TiVo Inc., the company that made its name by letting users skip television commercials, on Monday said it is working on technology that lets viewers search for specific advertisements.
The technology, which is expected to launch in early 2006, is the latest sign of the advertising industry’s efforts to reach consumers who are taking advantage of high-tech products to escape the traditional ad pitch.
TiVo said it is working with several large advertising companies on the feature, including Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Interpublic Media, Omnicom Group Inc.’s OMD, Starcom Mediavest Group, the Richards Group and Comcast Corp.’s Comcast Spotlight advertising sales division.
The advertising service will let subscribers search for a product by category or keyword, then TiVo would deliver matching commercials to the consumer’s set-top box.
TiVo serves about 1.3 million subscribers who pay a monthly fee of around $13 a month to the company. It is also pursuing distribution deals with cable companies in addition to the one it has with Comcast Corp.
The company also serves 2.3 million customers of satellite TV operator DirecTV Group Inc., though that company said it will start selling its own digital video recorder and stop marketing TiVo’s recorders.
Monday’s announcement comes a week after the Alviso, California-based TiVo said it would begin testing a feature to let some subscribers transfer recorded television programming to Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod digital music players or Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Portable (PSP) devices.
