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TiVo to Measure Ad-Skipping

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the no-doubt-very-shocking-results-forthcoming dept.

jaredmauch writes "USA Today is reporting that TiVo will measure how many users skip ads of roughly 20k random users. This follows Nielsen Ratings service providing individual commercial ratings. Overall this is expected to reduce the cost of advertisements on television and perhaps make them more on-topic? I'd consider providing feedback (thumbs-up/down) to ads if it'd make those that are no longer relevant to me go away." I'm kinda surprised they don't have this data already. I mean, weren't they able to track the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction a few years ago?

2 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. This won't take very long by Vengeance · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All they really need to do is report on the number of subscribers, really.

    Who in the *hell* wants to waste their time sitting in front of commercials, anyway? We put up with it from the early days of TV because once you bought the box, it was a 'free' service. Only now many (most?) of us pay, sometimes rather significant amounts of money, in order to bring a signal and service package into our homes. Why *anyone* should feel entitled to my eyes and attention in order to try and sell me on their crappy products really escapes me.

    --
    It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
  2. A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it. by evw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the bigger part of this story is that TiVo wants to change their privacy policy to collect more demagraphic info about what you're doing. i.e. your clicks won't be so anonymous any more. From the NYTimes article about this:

    For now, TiVo will not be able to tell advertisers anything about the demographics of the audience it measures. The privacy policy of the service allows it to gather data about viewing habits, but not any personal information. Mr. Juenger [TiVo VP of Audience Research] said TiVo hoped to find a way to change that by the end of the year.

    The current TiVo Privacy Policy says repeatedly that all the data collected is anonymous. I guess that will have to change.

    In the end it's all about money. TiVo needs to make more money. They're trying to do more with the watching data they already collect. And they want to collect more data to make it more valuable.