TiVo to Buy Company That Tracks Shopping of TV Viewers

The television analytics company TiVo is expected to announce that it has acquired full ownership in TRA, a research company that has found success in recent years with a system that matches up television viewing with consumer buying habits.

Though the deal is modest compared with most recent media deals — TiVo will spend about $20 million to buy out other investors in TRA — the prospects for the television industry are considerable, said Tom Rogers, the president of TiVo. “We believe television is at an inflection point,” Rogers said. “In the digital realm you measure click by click and get increasingly granular information. This kind of metric has not developed well in the television space before now.” That metric makes it possible for advertisers to tell which networks are most effective at selling beer or cookies, and even which specific television shows are best at selling specific cars. TRA acquires this data by collecting information from 1.5 million set-top cable boxes and matching the viewers (anonymously) with information gleaned from “loyalty cards” presented at supermarkets, as well as with other measurements, like car-registration information.