Xperi’s TiVo Expands Beyond DVR Roots Based on Troves of Viewer Data: Fariba Zamaniyan скачать в хорошем качестве

Xperi’s TiVo Expands Beyond DVR Roots Based on Troves of Viewer Data: Fariba Zamaniyan

SAN JUAN, PR — TiVo, the company once synonymous with DVRs and the earliest forms of time-shifted TV watching, is continuing its transformation into a significant player in the connected TV operating system space. As Fariba Zamaniyan, the global vp of data monetization at Xperi-owned TiVo, told Beet.TV’s David Kaplan at the Beet Retreat San Juan, this is no rewind. Rather than looking to a set-top box, TiVo is now focused on its wide array of consumer data powering both advertising opportunities and enhanced viewer experiences. “In the years since our heyday of the DVR, we’ve been actually a B2B provider of software and technology that’s been powering entertainment systems, bringing programming and content through software and technology to consumers, but through business,” said Zamaniyan. TiVo evolution TiVo’s leap from its consumer-facing past to become an independent TV operating system provider is based on partnering with multiple manufacturers. “We have eight OEMs currently as part of our build that are leveraging our operating system to power their smart TVs,” Zamaniyan said. While these smart TVs aren’t branded as TiVo products, they are “powered by TiVo,” which touts its monetization capabilities through connected TV ads and data intended to appeal to both TV makers and marketers. The dual data approach What distinguishes TiVo in the data landscape is its ability to provide two complementary data sets to the advertising ecosystem “One of the data sets that we provide to the marketplace is television viewership data,” Zamaniyan said. This viewership data is captured via set-top boxes and is now expanding to include smart TV data through automated content recognition (ACR) technology. The second key data asset is metadata. “Metadata is the information that defines the content, so what program it is, where it’s available, and all of the attributes about it, such as its genre, the actors, moods, tones, themes,” she said. This dual approach allows TiVo to serve various players in the advertising ecosystem with different data needs while adhering to privacy regulations. Maintaining consistency Despite working with diverse players across the media landscape, Zamaniyan noted that the fundamental objectives remain consistent. “The objective is the power of data to effectively help build audiences based on programming tune-in preferences, whether or not you’ve been exposed or not exposed to a specific ad campaign,” she said. This capability allows advertising to go “much more defined and refined than just age and gender, which was the old days.” Both buyers and sellers use this data not only to build and target audiences but also to measure performance — an increasingly important function in today’s advertising ecosystem. “Our data is being used to help define and power alternative currencies as well as independent measurement exercises,” Zamaniyan noted. Privacy considerations As TiVo expands its data footprint, Zamaniyan also highlighted the company’s commitment to maintaining consumer privacy through anonymized data sets. “TiVo does not house PII [Personally Identifiable Information ],” she said. “We are an anonymized data set that is licensed to the market and in full compliance with state, local, as well as federal guidelines in the United States and outside the US with GDPR.” The company also ensures compliance with opt-outs and deletion requests. “If there are opt-outs or there’s a request for deletion from the data sets, those are probably the most important of ensuring that we’ve heard the voice of the consumer,” Zamaniyan said. She also pointed to the distinction between viewership data, which requires privacy considerations, and metadata, which doesn’t contain personally identifiable information and thus operates under different regulatory frameworks. Enhancing viewer experience with metadata Beyond advertising applications, TiVo’s metadata plays a crucial role in improving the viewer experience through content discovery. “Metadata is the spine of viewership,” she said. “You can’t define a currency if you don’t have the metadata about the programming content that’s being watched.” TiVo leverages this rich metadata through a machine-powered discovery platform that aligns content with consumers’ viewing history and preferences. “It is helping to power the consumer discovery process… we also have a machine-powered discovery platform that is taking that rich metadata set and aligning it specifically to consumers’ interests based on what they watched,” she said. The result is a more personalized viewing experience that helps consumers navigate the overwhelming volume of content available in today’s streaming environment. “They are getting recommendations on screen about content that is going to be more appealing to them and help them really weed through the volumes and volumes of content that are more accessible at their fingertips,” Zamaniyan said.