TiVo Crunches AT&T U-verse Set-Top Data

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 2/20/2012 12:01:00 AM

TiVo has entered into a licensing agreement with AT&T AdWorks, the telco’s advertising unit, to incorporate anonymous data from U-Verse TV subscribers into TiVo’s audience measurement and research products.

TiVo currently pulls an anonymous sample size of 350,000 households for its StopWatch product, which measures second-by-second viewing trends for 72 national cable networks and program ratings for 40 smaller networks. The sample is culled from TiVo’s DVR subscriber base of about 2 million subscribers on a non-opt-in basis.

A shortcoming of TiVo’s research products is that — by definition — they have been confined to households with DVRs. With the AT&T deal, TiVo will be able to weave in data from non-DVR TV viewers as well.

TiVo will incorporate anonymous viewing data from a subset of AT&T’s U-verse TV set-top boxes; the companies did not disclose how many households would be in the sample. As of the end of 2011, the telco had 3.8 million U-verse TV subscribers.

“At TiVo, we are looking forward to using this anonymous viewing data from AT&T AdWorks to help project a better sampling of U.S. television viewing habits,” TiVo general manager of content and media sales Tara Maitra said.