TiVo Extends Audience Sample, Reveals Viewing Stats

Looking to provide more and better video viewing data to advertisers initially scared by its pioneering DVR product, TiVo Inc. (TIVO) has expanded the size of its anonymous consumer sample size from 20,000 to 100,000 of its subscribers.

Also, TiVo released data showing a year-over-year comparison of broadcast program and commercial primetime viewing for the month of September, as provided by its Stop|Watch Ratings Service.

The increased sample size allows TiVo to produce stable ratings measurements across lower viewership cable networks currently unmeasured by the industry currency, including Sprout, Noggin, Planet Green, and Sleuth, to name a few, according to the DVR maker.

The Stop||Watch ratings service, introduced in February 2007, is offered via an easily sortable database of ratings for nationally run programs and advertisements from cable and broadcast networks, with data going back to September 2006. The service, TiVo continued, now tracks ratings for 66 nationally distributed, ad supported networks, and covers all nationally distributed programming and commercials aired from 5 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.

"The Stop||Watch ratings service is delivering TV audience research that was unfathomable only a few years ago," said Todd Juenger, vice president & general manager, TiVo Audience Research & Measurement, in prepared comments. “In this day and age, where highly fragmented Internet audiences are being measured click-by-click, it is unacceptable to have television networks with hundreds of thousands of viewers with no source of measurement."

TiVo said a comparison of September 2007 to September 2008 demonstrates an apparent resurgence in program viewership for the broadcast networks. Commercial Ratings for the same period rose in line with Program Ratings, indicating that viewers continue to fast-forward through commercials at historical rates.

Commercial fast-forwarding rates for primetime broadcasts in 2008 were virtually identical to 2007, increasing one percentage point to 58 percent from 57 percent a year ago, meaning commercial avoidance remains an issue even as broadcast networks experience growing viewership when DVRs are factored in, said TiVo.

“The Stop|Watch ratings service highlights just how meaningless overnight ratings are in a world of proliferating DVRs,” said Juenger. “Viewing of primetime broadcast programming is up among TiVo subscribers ─ driven by a huge 24 percent increase in times-shifted viewing, proving once again that DVRs are a broadcast network’s best friend as well as potential threat.”

For the first time in decades, the TiVo exec contends, “We are witnessing an industry disruption that is working in favor of broadcast networks by increasing their audiences. But this same disruption also enables commercial fast-forwarding, making it harder to monetize those audiences.”

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