From Skip Ads, to Pop-Up Ads to now keyword specific ads…. TiVo is slowly becoming the new advertising platform, which is to say, new bottle old wine. Still if capitalism can thrive in China, then why not ads on TiVo.

The Wall Street Journal reports (free link) that the DVR maker is working with three big media-buyers Interpublic Media, OMD and Starcom Media Vest Group and others like Comcast Spotlight ad-sales division on a new way to deliver ads to consumers, who are looking for a specific product.

In other words its Adwords for Television. Type in BMW and commercials will appear in a special folder right next to saved television programs.

Unlike Google, TiVo charges a subscription service, and the main reason people are happy to pay is “time shifting television” and skipping through ads.

And Google doesn’t make you buy a device. Make the service free and then TiVo and its customers are on equal footing.

(Note: some of these companies, such as Gannett and the New York Times company, are primarily in the newspaper business, although they also own some TV stations.

• Belo (BLC): -11.6%
• Emmis (EMS): +8.7%
• Fisher (FSCI): -3.1%
• Gannett (GCI): -24.2%
• Gray (GTN): -38%
• Hearst-Argyle (HTV): -6.9%
• Media General (MEG): -17%
• Meredith (MDP): -2.4%
• New York Times (NYT): -30.7%
• Sinclair (SBGI): +29.1%
• Tribune (TRB): -24.8%
• Young (YBTVA): -80.2%

The average weekday circulation at U.S. newspapers fell 2.6 percent in the six month-period ending this September. Here are the figures for the 20 biggest U.S. newspapers, as reported by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

1. USA Today, 2,296,335, down 0.59 per cent
2. The Wall Street Journal, 2,083,660, down 1.10 per cent
3. The New York Times, 1,126,190, up 0.46 per cent
4. Los Angeles Times, 843,432, down 3.79 per cent
5. New York Daily News, 688,584, down 3.70 per cent
6. The Washington Post, 678,779, down 4.09 per cent
7. New York Post, 662,681, down 1.74 per cent
8. Chicago Tribune, 586,122, down 2.47 per cent
9. Houston Chronicle, 521,419, down 6.01 per cent
10. The Boston Globe, 414,225, down 8.25 per cent
11. The Arizona Republic, 411,043, down 0.54 per cent
12. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. , 400,092, up 0.01 per cent
13. San Francisco Chronicle, 391,681, down 16.4 per cent
14. Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, 374,528, down 0.26 per cent
15. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 362,426, down 8.73 per cent
16. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 357,679, down 3.16 per cent
17. Detroit Free Press, 341,248, down 2.18 per cent
18. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, 339,055, down 4.46 per cent
19. The Oregonian, Portland, 333,515, down 1.24 per cent
20. The San Diego Union-Tribune, 314,279, down 6.24 per cent.

We’re not ready to show or describe our service in any detail; we’re still in development. Our goal is to create a platform to organize the world’s news using the best of technology, community, and editors. We see an explosion of interest in and coverage of news from incredibly varied sources around the world and see a need around that.

Last year U.S. advertising spending was an estimated $300 billion to $400 billion. Just $10 billion of that was spent online, even less than for ads in the Yellow Pages.

Pop Quiz: How much do U.S. kids ages 3-17 spend on items for their personal use and entertainment each year? Hint: The World is Flat (mp3).

Yesiree, by George, it’s a brave and exciting new world that the near future holds, a democratized, consumer-empowered, bottom-up, pull-not-push, lean forward and lean back universe that will improve the quantity and quality of entertainment options, create hitherto unimaginable marketing opportunities and efficiencies and, not incidentally, generate wealth that will make the current $250 billion domestic ad market seem like pin money.

[But the future]– near or not — doesn’t happen until…later.

Because revolutions by their nature are neither seamless nor smooth.

Because there is no reason to believe the collapse of the old media model will yield a plug-and-play new one.

Posted by Sam Churchill on Monday, November 28th, 2005 at 3:56 am.