• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, December 11, 2006

TiVo CEO Tom Rogers did his best last week to paint the DVR marketer as an advertiser ally in combating ad-skipping, even as he touted TiVo's principal appeal to consumers: ad-skipping.

Through innovations such as ads on the screen after a program has been viewed--presumably with ads zapped--and deals with major holding companies WPP, Omnicom and IPG to purchase ad time, Rogers said advertising dollars would become an increasing part of TiVo's revenue base. But he declined to offer projections or to cite how much TiVo pulls in ad dollars.

Speaking at an investors' conference, Rogers said the company, currently in 4.5 million homes, has no plans to adopt an AOL-style model of ad-support-only rather than charge for subscriptions. He says that is not "a sustainable model" to boost distribution.

TiVo is in the interesting position of trying to maintain two potentially contrasting revenue streams. It drives sales of its service by promoting its ad-skipping capabilities, while looking for creative ways to expose those same consumers to commercial messages.

Rogers' overriding pitch to Madison Avenue is: DVR dominance is inevitable, so work with TiVo to find ways to effectively slot marketing messages into the fast-forward world. (Rogers says ad-skipping has become so rampant that a broadcast network CEO told him his company has lost $100 million in potential revenue due it.)

"The word out on the street for a while was that TiVo was a pariah ... that TiVo was ruining the advertising industry," Rogers said. "So we decided to attack that sentiment straight on because it was increasingly clear ... you are going to see fast-forwarding through ads. We actually had a solution to the problem." TiVo's latest opportunity is tabbed "program placement," where an advertiser can display a message on screen after a would-be commercial-skipped show has been viewed. The displays can serve as a link to a longer-form ad. (Burger King and MasterCard are among the marketers that have signed up.)

Rogers said part of the appeal is that an advertiser can link with a specific show, such as the massive hit "Grey's Anatomy," that it may not be able to afford or find a spot in during the "traditional" broadcast.

Such access gives an advertiser that hasn't been a sponsor of a just-watched show "an opportunity to effectively wrap a sponsorship in the TiVo household around it."

Still, perhaps in a sign of TiVo's ambivalence about how to balance the consumer-beloved ad-skipping with its growing desire to sell advertising, users have to opt-in to view long-form "program placement" content. No doubt advertisers believe that opportunities for special offers, as well as appealing creative, will do the trick. At the very least, consumers would be exposed to an advertiser's billboard.

Finally, TiVo is now selling "second by second" data that allows advertisers to determine just how many of their ads are skipped within its 4.5 million-home universe.