TiVo announced on Monday that it will sell limited information about the viewing habits of its subscribers to advertisers and broadcasters.

The company's new service will let broadcasters and advertisers subscribe to a quarterly audience-measurement report that will track viewing habits during prime-time shows. TiVo, which provides digital video recorder (DVR) services and devices, eventually plans to use its technology to provide data on consumer patterns for any show or commercial.

"We want to embrace the opportunity to help advertisers and broadcasters better understand the current and future impact of DVR so they can adapt content and advertising strategies to better understand this new medium," Martin J. Yudkovitz, president of TiVo, said in a statement.

San Jose, Calif.-based TiVo makes DVRs that let people tape live programming to a computer hard drive; pause, fast-forward or rewind on demand; and skip over commercials. The technology also detects consumers' viewing habits and can record shows related to their tastes.

The device connects daily to TiVo's main servers to retrieve and download programming data. That underlying technology puts TiVo in the catbird's seat to analyze the viewing patterns of its customers. The data is kept in aggregate, however, and does not reveal individual information, according to the company.

Full Article:
CNet News