.
In the age of algorithmic attention, a Portuguese firm called Mediaprobe has turned the human body itself into a ratings instrument — placing electrodes on Indy 500 viewers, both in the stands and in living rooms, to measure what television networks have never quite been able to ask: not what audiences think they feel, but what their nervous systems betray in unguarded moments. Founded by a philosopher-turned-entrepreneur, the company sits at a quiet frontier where neuroscience meets media strategy, offering broadcasters a glimpse past the conscious mind into the involuntary truth of human engagement. The question it raises is as old as storytelling itself — what truly moves us — answered now, for the first time, in microvolts.
- Television networks have long known that surveys and focus groups capture memory and opinion, not the raw, unfiltered surge of emotion that determines whether a viewer stays or drifts away.
- Mediaprobe's electrodes, attached to fans inside Indianapolis Motor Speedway and in homes across America, tracked skin conductivity in real time — the body's own involuntary broadcast running beneath the conscious one.
- Fox Sports commissioned the measurement not as a curiosity but as competitive intelligence, seeking to understand which precise moments in a seven-million-viewer broadcast genuinely gripped an audience.
- The company has already used Super Bowl 2025 biometric data to begin shaping Fox's coverage strategy for the 2029 Super Bowl, turning physiological signals into editorial decisions worth millions.
- With Netflix, Amazon, NBCU, and WPP now among its clients, Mediaprobe is expanding rapidly — positioning biometric audience analysis as the next standard in how media industries define and pursue human attention.
On the Sunday of the Indianapolis 500, as nearly 350,000 spectators packed the speedway and millions more watched from home, a Portuguese technology company was quietly conducting a different kind of broadcast — one measured not in cameras or commentary, but in the electrical language of human skin. Mediaprobe, led by CEO Pedro Almeida, placed electrodes on a sample of fans in both settings, tracking the minute fluctuations in skin conductivity that accompany genuine emotional response. Fox Sports had commissioned the work, seeking something traditional research has never reliably delivered.
The science is precise without being mysterious. Emotional arousal triggers the nervous system, which triggers perspiration; sweat conducts electricity more readily than dry skin, and those shifts can be measured in real time to infer states like excitement, anxiety, or relief. What Mediaprobe captures is the body's response before the conscious mind has had time to interpret or edit it — the unguarded moment that surveys and focus groups routinely miss.
For Fox, the value is strategic. Mike Mulvihill, the network's president of Insights and Analytics, has described the data as richer and more reliable than conventional methods. The company already measured viewer reactions during Super Bowl 2025, and those findings are now informing how Fox plans to cover the 2029 Super Bowl, when it holds exclusive national broadcast rights to what may be American television's most valuable sports event.
Almeida, who studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Porto, has built his company at the intersection of neuroscience and media strategy. Mediaprobe now counts Netflix, Amazon, NBCU, and WPP among its clients — all pursuing the same ambition: a quantified map of what genuinely moves an audience. The promise at the heart of the enterprise is both simple and profound. Rather than asking people what they think, the technology reads what their bodies already know.
On Sunday, as nearly 350,000 spectators filled the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and seven million more watched from home, a Portuguese technology company was quietly measuring something television networks have long struggled to quantify: what viewers actually feel. Mediaprobe, led by founder and CEO Pedro Almeida, placed electrodes on a sample of fans both in the stands and in living rooms across America, tracking the electrical conductivity of their skin as the Indianapolis 500 unfolded. The company was there at Fox Sports' request, tasked with converting the involuntary language of the human body—sweat, temperature shifts, the minute electrical fluctuations that ripple across skin during moments of genuine emotion—into data.
The technology itself is straightforward in principle, though the execution is precise. When the nervous system activates in response to something exciting or stressful, it triggers perspiration. Sweat is mostly water and mineral salts, which conduct electricity more readily than dry skin. By measuring these shifts in electrical conductivity in real time, researchers can infer emotional states: excitement, anxiety, anticipation, relief. It's not mind reading. It's the body speaking in its own language, and Mediaprobe has built a business around listening.
For Fox, the appeal is clear. Traditional methods—surveys, interviews, focus groups—capture only what people consciously remember and are willing to report. They miss the involuntary reactions, the moments when a viewer's body responds before their mind has time to construct a narrative about what they felt. Mediaprobe's approach reaches past that filter. Mike Mulvihill, Fox's president of Insights & Analytics, praised the company's ability to decode emotion, noting that the data it produces is more reliable and richer than what conventional methods yield. For a network investing heavily in sports broadcasting, understanding which moments genuinely grip an audience is valuable intelligence.
This is not Mediaprobe's first major assignment. Last year, the company measured viewer reactions during Super Bowl 2025, another Fox production. Those results are being used to shape how Fox will cover the Super Bowl in 2029, when the network holds exclusive national broadcast rights to what may be the most expensive sports event on American television. The Indy 500 measurement is part of a broader expansion: Mediaprobe now works with Netflix, Amazon, NBCU, and WPP, among others, all seeking the same thing—a quantified understanding of what moves audiences.
Almeida, who studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Porto, has positioned his company at the intersection of neuroscience and media strategy. The pitch is that Mediaprobe's technology offers something traditional research cannot: access to the unconscious, the unguarded moment, the truth your body tells before your brain edits it. For broadcasters, that's a powerful promise. It suggests that the future of audience measurement lies not in asking people what they think, but in reading what their skin already knows.
Notable Quotes
The technology provides Fox with more reliable and richer data than traditional methods, offering deeper analysis of fan reactions to emotionally impactful moments.— Mike Mulvihill, Fox Sports president of Insights & Analytics
Mediaprobe's solution accesses unconscious and more precise responses, surpassing the limitations of interviews or questionnaires.— Mediaprobe statement
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
So they're essentially reading sweat as a form of honesty—the body can't lie the way a survey respondent might.
Exactly. When you ask someone "Did you enjoy that moment?" they filter through memory, social expectation, what they think they should have felt. But the electrical conductivity of your skin responds in real time, without your conscious permission.
And Fox is using this to figure out which moments in a broadcast actually land with viewers?
Yes. They want to know which plays, which camera angles, which narrative beats genuinely move people. That data shapes how they'll produce future events—where to linger, where to cut, what to emphasize.
Does measuring emotion this way change it? If you know you're being measured, does the measurement become less honest?
That's the tension. They measured people both in the stadium and at home, so there's some variation in awareness. But the electrical response is so immediate, so physiological, that conscious knowledge of measurement probably doesn't suppress it entirely.
What happens to all this data once Fox has it?
They analyze it alongside the company to understand the emotional arc of the broadcast. Then they use those insights to plan future coverage—which is why the Super Bowl data matters so much. They're building a template for what works.
Is this the future of how networks will understand their audiences?
It's one tool among many. But for high-stakes events where every production decision costs real money, having access to unconscious viewer response is becoming hard to ignore.