Comments on: Justin and Janet Top Super Bowl Show According to Annual TiVo Audience Measurement Analysis

By: megazone

megazone — Mon, 02 Feb 2004 17:54:34 +0000

They can market the data to different groups – not just which show is watched, but which scenes are watched/skipped/replayed. Which ads are watched/skipped/replayed. TV writers might want to know what scenes really worked, especially for something like sketch comedy or skit shows. Advertisers want to know which ads really grab people and get them to watch – *especially* when they can skip the ads.

It is useful stuff.

By: buran

buran — Mon, 02 Feb 2004 17:46:49 +0000

I don’t worry about it a lot considering it’s anonymous, and I feel good about giving the shows I like a boost… I just wonder why they have to log THAT much detail. It seems a little out of hand, though I know linux automatically logs a lot, as I’ve used it, and I’m writing this on OS X which is also a unix derivative.

By: megazone

megazone — Mon, 02 Feb 2004 16:54:23 +0000

That’s certainly what TiVo would like to see.

And the data TiVo can collect is a LOT more detailed that Nielsen or Arbitron. I’ve done Arbitron surveys – they’re very coarse. TiVo can turn the data around within a day or two and they can tell advertisers not just which shows are watched, but which ads are watched, etc. And they can tell studios which shows/scenes people replayed, or scanned through, etc.

Imagine the folks behind SNL learning which skits everyone skips and which people watch, to know which are really worth doing.

By: krellis

krellis — Mon, 02 Feb 2004 16:17:19 +0000

That’s what TiVo hopes. Selling viewership data is a significant portion of their business plan.

By: momoneyca

momoneyca — Mon, 02 Feb 2004 16:07:37 +0000

Does this mean that someday there may no longer be a use for Nielsen or Arbitron ratings?

By: megazone

megazone — Mon, 02 Feb 2004 15:49:17 +0000

Every time you press a button on the remote, every time the machine does something you scheduled, etc, it is logged. Every last detail. And those logs are uploaded when it calls home.

However, the machine strips the logs of all identifiable data first – so anything that would tie it to your account is removed. And when it is uploaded it is processed to immediately aggregate the data by region – I believe zip code is the finest granularity that they maintain.

They use the data in their ads sales to show advertisers what their demographics are. They also resell the ‘ratings’ of shows based on their users.

When they report things like this they randomly sample the reported data.

There are details about this in the user manual – the latest version of which you can always get on the TiVo website.

And for those really paranoid – there is an opt-out option. You call TiVo and they tell your machine to stop uploading the logs. But I hardly think it is worth it.

Personally I wouldn’t care if they tracked the data back to me and saw that I’ve rewatched the opening credits to Kim Possible over and over because I got the damn theme song stuck in my head.

By: buran

buran — Mon, 02 Feb 2004 15:40:25 +0000

Just curious here… how much do tivos anonymously report? I’d been under the impression it was just data on what gets recorded, not where I decide to replay something.

(All I watched was the Columbia memorial, does that tag me in their files as a geek? :p)