NEW YORK – The home screen land grab is heating up as brands realize that the most valuable moment in connected TV advertising is not mid-show or even pre-roll. It is the instant a viewer turns the television on, says Matt Milne, president and chief revenue officer of TiVo Ads at Xperi.
In this interview at the IAB NewFronts, Milne described TiVo’s positioning as a kind of overlooked inventory play.
“We have an engaged household… and this is a household that most people can’t get to,” he said, pointing to operator-powered TV environments that sit outside the reach of many competing platforms.
With 5.3 million monthly active users, TiVo is pitching advertisers on access to audiences that are both measurable and, crucially, less saturated by the usual ad-tech arms race.
Owning ‘the moment before everything begins’
Milne emphasized that the TV home screen is not just another placement. It is the gateway to everything that follows.
“It is the moment,” he said. “When you turn on a TV, the first thing you see is that home screen… you know there’s actually somebody in front of you.”
That certainty, he argued, is rare in digital advertising, where impressions often outpace attention. The home screen, by contrast, is intentional. A user pressed a button. They are present.
TiVo is turning that moment into a multifunctional ad surface. Milne noted that the unit is no longer static, instead combining video, QR codes and clickable pathways to content or commerce. In his telling, it is less like a banner and more like a control panel for engagement.
“It’s a very, very comprehensive ad unit… in the primary position of the user interface,” he said.
Data pitch that cuts against the grain
If the home screen is the hook, data is the closer. Milne drew a sharp distinction between TiVo’s data and more commonly used automated content recognition signals.
“We collect second-by-second data… this is deterministic data. This is exactly what’s happening,” he said, describing insights drawn from set-top box activity such as channel changes, pauses and shutdowns.
He did not dismiss automated content recognition (ACR) outright, but framed it as complementary rather than foundational. The pitch is a hybrid model, combining deterministic behavior with broader signals to build a more complete audience profile.
The implication is clear. In a market obsessed with probabilistic targeting, TiVo is positioning itself as a source of ground truth.
From the couch to the car
Milne also made clear that TiVo’s ambitions extend beyond the living room. Backed by Xperi’s footprint in automotive technology, the company is pushing into connected vehicles with a familiar thesis: replicate the TV experience wherever a screen exists.
“Think about it as a smart TV in the car,” he said, noting that TiVo’s technology is already present in millions of vehicles globally.
The strategy hinges on continuity. By linking household viewing data with in-car behavior, TiVo is aiming to create a unified consumer profile that follows users across environments. For advertisers, that means fewer blind spots and more consistent targeting.
Scale, scarcity and performance
Pressed for a distilled takeaway, Milne offered a three-part summary that sounded less like a pitch and more like a warning shot to competitors.
“We’re at scale,” he said. “We have an audience that most advertisers can’t get to. And we have performing ads on those platforms.”
In a crowded connected TV market, TiVo is betting that scarcity still matters. Not just more impressions, but different ones. And in Milne’s framing, the fight for those impressions starts the second the screen lights up.
