TiVo is giving Nielsen Media Research a run for its money, saying Wednesday that it is launching a new division that will sell advertisers "second-by-second" ratings reports from its digital-video-recorder subscribers.
Its audience-research and measurement division will crunch the numbers from a panel of 20,000 TiVo homes.
The move -- which comes as Nielsen plans to sell reports detailing ratings for live TV commercials and DVR and video-on-demand viewing -- could finally give advertisers real data on how many people fast-forward through ads. It could also help MSOs such as Comcast, which plans to begin rolling out TiVo on Motorola DVRs later this year.
The reports will track everything from live viewing of commercials to seven- to 14-day time shifts.
TiVo said it is working with Nissan North America and a consortium of 14 Omnicom Group clients on the DVR ratings.
