Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer-readable storage-medium embodiments for implementing passive data collection from third-party channel applications. An embodiment includes running a channel application of a first layer of an operating system, and receiving an application programming interface (API) call, from the channel application, for a module of a second layer of the operating system. The module may be a non-video playback module that includes graphic rendering logic, for example. Some embodiments may further include intercepting metadata sent to the module, determining identifying information of a content instance based on the intercepted metadata, and storing the determined identifying information of the content instance.