TiVo and Google Team Up

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Since the popularity of DVR services (like TiVo) have spread, previous forms of TV advertising metrics (like the Nielsen ratings) have become somewhat worthless as people will skip commercials. Now, Google is teaming up with TiVo to get access to exclusive data that TiVo has never shared with an outside company before.

Some examples of the data that TiVo will share with the search giant are things like ‘second-by-second viewing data’ and what viewers are fast-forwarding through what commercials. Data itself on the viewers (one assumes demographic data on the viewer, IE: White male, 25 years old) will also be sent to Google.

The point of this whole venture is for Google to get a better understanding of how many people actually watched the ad, and now much the advertiser should pay for it. No financial terms of the TiVo-Google partnership were announced, but I would expect that Google was paying top-dollar for it, since a TiVo vice president told Variety Magazine that the information was ‘highly valuable’.

Google, which dominated the web with its AdWords advertising business, recently expanded into television with Google TV. American TV corporation giant NBC Unversial has publicly expressed interest in Google TV. NBC Unversial’s family of networks includes over 70 TV channels worldwide.