TiVo to Measure Ad-Skipping

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?

Comments

counting how many skip ads

[thrillseeker]

I hope they use a doubleint.

Whats the Motive?

[lecithin]

Many people skip commercials on Tivo, it is one of the selling points. Now they are going to track the who, what, and when people ff skip the commercials?

"During the initial rollout, TiVo will not provide personal, demographic data on the sample group."

And after this, where is this data going to go?

"Rogers declined to project how much revenue the new division might generate, although he says, "It's an important part of the overall model."

Oh I see. If they can proove that one ad is watched more than another (given demographics) commercial prices will go up/down?

This won't take very long

[Vengeance]

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.

Re:This won't take very long

[Gadgetfreak]

I'd agree with you, but then I remember all those people who actually click on spam links and buy stuff from them.

I think the end result will be polarized... either companies will make ads that are entertaining/amusing to watch, or TiVo will start offering premium fees for advertizers so they can make their commercial un-skippable.

We've all seen DVDs that don't allow you to skip the previews in front of the main menu. Some actually let you fast-forward, but not skip over them. And granted, it's self-advertizing for the studio, but it's shameless enough that I'd fully expect that forced TV commercials will appear at some point in the near future.

Re:This won't take very long

[voice_of_all_reason]

Why *anyone* should feel entitled to my eyes and attention in order to try and sell me on their crappy products really escapes me.

Isn't capitalism in essence, really, "you are entitled to the world as long as you can pull it off"

Re:This won't take very long

[level_headed_midwest]

It is the entire media industry's long-held view that they are The One And Only Way in putting information and entertainment in front of people and Their Will Must Be Done. They believe that the entire market is theirs just because and you should see only things exactly as they want you to. You've seen it from Hollywood and the recording studions in region coding, staggering DVD/VHS release times way behind theatrical showings, and the whole DRM and fighting the Internet. Television is no different- they did have the Betamax case and now since digital video recording yields perfect or near-perfect (and worlds better than tape) recordings of shows that can easily and routinely be recorded and ad-skipped, they are throwing a hissy fit. Technology has given the customers (yes, customers, we're not the slack-jawed guaranteed-market CONSUMERS they think and wish we are) the ability to modify things to our tastes. Why do you think the Net is so popular? It is because there is a lot more out there and we can influence and change it. It is time that the media realized that the viewers are customers and they're no longer the sole provider and WANT to make us watch their offerings, not try to force us to.

Re:This won't take very long

[gatzke]

You pay $50 a month for "basic" cable and they still dump ads on you. They make you pay for stuff that is nothing but ads (QVC, MTV).

I have even heard ads on XM recently on the music channels. Sat radio was founded on a no-ad policy, but they are sneaking in.

This is why projects like mythtv are important. Open source PVR technology. Problem is, next generation HDMI / Blue Ray / HD DVD won't let you save DRM material to your HD (AFAIK). You will get the broadcast HD unencrypted, but the cable will not be recordable.

I am sure the pirates will think of something, but I want to be able to skip commercials if possible.

Re:This won't take very long

[Intron]

As the technology evolves you will start getting personally directed ads:

"Hello, Fred Pilfner. Are you bothered by your excessive back hair? Based on her Yahoo! searches, your wife is! Try our new product ...."

Happy now?

Oh boy.

[respyre]

So it looks like more beer commercials, and / or scantily clad women in our future. ... I, for one, welcome our chauvinistic, alcohol-swilling, dynamically delivered advertisement overlords.

Re:Oh boy.

[andrewman327]

Well I for one welcome the scantily clad women.

They do.

[stienman]

I'm kinda surprised they don't have this data already.

They do. The difference here is that they intend to sell it to one or more third parties.

-Adam

Blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer

[Suzumushi]

Do they really need to conduct a survey/study? Besides being able to time-shift your viewing, skipping commercials is what makes Tivo/DVR's worth the price... Nobody wants to see commercials, end of study. Duh.

How will they even DO this?

[amrust]

I guess I'm confused about how the TiVo units work, but I don't understand how they even plan to measure who is fast-forwarding/skipping commercials? How will they track this? Does the TiVo actually phone home with your logs of what you record/skip/rewind from the DVR? How would they filter between skipping commercials, and skipping crappy programming? Wouldn't it all look the same to TiVo?

