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Kellner Says Commerical-Skip Worth $250/year
Steve B writes: "A sequel to Turner CEO: "PVR Users Are Thieves" -- according to this story reported by Broadcasting & Cable, our friend Jamie Kellner says that consumers should be prepared to pay "as much as $250 per year" for the privilege of zapping over commercials. BTW, I'm not being entirely sarcastic when I call Kellner "our friend" -- if we properly exploit this story as an example of why Hollywood wants control over our consumer electronics, Kellner just might dig their graves with his big mouth."
WTF? Is Jamie Kellner secretly a card-carrying member of the PTC??!?
works fine for me!
With DirecTv, I pay an extra $13 a month for HBO. That buys me not just the ability to watch television without commercial interruption, but also television without commercial interference.
By which I mean, they're not bleeped, cut or badly overdubbed when someone swears. I can see the actresses breasts whenever the director felt it artistically valid to show them.
And, let's face it, shows like Larry Sanders, Dennis Miller Live and Mr Show would never have been made on networks that had to pander to the advertising dollar.
So, Mr Kellner, here's the deal. For my annual $250, I demand to see programming that isn't lowest common denominator bullshit that only exists to fill the time between you showing me the clips trying to convince me to buy more cornflakes.
Sound good?
rOD.
Rod Begbie done this, and he's not
Where do I sign?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Face it, TV broadcasting is a service. The price we pay is ads. If you watch TV without watching the ads, you are stealing. I would be more than willing to pay in dollars instead of in boredom. Besides, $250 is about as much as Sky Digital goes for down here, and that has no ads. So what's wrong with that?
Greetings, for free software!
I'm not sure why broadcasters are up in arms about PVRs skipping adverts. Anyone who records a program rather than watch it live is going to forward through the adverts anyway, when they get around to watching it. Advertisers already know this, and they're still willing to pay for advertising because most people watch TV programs live rather than record them.
Surely, what broadcasters are worried about is the whole concept of a TV recording machine that people watch instead of live TV. The fact it skips adverts in the recording is just icing. I think they're mostly worried about losing the eyeballs of the lucrative AB demographic -- high-earning types who only watch a few select TV programs anyway. But don't they think that attacking their own viewers and branding them "thieves" is a bit misguided? How is that going to get people to watch the TV more?
Does my bum look big in this?
Hell, that's cheaper than cable is, I'm all for it! Oh wait, you mean they won't be cutting thier profit margin any? I keep forgetting that they are guaranteed a certian level of profit by law...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Advertising pays for "content". We all know this. But when you look at it from a slightly different way you can see that the deal between You, the Producer/Broadcaster, and The Advertiser, is something similar to You standing in line to get into a club, and a (ahem) SlimyGuy stepping up to you and saying "It's okay, I'll pay your way in". How many of You would say "sure" without thinking that the SlimyGuy must want something from you...
I think in this "modern era", with the ability to have more and more targetted advertising, we will soon get to the point where we could Pay Our Own Way if we wanted to.
That is, wouldn't it be peachy, if we as Consumers, could have the right to pay the Broadcaster/Producer the same amount they would have gotten from the Advertiser? The rates are publicly published, so there's no real question as to the Value of your eyeballs during a given TV or radio show, or even web-page.
Frankly, I'd like to choose when I want to displace ads, and when I'm happy to let the SlimyGuy pay my way.
Good shows could get even better when "the Circle is Now Complete", and the person consuming can pay the person(s) producing more directly, rather than the producer being influenced by the SlimyGuy giving them money so that people will watch some stuff in between their Soap ads.
And don't even get me started on Magazines, which TOTALLY could be printed without ads for those people who choose to pay. Heck, it'd be almost as easy to have as many or as few ads as you liked.
The question is could such a Right for consumers actually be pushed through? I know if there were we'd all at least not really be able to complain that TV is a vast wasteland.
Put the power back in the REAL purchasers hands, and maybe we can actually wipe off some of that slime.
Oliver's Law: Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
I would prefer cheaper but heh it is cheaper then basic cable.
Advertisers aren't stupid. They have been modifing the commercial format so that they still get there message across.
First, why do you think that half of all the commercials on are better than the stupid shows? Hell, the super bowl commercials are awesome! Also, advertisers are making commercials which can be 'effective' when fast-forwarded through with a VCR.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
Like anyone actually buys crap from ads on TV anyways.
A new technology comes along, which allows us users to save time, not having to spend so much time out of our busy day watching commercials, that's just fucking tough for advertisers.
Furthermore, intelligent advertisers have started to insert "ads" into TV shows. For example, All My Children promotes cosmetics company Revlon within the show, by having one of their actresses take a job at Revlon within the show.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Not that I actually read the story or anything (G-d forbid) but based on the summary, I'd be happy to pay US$250 a year to have all my TV without ads. No product placements either. I've got my credit card handy.
I really want the ability to record programs, and later watch them, and I'd pay a premium for certain PVR features like:
Each of these features is worth money, and if I have to pay a premium to get some or all of these features, I will do so. If the broadcasting networks think that it's worth $250 extra per year to receive their programs without commercials, then why don't they try offering it? Couldn't they offer their content without commercials on a series of premium cable channels? Gosh, no, it turns out that it's not just about skipping commercials -- I think people are more interested in the time-shifting ability than skipping commercials. I certainly am.
While each of these features is promised by one or more companies that claim to manufacture PVRs, I have been unable to see any PVR in use, except for one demo of UltimateTV (which I later learned I cannot use because I apparently can't get a signal at my home).
