NBCU adopts TiVo's advertising tags

TiVo's Stop||Watch, an advertisement system especially suited for time-shifted viewing, has received its first major supporting content provider: NBC Universal.

Lately, the corporation's NBC network has been adopting many new media formats in the apparent hope of finding the next source of big ad revenue. Its rush seems to include everything short of offering to tag logos on the side of passing trains.

Stop||Watch ads can be viewed during live, time-shifted or fast-forwarded viewing, and offer an interactive tag that can be clicked to show more information about the advertised product. Advertisers then receive second-by-second reports of the viewer's behavior plus all opted-in click-through data, for them to see the effectiveness of their campaigns.

To entice advertisers, NBC will offer the ability to purchase these TiVo tags in conjunction with other advertising packages. NBC and TiVo will reportedly share advertising revenue where appropriate.

This method of advertising may prove especially useful by January, when the Nielsens begin to use the C3 commercial ratings metric.