• by Joe Mandese , June 20, 2007

In a sign that media agencies are going to be facing greater accountability over the audience delivery of TV advertising buys they make for their clients, a second major auditor Tuesday announced a deal to begin subscribing to TiVo's new Stop//Watch TV ratings service, offering a second-by-second analysis of commercial advertising exposure.

Media Performance Monitor America (MPMA), the U.S. media auditing service launched several years ago to probe not just the quantitative return on media buys, but the quality of their schedules and results, announced it is now subscribing to the TiVo data and would begin using it to monitor the performance of major media shops.

P. J. Leary, CEO of MPMA, said the TiVo data, which is based on a sample of 20,000 TiVo households, shows how and when they view TV live, during playback, and whether they fast-forward through commercials, for "more detailed parsing of advertising effectiveness."

The move follows a similar deal announced recently by MPMA rival Media IQ, indicating that media agencies are facing greater scrutiny, even as they begin stepping up their own accountability. Many of the biggest media shops are pushing for more granular data on their media buys from media sellers and various media research suppliers, and that's evident from the way 2007-08 upfront network TV ad negotiations are progressing. Most if not all of the major broadcast network deals are being based on at least some form of average commercial ratings, and on Tuesday Starcom announced a deal with Discovery Networks to base its upfront buys on exact commercial minute ratings (see related story in today's edition).

Despite posturing by the cable TV industry that it would boycott commercial minute ratings this year due to uncertainty surrounding Nielsen's new commercial ratings, it now appears that most big cable TV networks are willing to do business on that basis.