Re:How will they even DO this?

[Anonymous Coward]

short answer = yes to all above

from
http://www.spywareinfo.com/newsletter/archives/jun e-2003/3.php

California based TiVo, the company that makes digital TV recorders, has announced that it will begin selling the data that it collects about the viewing habits of its more than 700,000 users. TiVo lets users record TV shows and play them back at different times, skip commercials, and even train their TiVo to suggest programming more likely to interest them.

As the TiVo box connects to company servers to download programming information, it also uploads data about what users have watched and how they watched it. They can tell who watched which shows. They can tell which commercials were skipped. They can tell at what point someone got bored and start flipping channels. All of this information would be a gold mine to advertising agencies, and TiVo is about to cash in.

As horrifying as all that sounds to people who prefer to keep their private life private, this is not as big a deal as it sounds. Unless you specifically opt into more detailed statistics gathering, all of the information is anonymous and will not used to identify your specific viewing habits.

If you watch an old rerun of Highlander, all TiVo knows is that someone in your zip code watched it, not that you, specifically, watched it. You can even opt out of that much, if you like, by calling TiVo at 1-877-367-8486 and requesting that they opt you out of all statistical information gathering.

What TiVo is doing is basically the same thing that early advertising spyware programs did. They log how you use the service and then send that information back to the company in order to make the advertisements presented to you more relevant and interesting. The difference between TiVo and the advertising spyware companies is that TiVo is honest and up front about it. TiVo does not simply steal the information by installing trojan-like data mining programs the way Aureate, Conducent, and others did.

On the other hand, I would still be nervous about TiVo collecting the information even if it were anonymous. As I understand it, your viewing information is not stored along with your account's personally identifiable information only because they choose not to do so once they have it. We have only their word that they would never cross reference viewing habits with their users' account numbers.

For that matter, who's to say that if TiVo were ever bought out, the new owner wouldn't just dive right into the data and start putting both sets of information together. That is exactly what DoubleClick tried to do when it bought marketing firm Abacus Direct.

With the information gathered offline about consumers contained in Abacus Direct's database, DoubleClick could have identified anonymous web surfers. It was only after several class action lawsuits were filed and a few states opened investigations that DoubleClick backed down from their plans.

I don't own a TiVo myself, but if I did, probably I would call that number and opt out entirely. Again, the telephone number to opt out of all TiVo statistical information gathering is 1-877-367-8486.

http://www.spywareinfo.com/newsletter/archives/jun e-2003/3.php

"I'd consider providing feedback (thumbs-up/down)"

[mrsbrisby]

Why are advertisers interested in paying for ads that people aren't interested in?

Surely, if they helped TiVO become mainstream and omnipresent, they'd be able to target their advertisement dollars better, but until they do, they're only going to know about a bunch of geeks think about their ads, not necessarily the least useful cross-section of their viewers, but probably the least forgiving.

So why do they [the advertisers] fight TiVO every chance they get?

Actually...

[Quiet_Desperation]

The idea of hitting the thumb up/down buttons during commercials is a good one. I'd watch commercials just to thumb-down-bomb the annoying ones. A moderation system for commercials. I like. With feedback to the advertisers, the "you got a Dell" dude would never have gotten famous enough for me to hear reports about his dumbass drug habits. That idea alone makes this Good For Humanity.

If they use it intelligently, I don't mind

[Jerf]

If they use this information intelligently and anonymously, I don't mind.

I watch everything via TiVo, and my wife still channel surfs conventionally but uses it a lot. Do we skip over, say, 95% of all commercials as a result? Yes. Do we wait to watch things that are on now to build up a commercial-eating buffer? Yes.

And yet... when my co-workers talk about a commercial, I have either still seen it, or it's on a channel/timeslot I don't watch. And there are commercials that we actually go back to watch. Admittedly, most of those are "Next on Stargate!"-type commercials, but there are exceptions. There's the "your dreams are waiting for you" ad campaign going on which we think is kind of funny, and we sort of hope they turn it into a series, for instance.

