The company is set to announce today that it will market a system that details the live and time-shifted TV viewing‹to both programs and commercials of its 4.5 million universe of DVR subscribers. Publicis Group's Starcom has signed on as the first subscriber to the new service, which TiVo has named Stop||Watch.

It's the first time that any company has offered a syndicated ratings service that details live and time-shifted viewing data on a second-by-second basis, which is critical to collecting and analyzing viewing to specific commercials, according to agency executives.

Todd Juenger, vp and gm, TiVo audience and research and measurement, believes the company's new syndicated ratings package will have a lot of takers. "There's obviously demand for this sort of data out there," he said, "because the single biggest question on every advertiser's mind is, 'What are DVRs doing to the consumption of my advertising?' This data answers that question."

With increasing worries about ad skipping as DVRs become more widespread, some buyers of TV ad time have been trying to get Nielsen Media Research to provide them with data that would allow them to measure audiences to specific commercials. Nielsen currently is preparing a new system, set for a May release, that will provide average audiences to commercials within network shows, but not viewing levels for individual TV spots.

To measure specific ads requires software that breaks down viewing data second-by-second, which the Stop||Watch service does. Nielsen has resisted offering second-by-second data because it questions overall market demand for such data the networks' ad sales departments, which pay most of TiVo Enters Ratings Game Via Second-by-Second Data DVR pioneer offers live, time-shifted stats; Starcom is first to buy in Nielsen's bills, are not as interested.

It would also require some costly adjustments to its ratings collection systems. "We think that's a little more granular than our clients want," a Nielsen representative said. (Nielsen is owned by Adweek parent, The Nielsen Company).

But some clients, particularly buyers, are clearly interested in the added detail because it provides a better understanding of viewing individual ads, said Tracy Scheppach, vp, video innovation director at Starcom. The new TiVo data, she said, "helps us complete the picture," with respect to understanding commercial viewing patterns.

Starcom was also the first agency to sign an agreement, last November, with TNS Media Research to purchase second-by-second ratings data the company is collecting from 300,000 Los Angeles-area cable homes. TNS is syndicating that service under the TotalView banner. TotalView has seven other undisclosed clients, mostly cable networks. That data does not yet include time-shifted viewing stats, although TNS Media Research COO George Shababb said plans call for adding it.

When that happens, said Starcom's Scheppach, the agency will have the best available read, she thinks, on TV viewing patterns within the estimated 15 million homes that currently have DVRs.

Other agencies are looking at the new service, but have questions. "It does provide insights as to how people watch TV," said Lyle Schwartz, executive vp, director of broadcast research at WPP's Mediaedge:cia. "But questions include what it represents, how projectable it is and how it's priced."

Sellers also have issues with the approach, said Tim Brooks, executive vp, research, Lifetime. Second-by-second viewing breakouts, he said, "is sort of overkill." Also, he added, "the viewing dynamics to commercial breaks are not tied to the second. They either leave or they don't."

Still, advertisers want to get the best read on who's watching their commercials and when, said Juenger. And that read is getting harder to accomplish as more households add DVRs, he said, a total household base that could reach more than 50 million in four years.

Stop||Watch is the latest service that the DVR company launched to position itself as an "ad-friendly" medium. Earlier efforts include a long-form interactive ad platform called ProductWatch.

Last November, it introduced a new offering called Program Placement that allows ads to be inserted after a program has played, when there is nothing left to fast-forward through.

By Steve McClellan- Reported in AdWeek on January 29, 2007