• by dave.b , Max Kalehoff , July 28, 2006

As an admirer of TiVo and a guy who loves the media and research business, I was intrigued by TiVo's announcement this week that the mackdaddy of DVR services is launching a formal research division. TiVo Audience Research and Measurement (ARM) "will offer advertisers and advertising agencies, for the first time, second-by-second data and analysis on DVR viewing of advertising content."

For a company like TiVo, which has so much rich data around a disruptive trend in our media and marketing landscape, this appears to be a natural byproduct, if not a major reason to exist. Indeed, many onlookers--especially in the trade and business press--have framed TiVo's announcement not only as a service to generate revenues, but a way to coddle up to advertisers--by helping them understand an ad problem it spawned in the first place.

And that's fine. But the focus on the burning short-term issue of eroding viewership around television advertising has omitted critical dimensions. Ones that could lead to other, perhaps more valuable research applications, around TiVo's user base.

The reality is that TiVo's customer base of 4.4 million household subscribers represents a highly biased, yet valuable and elusive sample. As a market researcher who spends long days uncovering trends in online discussions among passionate affinity groups, I view the TiVo customer base as a goldmine of consumer insights that media and marketing execs should drool over. Industry execs should put aside the short-term ad-skipping issues (at least for a few seconds), and embrace this fervent community for all it's worth!

Why is this community worth so much? TiVo users are super consumers and early adopters. They are media and tech influentials who receive as much gratification from being labeled a TiVo user as they do from actually using the service. They are among a unique cadre of television consumers who feel a sense of accomplishment over a successful DVR self-installation. Their TiVo has enabled them to remedy what was always wrong with television: a lack of viewer control, interactivity and an abundance of irrelevant programming and advertising unworthy of valuable attention. TiVo has enabled its users to turn television into a far more enjoyable, interactive and efficient pastime.

And that creates a unique situation for some very interesting research applications. First, TiVo users' interactivity represents what a lot of television-viewer behavior will look like in the not-too-distant future. That's exactly why so many players in the TV industry have followed its lead, especially in the cable world.

This group represents not the middle of the bell curve, but a rare window into the future, It supplies key intelligence about what consumers want and don't want in advertising, programming, customization and interactivity. Which is why I'm so troubled with comments from agency execs like Andrew McLean, COO of MediaEdge:CIA, a unit of the WPP Group, who recently told the New York Times: "TiVo doing a small thing here, or someone else doing a small thing there, doesn't give us a better and more broad form of measurement."

That rationale completely misses the point. But perhaps it's more a result of the positioning around TiVo's new service. Whether you're a television programmer, media agency or advertiser, early trends culled from TiVo users should be inserted into long-term strategic planning.

After early trend catching, another key research application of the TiVo user base is tapping into its propensity for influence. TiVo users, in many regards, are very similar to early iPod users, who've been documented to have a much higher propensity to create word-of-mouth and online consumer-generated media. (My colleague Pete Blackshaw elaborated on this extensively in a CGM study he led last year.)

So by default, the TiVo user base is a potentially valuable proxy of influence. In such a research context, some fascinating questions are: What are the viewing habits of the most influential? Do they like certain types of programming or advertising? Does their receptivity have predictive value on broader programming or advertising performance? What programs or advertisers are TiVo users most likely to evangelize or slam? Are there opportunities for programmers to engage in far more sophisticated programming tests on these influential DVR users?

Again, I'm incredibly interested in TiVo's formalized research division and the initial focus on ad-skipping. But is that low-hanging fruit? Media and marketing execs must remember that the user base is good for so much more. Execs should push TiVo and others to pursue those sorts of applications. Now, let's see if the cable and satellite companies follow suit.

What do you think?

[For the record: VNU, which owns Nielsen Media Research, is a shareholder in the company I work for, Nielsen BuzzMetrics. However, Nielsen BuzzMetrics operates independently, and the views expressed in this column are mine and not representative of Nielsen Media Research.]