Here is a little news item:

TiVo has begun testing a new advertising technology, designed to counteract the ad-skipping that its service allows. The technology, which is initially being tested on a small number of deployed Series2 boxes, displays half-second, pop-up, quarter-screen banner ads whenever viewers fast-forward through commercial breaks: if interested in the product or service advertised by one of the banners, viewers can press the thumbs-up button on their TiVo remotes to access an area that provides more information.

When it announced earlier this month that it had secured a deployment deal with Comcast, TiVo stated that the deal would make its platform's enhanced advertising features "widely available" to Comcast customers.

Personally, I think that TiVo's most innovative solution for advertisers are their 'telescopic' ads that creatively mix content with advertising and take advantage of the DVR platform. However, for that strategy to be highly effective, a much larger number of households must be targeted. Something more like Comcast and Time Warner Cable's base added together?