Nielsen ratings have always been an imperfect system of projecting who is watching what when. The advent of DVR technology and internet-streamed programming have made the television ratings game even more challenging.

So the major TV companies -- General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS), and Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) -- have teamed together to fight against Nielsen, which not only delivers arguably flawed data, but charges a hefty fee to do so.

Julia Boorstin covered an interesting topic over at CNBC.com the other day. The Supreme Court, by electing not to review a case involving Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), essentially said that cable companies such as Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) can pursue digital video recorder (DVR) storage on cable-system servers. By doing this, a perceived barrier to entry for subscribing to DVR has been eliminated: you don't have to deal with a clunky box. Cable should theoretically see an increase in customers who adopt DVR technology if remote storage is exploited.

Well, as Boorstin rightly points out, CBS (NYSE: CBS), Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC, and News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) Fox do need to worry. These DVR technologies basically translate to a drop in the economic value of advertising. Let's face it: who watches commercials when they don't have to?

TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) programmed some time for itself in the earnings confessional this afternoon, announcing first-quarter earnings results that topped analysts' estimates.

Service and technology revenue totaled $48.5 million, edging out Street expectations of $48.2 million. TiVo posted a net loss of $4.1 million, or four cents per share, two cents better than the six-cent loss analysts were expecting. Results were lower, however, in comparison to the company's year-ago profit of $3.6 million, or four cents per share. TiVo added 37,000 subscribers in the period (down from 48,000 in last year's first quarter) and churn rate was 1.4%.

TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the pioneering digital video recorder company, saw its Q4 period loss decline (after three profitable quarters) after the comp, and saw beefier margins but a 20% drop in revenue. TiVo's reason behind the revenue decline was that the retail market -- including its biggest retailer partner, Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) -- was suffering badly and sales were down as a result. In other words, TiVo is suffering with just about every other manufacturer with a product in retail.

While other earnings may have disappointed last week, the news was good for oil giant ConocoPhilips (NYSE: COP). In what some took as a good sign for big oil, the Houston-based company reported that third quarter net income surged 41% year over year to $3.39 per share, and that revenue also surged 52% to $70 billion. We'll see whether the good news extends to other petroleum giants scheduled to report quarterly results this week.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial are looking for BP (NYSE: BP) profits to have grown 43.2% in the most recent quarter to $2.34 per share on revenue of $109.7 billion, and Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) to post earnings up 39.4% to $3.25 per share on revenue of $86.8 billion. Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO), ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), and Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) likewise are expected to report higher net income of $2.33 per share (sales of $23.4 billion), $2.40 per share (sales of $131.4 billion), and $2.65 per share, respectively. Even Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO) is expected to post earnings slightly higher to $1.46 per share (sales of $36.4 billion), despite the effects of Hurricane Ike. Among these companies, only BP and Valero beat earnings expectations in the previous quarter. Not surprisingly, analysts on average recommend buying all except Valero, and shares of all of these companies have recently hit 52-week lows.

TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) saw a smaller loss than expected in the fourth quarter just reported on yesterday. The DVR pioneer's net quarterly loss was $6.36 million compared with $19.5 million in the year-ago quarter. Much of the difference was due to TiVo's shift away from making its own hardware and set-top boxes to licensing its technology to cable and satellite operators.

So far, TiVo has lined up Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) as a large cable customer for its patented digital video recording software, and a partnership with private company Cox Communications is in the works as well. CEO Tom Rogers said, "The key for TiVo now is to secure new, legitimate distribution partnerships with cable and satellite pay-TV providers." Does this mean the end of the standalone TiVo box that pioneered the DVR market in the U.S.? Hard to say, but the focus of the company's efforts isn't pointed in that direction.

For the quarter, TiVo's sales revenue actually went down to $74.1 as hardware revenue declined in a large way to $23.9 million-- a 45% drop from the year-ago period. The company did add 33,000 net TiVo-owned subscribers in the fourth quarter, which was a significant drop from the 101,000 customers signed in the year-ago period. Adding to some slight misery for the company, TiVo lost 122,000 subscribers in the quarter due to competing products and service mainly sold by former partner DirecTV Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: DTV). At this time, TiVo has 3.95 million TiVo-owned customers.

"First recommended in September 2004, Helix Energy Solutions (NYSE: HLX) is the oldest holding on our Buy List - and the biggest winner, gaining 133%," notes Richard Moroney.

Here, the editor of Upside explain, "Considering its bright profit-growth prospects, reasonable valuation, and impressive Quadrix scores, Helix remains among our very best ideas and a top pick in the oil patch."

"Helix serves energy producers worldwide, providing such contract services (36% of total revenue for the nine months ended September) as deepwater pipe-laying, well operations, robotics, and reservoir services.

"The shelf-contracting business (34%) consists of 59%-owned Cal Dive International (NYSE: DVR), a provider of dive-related and shallow-water construction services.

"The fast-growing oil and natural gas production business (30%) focuses on marginal, mature, and smaller fields - properties no longer significant or viable for large energy companies. Fueled partly by high energy prices, petroleum companies are increasingly targeting mature and small reservoirs.

