TIVO ELEVATES ADS TO RATINGS UNIVERSE

TiVo, the bane of the advertising world, may now be a long-awaited boon thanks to its new Nielsen-style commercial ratings system.

Starting today, TiVo will report monthly commercial ratings based on data collected from its 4.3 million digital video recorder units. Called TiVo Stop Watch, the service will provide monthly rankings of commercials based on both live broadcasts and those recorded for playback later, known in the industry as time-shifting.

TiVo’s database boasts a year’s worth of data from random samplings of 20,000 homes – twice that collected by Nielsen Media Research.

The results may be surprising.

According to TiVo’s analysis, there seems to be little correlation between the top-viewed TV shows and most-watched commercials – even during live airtime.

For example, in May, a Ford Edge commercial attracted the most viewers during live airtime, but did so during an “American Idol” episode that didn’t crack the top 10 programs list.

The time-shifted rankings by and large reached the same conclusion: paying top dollar for advertising on the highest-ranked show does not necessarily guarantee the most viewers.

The top 10 least fast-forwarded ad campaigns included several movie trailers, but also a surprising number of financial services ads.

TiVo rates 15 networks second-by-second, a more precise measurement than Nielsen’s minute-by-minute ratings.

TiVo CEO Tom Rogers believes the service will help advertisers identify effective campaigns.

“It shows how to make commercials that more people want to see, not because they’re forced to, but because they want to.”

Starcom USA, Interpublic Group and Media IQ have already signed on to the ratings service.