Google teams up with TiVo to give advertisers a clearer picture

Google, which sells television and online ads, said it agreed to subscribe to TiVo's user data. Google promises that advertisers pay only when their ads are seen. But TiVo lets viewers fast-forward through commercials. Now, with TiVo's data, collected from millions of digital video recorders across the country, Google can tell exactly which of those commercials are being bypassed. If all the commercials are being skipped, the channel gets no money. It's easy to see why TV executives get heartburn over this. While the deal takes place with immediate effect, it will be some months before the TiVo data is synthesized into Google's ad buying service. For the first time though, agencies will be able to see second-by-second data about how their commercials are viewed plus DVR playback data. Currently, the industry currency is based on commercial ratings calculated as an average across each pod by Nielsen.