TiVo Attempts to Answer Advertisers Big Question

Since the DVR was introduced, advertisers and networks have been attempting to find out the viewing patterns of households with these devices. TiVo, one of the original DVR companies has decided to attempt to answer the question of advertisers. They are starting a research department that will analyze the viewing patterns of 20,000 TiVo owners.

“On average, TiVo has found that its users spend nearly half of their television time watching programs recorded earlier. And viewers of those recorded shows skip about 70 percent of the commercials, said Todd Juenger, TiVo’s vice president for audience research.”

This information is quite different to the information spoken about in my article “Does DVR Lift Viewing Hours?”. In that article the publication referenced, said “that that tendency counterbalanced the possibility that DVR users would skip past ads”

If the option is there people will skip ads. There should be no question asked about that. Advertisers should rethink their advertising strategies. Who says that you must advertise between programs, in 30-45sec blocks?

Produce you own programs and advertise within them. 3 Mobile have been smart in teaming up this the producers of Big Brother in Australia. Their phones are shown on the program all the time. Even the URL for the Big Brother site has their name in it (http://bigbrother.3mobile.com.au/).

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TiVo Is Watching When You Don’t Watch, and It Tattles

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/technology/26adco.html?_r=1&oref=slogin