• by Wayne Friedman , February 1, 2008

Sports are TiVo-proof, right? Not exactly, and not for TV's biggest event.

Starcom USA--using TNS and TiVo second-by-second data--says more than two-thirds of TiVo households time-shifted the big event last year, which ran on CBS. Starcom also noted that most of the time-shifting was close to live, within an hour.

In a special study using TNS and TiVo second-by-second data, Starcom said time-shifted viewing of commercials adds nearly one-third more ratings points. That's not surprising, considering viewers' awareness that commercials during the big game are highly touted for their big entertainment appeal.

Just as with non-DVR users, commercials in the Super Bowl scored significantly higher retention rates, as opposed to all other TV events.

The Super Bowl lost only 1% of the viewers going from program to commercials. This compares well versus other first-quarter TV in 2007. The next-highest program was "The 79th Academy Awards," which only dropped 4%. This compares to overall first-quarter TV programming, which had an average of losing 11%.

Starcom gleaned these results using second-by-second data from 300,000 Charter Cable households in Los Angeles and DVR second-by-second data from TiVo's 20,000 national Stop||Watch panel.

Previous TV research has shown that viewers tend to watch sports programming almost completely on a live-only basis. That has been a promising bit of information to marketers looking to avoid viewers' fast-forwarding through TV commercials.

The study also said that while viewers remained with CBS on average of 18-19 minutes during the half-time show, they also spent a lot of time with their DVRs during half-time. Super Bowl watchers spent 12 minutes with their DVRs--programming, etc.

Starcom also found that during half-time, homes spent time with kids' TV networks--7-10 minutes each on channels such as Boomerang, Cartoon, Disney and Nickelodeon networks. In addition, viewers also spent 7-10 minutes with video on demand services.