Google Finds Out that TV Viewers Behave Like We Thought

(MoneyWatch)  If you've been following Google TV, as I have, over the last few years, you might have been more than a little curious to find out what data about TV viewing Google has been gathering from the set-top boxes that are part of its initiative. Well, the data is in, and as Advertising Age points out, it's pretty much what we knew already. Sigh.

Most of Google's TV viewing data, detailed here, comes from the set-top boxes of millions of Echostar subscribers, though not the entire 13.7 million subscribers that make up its user base. Here are some of the insights:

• Primetime TV "is not nearly so dominant" in households with DVRs.
• Some networks hold viewers better during commercials than others.
• Viewers "vote with their remote controls" when they see a commercial they don't want to watch.

Well, you get the idea. It's not that there is nothing interesting here. Measuring the impact of DVRs, for instance, on TV viewing is still a new area of research and so any insights into how they change media consumption is important. But it's still disappointing that, even with much more granular data-gathering, there are no real revelations here.