Tivo, looking to parlay its installed based of digital video recorder users into another new revenue stream, on Thursday announced the PowerWatch Consumer Panel, which will provide advertisers demographic and viewing behavior data for 20,000 TiVo DVR users.
The service “will provide a new level of detail on DVR viewing behavior among any given brand’s target segments that will significantly enhance the approach advertisers take in creating and buying advertising on television,” Todd Juenger, TiVo vice president and general manager of audience research and measurement, said in a statement.
Nielsen Media Research also measures DVR viewership, but with a sample size of 3,000 homes.
PowerWatch extends TiVo’s StopWatch service, which provides second-by-second program and commercial viewing data from DVRs, by cross-referencing demographic data. The company developed the PowerWatch service with media agency Starcom USA.
TiVo emphasized that the 20,000 households enlisted to be part of the panel voluntarily and that the data would remain anonymous.
TiVo’s PowerWatch can associate household data with the viewership data, to provide reports that can analyze TV watching based on aggregate demographic and behavioral audience groups.
The service will also include TiVo-centric measures such as number of TiVo DVRs in a household, how long someone has been a TiVo subscriber, broadband versus dial-up Internet connectivity and type of video provider, ranging from analog to digital cable, satellite or over-the-air.
