Rovi and TNS Media Research Bond for TV Measurement

Interactive TV Program Guide (IPG) maker Rovi, formerly known as Macrovision, is joining with media measurement company TNS Media Research to analyze TV viewers’ actions, including their use of IPGs and their reactions to IPG advertising.

The companies said their collaboration will result in “some of the richest measurement in the industry” using advanced TV and set-top-box (STB) tools. “We’ve been working in the area of set-top box measurement for well over five years, and we’ve been making a considerable investment in the area as we do believe this is the future of audience measurement,” said TNS president George Shababb. He said working with Rovi will take such measurement “to a whole new dimension.”

TNS was an early user of return path data (RPD) from set-top boxes. Shababb said his company is providing measurements on interactive ads that appear on the guides and focusing on “how viewers make choices in the digital world.” Rovi says its IPG advertising technology is being used in more than 50 million homes worldwide, including 25 million in North America and the company stresses the information gathered is aggregated and kept anonymous so no personally identifiable data is revealed.

“Most advertisers look for metrics to understand the performance of their campaigns,” said Scott Rosenberg, VP of advanced advertising at TNS. Shababb said the collaboration will benefit the IPG advertisers by offering them a new level of metrics relating to ad-performance. “It’s understanding what the advertising is delivering,” he said. “It’s really raising the measurement standards and, in some sense, redefining audience standards with the idea being we can provide a much more in-depth accountability as to what an advertiser is getting for his budget.”

Rosenberg noted that many TVs with Internet connectivity are now being sold. He said Rovi is providing guides that take advantage of those Internet connections to do a number of things, such as providing IPGs with more information and to dynamically serve ads. “We’re also helping those manufacturers and content partners to deliver content via that broadband connection,” Rosenberg said. “So certainly we anticipate working with TNS to measure those Internet IPGs as well.”