The GateWorld blog is reporting on the ratings for the season premier of Stargate Atlantis, ‘Search and Rescue’. While Nielsen reported 1.8 million viewers, giving a 1.3 rating, that’s under their ‘Live + Same Day’ ratings. Under their ‘Live + Seven Day’ ratings, which includes delayed DVR viewings, the numbers jumped to 2.4 million viewers, which would yield a rating of 1.7. This is direct evidence of the difference DVRs make to viewership and ratings, a difference which will only increase as DVR use grows. The industry is facing a massive change in how ratings are measured and ads are sold, and the advertising industry can only resist the use of DVR-based ratings for so long. With services like TiVo’s Stop||Watch able to provide detailed statistics on ad viewing there may be all new methods of advertising sales and ratings measurement yet to come.

TiVo today issued a press release announcing the commercial and program rankings from their Stop||Watch service for May 2008. And, as has been the norm, we see that the top viewed commercials don’t necessarily air during the top ranked programs, running counter to traditional ratings-based ad sales.

“The May data demonstrates that running a commercial during a successful program does not guarantee that people will see it, especially if they are Timeshifting and watching the show later,” said Todd Juenger, Vice President & General Manager, TiVo Audience Research & Measurement. “Grey’s Anatomy had the top four Timeshifted episodes, but only managed to sneak one spot into the Top 10. On the other hand, House didn’t have any episodes in Top 10 Timeshifted viewing, but placed four of the top Timeshifted commercials.”

The press release is full of data, so check it out of you’re interested.

Media Marketing Research company TRA, Inc. has announced an agreement with TiVo to bundle TiVo’s Audience Research Metrics with their own ‘Media TRAnalytics’ offering. TRA already has agreements with three cable MSOs for anonymous set-top data and anonymous data from TiVo will join this pool. They’ve dropped a press release to tout the deal.

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TiVo today issued a press release detailing the results of their Stop||Watch service for April. The release includes several tables breaking down program and ad viewership. American Idol dominated program viewership with five of the top ten slots, followed by Desperate Housewives with three of the top 10. The other two slots went to Grey’s Anatomy and Lost. (Wow, all programs I never watch.) The data further reinforces that the most watched ads are not necessarily aired during the most watched programs, running counter to the traditional ratings-based ad sales. TiVo continues to show that some of the most watched, least fast-forwarded ads air during lower rated programs. See the press release for all the details.

Adweek has an article on the advertising industry debate over whether advertising is an art or a science. And, unsurprisingly, TiVo gets roped into the discussion as the best know market disrupter today.

“How do you make a TiVo-proof commercial? Everybody wants to know the answer,” says Todd Juenger, vp, general manager of research and measurement at TiVo, which introduced its Stop Watch measurement tool that gives clients access to second-by-second ratings of commercials and programming. Instead of a traditional focus group, the system pools information from the viewing habits of TiVo’s 4 million subscribers.

TiVo studies have shown that the context in which a commercial is surrounded plays a critical role in whether it will be skipped. “It’s like a restaurant,” he says. “Even if you have the world’s finest restaurant, if you are in a crappy location, you’re still not going to get the customers you would get in a good location.”

In some dayparts, direct response does well, in others automotive ads. “It comes back to the environment and the target audience,” he stresses. “It can sometimes be more important than how creative the ad is to begin with. If they are in the market for a home gym, they’ll watch that commercial, even if it’s not what is traditionally thought of as a creative ad.”

I thought the article was interesting overall, as a look into an industry (advertising) I’m only peripherally aware of.

Another media company, Omnicom Media Group, has jumped on Stop||Watch:

TiVo Inc.(NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in advertising solutions and television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced that Omnicom Media Group has purchased a subscription to TiVo’s Stop||Watch™ ratings service. The Group’s full service media companies, OMD, PHD, and Prometheus Media Services, will use the comprehensive, second-by-second DVR audience behavioral data to help their clients better understand Live and Timeshifted audience viewing habits and the effectiveness of ad campaigns.

The press release certainly not coincidentally timed to lead into TiVo’s quarterly financial conference call this afternoon. See the full release for more.

TiVo and CBS have formed a research partnership which revolves around TiVo’s Stop||Watch service. Data gathered by the service will prov