I know ad execs just see us skipping commercials, but I think the total effectiveness is about the same as ever, and for the commercials we actually go back to see, greater than ever. (Even though I'm not in the market for the sleep product.) If they use this information intelligently, I wouldn't mind it so much; it'd actually have a positive effect.

Of course, that is one damn big if, no?

(Oh, and de-anonymize the stats and I'll build a MythTV box. Right now it's not worth it to me, but it would be then. The recent usability test that it did well on turned my head; I've been assuming it would be the usual Open Source interface disaster.)

A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it.

[evw]

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.

I don't like it

[algerath]

What are they going to do when they report that 95% of the customers skip commercials and that pisses off networks/advertisers? If they try to keep them happy and mess with the ability to ff commercials I will be first in line to drop the service. That and season pass is what makes tivo so great.

Algerath

Let's break this down....

[Churla]

1. Tivo tracks how many ads get skipped and by who
2. Ad agencies know how much less the ads are worth now and demand networks lower prices because they're delivering less.
3. Networks pull the leashes on their well paid congressional delegation to fix this with legislation.
3. If legislation doesn't work then they pay Tivo to disable skipping the commercial, or have a special code which drops the viewer out of fast forward at the beginning of each commercial block.

Is there any outcome of this that would be considered good? They're actually making MS Media Center look good. And driving me more and more towards building my own MythTV box.

hopeful

[spykemail]

Dear god I hope this means I can get a bunch of commercials with babes in bikinis in place of the ones about feminine hygiene someday soon. As much as I fear / despise companies collecting data on me I don't forsee advertising ceasing to exist anytime soon. If I'm going to be subjected to it I hope I get at least get some eye candy instead of, well, feminine hygiene products.

There should be some sort of button labeled "I'm a 20-something male living alone, switch to inappropriate-for-family commercials now." on every remote.

Re:ReplayTV

[Larry Lightbulb]

HeadOn - apply directly to the forehead. HeadOn - apply directly to the forehead. HeadOn - apply directly to the forehead. (that's as much as the postercomment compression filter would allow me).

Re:A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it.

[geminidomino]

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

Not necessarily. Sure "White males aged 18-25" is a demographic, but so is "Regular viewers of Battlestar Galactica." Arguably, the latter is a more useful demographic to TV advertisers, and it doesn't require revealing personal information.

Of course, I have no doubts that TiVo and the scummy advertisers will look at it that way. They'll want to know age, gender, and how often you floss too, just because they're advertisers.

Whats really going on

[embracethenerdwithin]

I'm an intern at a software company that produces the software that runs the majority of cable networks. So I hav ebeen hearing a lot about this issue lately. The problem is that advertisers feel they are paying for less than they are actually getting. Which is resulting in lower demand for ads this year and also lower cost of Ads. There has been an industry wide push to get Digital Video Recorders(DVR) to count the skips so that advertisers know how many viewers they are actually getting. Tv ads are sold based on the number of eyeballs expected to watch. The network then has to make up for any discrepancy(usually issue free ad time). The issue up for debate is how to count the DVR views. The networks want all DVR downloads counted as ratings, the Advertisers don't want any counted. I think what we are seeing here is a compromise between the Networks and major advertising agencies. As much as we all hate ads, someone has to pay for the TV broadcast. Either you let the advertisers pay in exchange for watchign there crap or you pay even more to watch TV.

Re:A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it.

[Intron]

I would be happy to provide feedback to advertizers on which ads I skip, in exchange for not preventing me from skipping them. If they want me to view the ad, then they need to write better and not repeat the ad 10 times during one show.

And here is this month's TV bill

[dpilot]

Dear Sir/Maam:

According to our PVR statistics, this month you skipped 4.6 hours of televised advertising. This falls well above the nuisance threshold of 0.5 hours, and deprives our advertising customers of significant value. Accordingly, we feel compelled to refund $14.53 to them for your share of unviewed advertising. We are passing this cost along to you, along with handling, billing, and maintenance fees for a total of $17.00, which will be included in your next cable/satellite bill.