Digital video recording company TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO) has developed a system for tracking the TV viewing habits of individuals minute-by-minute. Combined with basic demographic data, the information may make the targeting of television ads more effective.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE)'s NBC seems to have bought into the new program. It will use the TiVo product to help its advertisers do a better job of reaching their audiences. "Advertisers have been asking us to help them find new ways to make TV advertising more effective," Mike Pilot, president of NBC Universal Sales and Marketing, told The Wall Street Journal.

TiVo's product does not seem to help advertisers with certain critical problems like skipping commercials on shows that were recorded by the consumer to be viewed later. It is also not clear whether individual viewing behavior is an effective way to make advertising work better. Just because a 50-year old man is watching a show about a car does not mean he is in the market for a new vehicle.

Once TiVo or another company can offer a service that allows marketers to know what the viewer is thinking, they may have a service that really works.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

The holy grail of advertising these days is trying to find exactly what customers are looking for, when they are looking for it and when they are most likely to convert into buyers. In radio and TV advertising, special phone numbers and websites can serve a tracking purpose that allows statisticians to pull out data like this. Online web searching installs a whole new level of data collection that lets sellers really know their buyers (and customize marketing as appropriate). But just how do those customers actually respond to certain forms of advertising? Why are only a fraction of advertising viewers doing anything in reaction to an ad -- why not all 100%?

Biological experiments that take stock of physiological monitoring are nothing new in the advertising arena, and at NBC, advertisers want to know more about consumer reactions as the television medium continues to be under assault from ad dollars moving online (along with advertisers themselves). In order to bring ads back to television, the medium has to evolve beyond passive and impressions-based advertising to one of actually engaging customers and measuring the experience. But what makes up such an experience? Watching KFC (NYSE: YUM)'s absurd ads with a bastardized version of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" being screamed in the background, I think, actually drives customers away from the fast-food chain. Perhaps I am wrong.

NBC's research, though, has a new twist: It measures customer engagement to commercial advertisements viewed in fast-forward mode. With more folks in the U.S. using TiVo and other digital video recorders that allow fast-forwarding through commercials, TV networks are losing ad dollars to advertisers that don't want to pay for viewers that zap right through commercials. But, if those viewers have some kind of meaningful engagement to the commercial, even when fast forwarded, then the networks regain some ammunition to negotiate ad rates.

That "bloop-bloop-bloop" you hear is the collective fast-forwarding over the commercials as households with TiVos (NASDAQ: TIVO) or other digital video recording (DVR) devices zoom through the ad breaks.

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times reports that with DVR use on the rise, the Nielsen ratings group has started to monitor how American television watchers view commercials.

Advertisers have been claiming of late that the increased use of DVRs cuts down on the actual viewing of commercials. With fewer eyes ostensibly on the advertising messages, many feel that the cost for air time should be reduced. This month, with May sweeps on the books, networks and advertisers begin work on contracts for the fall season, so these fresh Nielsen numbers may be used as a bargaining chip to calculate ad rates for prime-time space on the major networks. Last year, advertisers pledged $8.75 billion in commercial-spot dollars during the "upfront" sales season. Current expectations are for this figure to decline this year.

Yahoo! deserved its exclamation point today. The stock ran up $1.01 (more than $1!), which amounts to a 3% jump for the now $33 stock.

Message boards were jumping today as investors cheered the rally. "Yhoo, two year low, going back up!" proclaimed one poster. Another: "The lights are green for a buy!" Why such optimism? Probably because the stock was going up, of course. The message boards referred to an analyst upgrade that I could find no evidence of.

However, what I did find is a lot of talk in the blogosphere about Yahoo! Go, the company's new free DVR player fueled by its purchase of Meedio (more thoughts and links on the technology and what it means for Microsoft's media player from Techcrunch). The folks at The Fly On The Wall (subscription required) attributed Yahoo's run-up to excitement over the new service.

As our stock blogger notes, this could be a huge business for Yahoo. Try it yourself and let us know what you think. If it really changes the way we watch TV -- and once Wall Street catches on to the implications -- Yahoo shares could get more of a boost.

Last week, we blogged about Yahoo!'s acquisition of Meedio Software (and its top notch team) and wondered a bit as to what the implications might be. 

Well, it didn't take the company long to pull the home media products into the fold and begin promoting Meedio grown offerings to the public. As Om posted last night, Yahoo! is offering downloads of the super cool computer based digital video recorders (DVR's) for free. 

You gotta love the price!

Thus far, the major news media has not jumped on this story and waxed on the implications for Yahoo! -- nor has it mentioned how this might affect Tivo and the cable companies who sell DVR boxes and monthly subscriptions with similar services. But this is only a matter of time as the service begins to attract more users.

Yahoo! has integrated the product into its "Yahoo! Go" platform which hints at where the company might be headed as it appears it is bent on controlling an ever broadening swath of its users' social and multimedia experiences even fostering the convergence of the two.

It also serves as one more example of the dynamic potential of the portal model which, when you think about it, is still only in its formative stages.