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Tivo Takes Chance to Give Back to Networks
November 27, 2007

After helping to unshackle TV audiences from television's 5-min commercial breaks, TiVo  has signed a deal with NBC Universal to share its audience fast-forward habits with the network.

Universal is  the first major TV broadcaster to strike a deal for the use of TiVo's TV viewership research and interactive advertising products.

The agreement, announced today, reflects the pressure network executives are under to sell ads to television audiences, which are increasingly using digital video recording devices  -- their TiVo set top boxes for example -- to fast-forward through them.

Last year, TiVo started offering advertisers second-by-second ratings of programs and commercials based on the viewing habits of its subscribers. Earlier this month, it added demographic data about the viewers themselves, such as age, income, marital status and ethnicity.

Advertisers, media buyers and TV networks make their ad deals based on Nielsen ratings of TV commercials. TiVo is setting itself up as a real-time alternative to Nielsen Media Research.

"Advertisers have been asking us to help them find new ways to make TV advertising more effective," says Mike Pilot, president of NBC Universal Sales and Marketing. "This partnership gives us the data, the research and the tools to try a bunch of new advertising formats and test their performance."

NBC Universal will also sell advertisers TiVo products such as interactive tags -- which means that a company's name can still be seen even if the viewer is zapping through an ad; viewers can also click on the tag for more information. NBC will be able to offer advertisers data about the results of campaigns that use interactive tags.

NBC Universal's agreement covers NBC, Telemundo and Bravo, as well as its NBC owned-and-operated TV stations. 

Posted by Ned Randolph on November 27, 2007 | Comments (0)