Thank you very much,
Your TV distribution executive

Missing the point

[jparker]

I think the story summary misses the point (shocking, I know). It's not about Tivo measuring how many people skip ads, it's about measuring which ads people skip. Sure, Tivo users skip most of the ads, but there are some that they watch (I recall hearing statistics that people skip about 2/3 of the ads, but I can't cite a source). For the ad agencies that create these commercials, this information is gold. These agencies currently rely on focus groups and surveys that measure "brand recognition", but that kind of information is still very nebulous.

Imagine you're trying to decide between two ad agencies. One shows you some statistics from these type of surveys, indicating indirectly that their ads are failry succesful. The other shows you hard numbers indicating that their ads are watched through to the end twice as often as their competitor's. That's a pretty compelling argument.

Ad agencies can also use this data to determine which of their campaigns, art directors, or copywriters are more succesful. It's like going from profiling your app using a stopwatch to using a real profiling tool that gives you millisecond timings for individual functions. Your data are much more granular and much more direct, allowing you to really optimize your approach.

Honestly, as long as they keep the personal information out of this, I see it as a good thing. There are certain commercials that I'm sure everyone hates, and the faster those can be identified by ad agencies and their clients, the faster they get off the air and away from my eyeballs.

Hey Hollywood, count this!

[AnalogDiehard]

It's a well known fact that the MPAA monitors /. so I'm talking to you.

I quit watching cable TV and going to movie theaters since 2000.

You want to know why?

TOO MUCH ADVERTISING!

I am sick of more time delegated to ads and less to programs. I am sick of product placement in shows and movies. I am sick of banner ads consuming the margins of my TV. I am sick of "infomercials". I am sick of movie/show commercials disguised as "interviews". I am sick of sitting through twenty minutes of ads in a theater waiting for the movie I paid $10 to see. I am sick of paying $$$ for cable TV with more and more ads and less content as the valuable channels are pushed into upper tiers to draw more green from my wallet.

I am not alone and this is the group that the TiVo survey will miss. I don't sub to TiVo because it offers nothing of value to me. I threw my cable TV and movies out of my house and I discovered a real world out there that reflects nothing like what Hollywood wants me to see.

Get off the ad revenue bandwagon that floats your boat, and you will stop losing customers. It's that simple.

Tivo and Advertisements...

[ak_hepcat]

Yeah, i read the article earlier and posted this on my blog. But whatever.

I was just reading an article about advertisers getting all bent out of shape because folks are skipping ads like crazy on their TiVo/DVR. Well, duh! They're skipping the commercials because they've gotten so annoyingly predominant -- it's nearly to the point where it feels that you're watching more commercials than scheduled program.

And you may be wondering what this is really about. Well, I just wanted to publish what I thought of as the next logical step in the DVR revolution. Advertisers will like it, and it wouldn't be that hard for the DVR people to code it up:

        Abstract:
        A method of delivering advertisements to a viewer of DVR-recorded media while the viewer is fast-forwarding or fast-rewinding through advertisements or the main video program.

        Claim:
        1) a system for temporarily reducing the viewing size of video playback during a fast-forward or fast-rewind viewing of a pre-recorded or cached video program or advertisement
        2) a method of receiving encoded information within an advertisement, or main video program
        3) a method of decoding the received information into:
        3a) textual information, to be displayed to the viewer,
        3b) linkage information, to be displayed as a shortcut, or hyperlink, in order to view more information,
        3c) or, additional information such as (but not limited to) short musical phrases or small graphical icons
        4) a system for overlaying text and graphics as received into the screen space vacated by claim 1.

        Technical:
        Advertisers and television execs are increasingly frustrated by the ability of a viewer to skip over their ads, reducing the take rate for said services. This patent would allow an advertiser to make sure that their message was still being seen by a "tivo-ised" audience, by simultaneously reducing the screen real-estate available to video playback during fast-forward, or fast-reverse; then displaying textual and graphical information into the newly-created blank space.

        This would allow targeted advertisements within a broadcast program to appear while a user is fast-forwarding or fast-rewinding through the program (as they might in order to catch-up to where they had left off in a previous viewing). This would also allow an alternate method of viewing the intra-program advertisements during the so-called "ad-skip" fast-forward.

Well, I tried to draft it up like a patent. And now it's published. Really, it's the next logical step, and hopefully advertisers will come flocking to my door wanting to use my invention. And I'll be rich! Muahahah!