TiVo Timeshifting Shifts Into High Gear

ALVISO, Calif., Dec. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) , the creator of and a leader in television services and advertising solutions for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced that at least half of the viewing for network series premiers in October 2008 was on a Timeshifted basis, according to its Stop||Watch(TM) ratings service.

Of the seven new broadcast series that debuted, six drew at least 50% of their audience on a Timeshifted basis. In fact, 52% of viewers who tuned in to the month's highest rated premier, ABC's Life on Mars, chose to record the program and watch it later. NBC's My Own Worst Enemy and CBS's Eleventh Hour had 54% and 51% of their viewers, respectively, tune in on a Timeshifted basis. Timeshifted viewers also skipped commercials at high rates. Five of the seven premiers had at least 60% of their commercials fast-forwarded - viewers who Timeshifted the Life on Mars Premier skipped 65% of the commercials that aired with the program.

Todd Juenger, Vice President & General Manager, TiVo Audience Research & Measurement, said, "We would expect to see this level of Timeshifting for an older show with an established fan base, and a new series premier to get most of its viewing Live. The fact that these new series got upwards of 50% of their viewing on a Timeshifted basis indicates that viewers are growing accustomed to recording programs and watching when they want - thereby increasing a program's total viewership. However, Timeshifting audiences also have the ability to skip commercials, which impacts the efficacy of the ads and the economics of the program, and can have long term effects on how networks evaluate their success going forward."


TiVo also unveiled the Top Commercial and Program Rankings for October 2008, as viewed by TiVo(R) service subscribers. Programming from ABC dominated the month, taking seven of the Top Ten Program spots in Total and Timeshifted viewing - thanks to the hits Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. All of the Top Ten Commercials in Total viewing aired on ABC, while seven of the Top Ten most viewed commercials on a Timeshifted basis aired on the network as well.


Juenger said, "The effect of DVRs on primetime network programming is staggering. As shown above, programs like ABC's Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives typically get nearly 75% of their viewers on a Timeshifted basis. Additionally, these programs generally see more than 60% of Timeshifted viewers fast-forward through their commercials. When you put that together, it means these shows are losing close to 50% of their effective ad inventory in DVR homes. The economics of original programming with big budgets, big audiences, and big advertising revenue don't work in this environment, and it only gets worse as DVRs continue to proliferate. I can think of no bigger issue facing network television and the brands that depend on it."

TiVo recently reported that broadcast networks received a primetime lift in year-over-year viewership, while cable viewership lagged. The opposite was true for October, with cable experiencing a sizeable year-over-year growth in viewership for Total and Timeshifted viewing. Cable networks also experienced less commercial fast-forwarding than their broadcast counterparts in a year-over-year comparison. Similar to 2007, Timeshifted cable viewers skipped roughly half of the commercials in October 2008, while broadcast commercial skipping again crossed the 60% threshold, reaching 64% for the month in 2008.



The Stop||Watch(TM) ratings service, introduced in February 2007, is offered via an easily sortable database of ratings for nationally run programs and advertisements from cable and broadcast networks, with data going back to September 2006. The service now tracks ratings for 66 nationally distributed, ad supported networks, and covers all nationally distributed programming and commercials aired from 5:00am - 11:30pm.

TiVo's Power||Watch(TM) ratings service provides advertisers access to second-by-second program and commercial ratings data, with demographic segmentations, for 20,000 households who have volunteered to take part in a "passive" consumer panel. The Power||Watch(TM) ratings service provides subscribers the ability to look at TV viewing broken down by standard household demographics including income, geography, ethnicity, number of children and tenure of TiVo subscriber, among others. TiVo can associate household data with the viewership data then produce program and commercial viewership reports by aggregate demographic and behavioral audience groups. All reports prepared by TiVo using this data are anonymous.

Subscribers to TiVo's Stop||Watch(TM) ratings service and Power||Watch(TM) ratings service include: Omnicom Media Group, CBS Corporation, The Interpublic Group, Starcom, Zenith Optimedia, Carat USA, MPMA, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Media IQ and Euro RSCG New York.

TiVo Stop||Watch(TM) ratings service data is derived from a daily, aggregate, anonymous, stratified random sample of 100,000 TiVo subscribers - from which the second-by-second "clickstream" of behavior and viewership is collected and assessed. The Stop||Watch(TM) ratings service includes data for: Total Viewing, Live Viewing, Timeshifted Viewing (less than 1 hour, 1-6 hours, 6-24 hours, 24-48 hours, 48-72 hours, 3-7 day, and 7-14 day delay and C3), Program Ratings, Commercial Ratings and a Commercial Viewership Index. The Stop||Watch(TM) service uses ad occurrence data from TNS Media Intelligence to identify commercial spots. For more information on the TiVo Stop||Watch(TM) ratings service, visit https://stopwatch.tivo.com/.