DVRs

If anyone ever doubts the power of advertising — of mass media — they only need to visit modern day Africa. Though still rooted in a subsistence farming-based economy, Africa has been "globalized." And it is advertising that powered this change. For good or bad, advertising changes minds, changes lives, even cultures and countries.

Advertiser studies that measure how digital video recorders hurt their TV campaigns have delivered mixed results, but it’s common sense that viewers will breeze past commercials if provided easy methods to do so. For three years, Information Resources Inc. has researched the most critical response to DVR-enabled ad-skipping: the sales of advertised products.

TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in advertising solutions and television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today unveiled the Top Commercial and Program Rankings for June 2008, as viewed by TiVo(R) service subscribers.

From a standard television remote, FiOS subscribers can use Veveo's video search technology to discover relevant video content from across Verizon's linear channels, video-on-demand, and DVR content.

TiVo released the first batch of data (covering May 2008) from its new second-by-second commercial audience measurement service, PowerWatch, which company officials said supported the idea that viewers skip fewer ads that they see as relevant to their circumstances.

TiVo, the Silicon Valley company that introduced millions to the joy of skipping television commercials, is trying to crack a decades-old media dream. It wants to turn the television remote control into a tool for buying the products being advertised and promoted on commercials and talk shows.

DIRECTV customers nationwide are embracing a new way to remotely record their favorite shows to their DVRs with the DIRECTV DVR Scheduler. This week, the DVR Scheduler reached a milestone with more than one million recordings scheduled remotely through the service.

The deal gives TRA access to a national footprint of STB data for the first time. The research company matches viewing data from set-top boxes to purchase data from 70 million-plus frequent shopper cards issued by grocers, drugstores and clothing retailers, among others. That combination of data, often referred to as "single-source" research, is highly sought by marketers looking to improve ROI on their advertising purchases.

While Many Have Rung Its Death Knell, the Pendulum Is Swinging Back to TV.

Digital video recorder pioneer TiVo reported Wednesday that its first-quarter net income more than quadrupled as operating costs, most notably for marketing and research, declined.