Nielsen, TiVo and Snapstream Media. One of those three is well known for tracking television viewership, but the other two: TiVo and Snapstream Media (makers of the Beyond TV PC DVR software) are not as well known in this realm, but offer a more transparent and relatively useful snapshot of what Television Viewers like you and I are watching. Would you agree that Heroes and The Office are hit shows - at least better than Dancing with the Stars or 60 Minutes? Well you’d likely agree more with TiVo and Beyond TV users.

Since the early 1940’s the television and advertising industries have relied on Nielsen Media Research to measure the popularity and success of television programming. Nielsen continues to be the leading provider of this information and their list of the top TV shows by demographic are consistently highlighted in the media and watched closely by Advertisers and the Television Networks. While I’m still interested in what Nielsen is reporting as the top shows, I’m left wanting more.

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Every now and then, a study will be released suggesting that DVR owners don’t actually skip very many ads. While I can understand why people would want to watch certain programs live, it’s always hard for me to take this kind of data seriously, because it tracks so differently, from my own DVR experience.

I love being able to time shift my television and take full advantage of my fast forward button. If I absolutely need to see something live, I’ll still wait 20 minutes, just so that I can skip past the commercials. Over the last six years, I’ve been every marketers worst nightmare and yet, there has been one company that I have never been able to block.

Sleeptrain Mattress Centers

It’s not a major company, but this sleepy little company has been able to outsmart the DVR, by exploiting the very fast forward feature, that I love so much.

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TiVo has pulled the plug on their PayPerPost advertising program.

Following this forum thread, it appears that TiVo did intend to have a 5 second “bumper” on each video indicating it was a paid/sponsored clip - either TiVo or PayPerPost dropped the ball in delivering (and explaining) that asset to participants in a timely fashion. Regardless, later in the thread, notice that all participants have been instructed to pull any/all posts and YouTube videos off the net.

I’ve been in touch with TiVo’s PR agency (and TiVo) on this issue several times over the last 30 hours or so. I truly believe this was an honest error in judgment on TiVo’s part while exploring new ways to promote themselves online. I give them credit for listening to the feedback (Davis, Megazone, Read/Write Web, Valleywag) and responding immediately by killing the program.

While (still) sifting through my accumulation of mail, I caught this Moxi ad in Wired. The moxi.com/wired link redirects to Digeo’s Moxi home page… where there’s no news on their upcoming retail DVRs. Reading between the lines, one could assume the Moxi boxes are either running behind schedule and/or will be making an appearance in the very near future. By the way, the advertisement photo doesn’t depict the “higher-end” Home Cinema edition I played with a few months back. Perhaps it’s the more interesting (and useful) CableCARD model.

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of different TiVo marketing campaigns. Some of them have been great and some of them have been bombs, but TiVo has never been afraid of taking risks, especially when it comes to generating publicity. Whether it was their funeral for the VCR or their ad throwing a TV exec out a window, they’ve been able to get pretty good bang for their buck, from the social web.

Despite my normal enthusiasm for TiVo’s PR stunts, their latest campaign has been a little over the top, for even my tastes. It started in late August, when TiVo issued a press release that declared that their new TiVo HD box, had all the features that people expect from a perfect companion. When I first read the release it was so syrupy, I could barely finish it.

I even almost wrote a snarky blog post, where I was going to point out that despite their claims, I’m actually looking for something a little bit different from my “hook ups�, then the family friendly criteria that they included in the PR fluff. Things like someone who won’t freeze up on me after I had been out drinking with the boys or someone with a pair of really big hard drives or a companion that doesn’t get jealous when I play video games.

I ended up getting distracted and never wrote my post, but when I saw TiVo issue another lovefest press release, I just rolled my eyes and figured that I was in the wrong demographic to ever understand this one.

Normally, I wouldn’t have thought much more about this campaign, except while I was surfing YouTube, I came across several clips that appeared to be fan made videos expressing their excitement for the HD TiVo product. At first I actually thought that these were made by TiVo customers. There is definitely an indie feel to them. One of them actually does an amusing simulation of the world from TiVo’s perspective It wasn’t until I got to my my favorite video of the bunch that I finally figured out why there was such a sudden rush of TiVo videos on YouTube. Of all the clips out there, this is the only one that I could find, that was honest enough to at least identify that it’s part of the PayPerPost program.

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NBC has announced that they are introducing a program that will let you automatically download some of their shows to your PC. With the announcement came the latest round of TiVo doom and gloom articles, that assert that this technology will some how be able to replace a DVR. While I like that NBC is being innovative and are offering more choices to consumers, I am also skeptical about the long term prospects for this one.

I suspect that NBC is hoping to build a strong subscription base for the shows, so that they can then try and pitch companies on paying for ads by the download. There may be some advertisers that will be foolish enough to accept these arrangements, but over the long run, the advertisers will figure out why it’s doomed for failure.

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We hit the mall today to run a few errands (and fondle the Nano “fatty” again) and ran across a Wii kiosk with 6 stations. They’ve been here (Montgomery Mall) about a week as part of a nationwide 25 mall tour. I got some hands on time with the new Metroid… Let me tell you this requires some serious hand-eye coordination (and maybe Dramamine). If I had tweens or teens in the house, this is a game I’d want them to play. (As opposed to anything on Xbox Live, which would be banned - more on that later.) We also noticed CW banners and window stickers all over the place, most advertising Gossip Girl.

A periodic roundup of relevant news… Dave missed while vacationing.

• DVB-T tuners, DVR functionality, and placeshifting coming to European PS3: Sony
• Logitech Harmony 1000 reviewed: PC Mag
• Paramount and Dreamworks sell out to HD DVD: TiVo Lovers
• YouTube video advertising arrives: Yahoo