NBC First to Buy TiVo Demographic Data to Improve Ad Effectiveness

GE-owned TV Network NBC Universal will announce as soon as Tuesday it will be the first company to pay TiVo for its proprietary TV viewership research and interactive advertising products, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deal comes on the heels of TiVo's announcement earlier this month that it was enhancing the data it collects and sells to advertisers on the viewing habits of its subscribers (full summary). Among the ad targeting services being offered by TiVo are second-by-second ratings of programs and commercials, as well as viewer demographic data such as gender, age, income, marital status and ethnicity. Last month, Google announced it was buying TV-viewing demographics information from television ratings agency Nielsen(full summary), as it attempts to enter the TV advertising sales market. Ironically, TV program recording services like the one offered by TiVo have forced networks like NBC to look for ways to improve advertiser effectiveness, as viewers can easily digitally record programs and fast-forward through ads. Says NBC's Mike Pilot: "Advertisers have been asking us to help them find new ways to make TV advertising more effective. This partnership gives us the data, the research and the tools to try a bunch of new advertising formats and test their performance." Through the deal, NBC will also sell TiVo advertising products like 'interactive tags' which allow users to click an advertiser's on-screen tag for more information, while 'forcing' viewers to view advertisers' logos even when 'zapping' through an ad.

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Reuters
Commentary: Tivo and NBC Link-Up to Target Ads [24/7 Wall St.] • TiVo to Give Advertisers Ad-Skipper Profiles • Google to Buy TV Demographics Data from Nielsen
Stocks to watch: TIVO, GE. Competitors: GOOG
Earnings call transcript: TiVo F2Q08 (Qtr End 7/31/07) • General Electric Q3 2007

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