NBC Universal is set to use TiVo to tell it how television viewers are using their digital video recorders and to introduce interactive commercials to the masses. The companies said they will use TiVo’s existing interactive advertising platforms as well as create new ones, and they will split some of the revenue the platforms could generate.

The deal also calls for NBC to subscribe to TiVo’s Stop Watch and Power Watch services, which provide second-by-second data about shows and commercials that are being watched, paused, skipped and rewound. Power Watch is based on a random and anonymous sampling of 20,000 of TiVo’s 4.2 million subscribers each night, whereas Power Watch data comes from an opt-in panel of 20,000 TiVo users, so it includes detailed demographic information.

One of the interactive advertising initiatives NBC will use is TiVo’s tag system, which allows viewers to click during a commercial in order to obtain more information about the advertised product, then return to the show they were viewing without missing programming.

NBC becomes the first large network to sign on to TiVo’s interactive advertising and audience-measurement initiatives.

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