I've recently been shopping for a PVR and have concluded that none are currently available from companies likely to be in business in 6 months.
I really, really want a Personal Video Recorder, and I'd gladly pay a premium. Indeed, I actually bought an RCA UltimateTV unit and satellite dish, but I can't get a signal and neither DirecTV nor UltimateTV could suggest the name of any installers who would not charge me huge fees just to confirm that I can't get a satellite signal. I sent the system back.
I wanted to try TiVo, which has a "fast-fast-forward" but they signed an exclusive deal with Best Buy, which won't demo the unit (and doesn't have them in stock anyway).
ReplayTV demands a huge premium (charging roughly a $300-$350 premium for its prepaid lifetime subscription for programming -- but the money isn't put in escrow, and I assume that if the company loses or settles the pending lawsuits, it will abandon all customers.)
And that leaves . . . nobody. Oh, yeah, DishTV offers its own PVR, but of course I don't expect to get a DishTV signal if I can't get a DirecTV signal (and I understand the companies are merging).
I really want the ability to record programs, and later watch them, and I'd pay a premium for certain features like dual tuners (so I can record one program while watching another, or record two programs at once), a meaningful "commercial skip," and accurate programming information and proper synchronization so I don't lose the first 2 or last 2 minutes of programs because the system decides that it's 7:59 when Fox thinks it's 8:01.
I'd gladly pay a premium, and $250 per year for the commercial-skip capability would be well worth it.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
In other words, if I switch channels just as the hour-long 8pm program on one channel ends, I find that I'm 2 minutes into the second channel's 9pm program. This does not appear to be some kind of isolated situation -- it seems to be happening quite often, certainly I notice it several times per week.
According to my best indicators of the "real" time, most networks seem to run late (e.g. their 9pm programs start at 9:02pm and end at 9:59 or 10:00) but others are "out of sync" by one, two, or occasionally three minutes.
While some might just consider this another example of broadcast-TV incompetence (or perhaps someone can find a way to blame it on cable TV), I wonder if one or more of the networks or local affiliates might be doing this intentionally -- either to gain some kind of perceived competitive edge, or to screw up people who are recording programs using VCRs or PVRs and relying on program start and end times?
Can anyone explain this odd trend? Has anyone else noticed it? Or has it always been happening and I've just been oblivious until recently?
If it matters, I'm in the San Francisco bay area, with AT&T Broadband cable.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
See what happens when lazy golf playing no nothings end up controlling an industry because when they kiss ass they aren't afraid to tickle some nuts along the way. Music industry is the same way. They got comfortable bullshitting everyone else for so long that this revolution in technology just bit them square in the ass. It is not the job of legislators to manage the recording industry or the movie industry or even commercial television and I for one am tired of these lazy asses complaining every time there is a possible threat to their income streams especially when it is something dealing with fair use and our rights being taken away as Americans because some a-hole with money to burn can afford to shmooze up with a couple of lawmakers were he makes the old hard luck case about the state of affairs so that laws can be passed that protect the interests of a few people while removing the rights of millions of others. The real pisser is that we as Americans just sit here and take it because we don't care, are too lazy, or simply don't know any better. We try and do something about the DMCA and thousands of voices are crushed by a few who cite phony statistics and make up industry losses to justify unfair laws that allow monopolies to run rampant. In the left corner we have Microsoft in the right corner we have the American people. Look who got so many circles run around them that we still don't what the hell happened. I hope that the industry as we know it dies a horrible death. Not that I wish public television to be gone but I do think there are people out there who would do it better and for less money if given the chance. I think the programming would be less about training people to consume and more about entertaining them and possibly educating them. This is what we need not just some d-head getting laws passed that empower the few at the expense of the majority.
I for one will not pay 250 more a year for the "privilege" of fast-forwarding commercials. No more than I will put my thumbprint on a check for some bank that obviously has issues to begin with if they are treating the people their customers owe money to as criminals. This is almost like the phone companies wanting to charge extra monies to people who by post-it notes because it enables them to keep a number handy so they don't call information for phone numbers any more.
Why don't they just make better commercials with continuing stories? If they were funny, then I'd watch. If they had a continuing and meaningful storyline, then I'd watch.
Consumers need to see products being used. This would help them see how the product can benefit them. That's why Hollywood is so good at influencing fashion. A good idea would be for a family in a tv show to use an enviromentally friendly washer and drier. This would help people to see how well the item works and/or how easy it is to use. If a couple of characters used transit more often, then perhaps the viewer will see that there is more to transit than just less green house gases.
testing out my trending skills
I grow wearisome and tired of companies that bash males and make them look stupid. There have been a few commercials with "stupid women" in them recently, but still.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want us to get so politically correct that we can't laugh at ourselves. After all, if someone is the butt of the joke in a funny commercial, it's going to be a male of female.
The butt of the joke should be determined by what is funny and by common sense, not by some agenda.
testing out my trending skills
People watch too much tv as it is. Anything to discourage them would be good. Once people begin to pay more per viewing hour, they may begin to realize that they are better off watching quality documentaries and shows that the whole family can watch together.
Documentaries can help the family learn together, sort of like reading book, but not as good in general. On the other hand a picture is worth a thousand words, and a moving picture is worth a thousand pictures.
Once the family can see that they can save money by having more people watch per hour, they may be willing to compromise more by watching programming that will be suitable for all ages.
I haven't watched Bugs Bunny lately, but I heard that there was humour on several levels, thus entertaining the child [because it's a cartoon] and the adult [because it's witty].
testing out my trending skills
There have been many shows cancelled simply due to ratings. Even though they may rate in the top 10 or top 40 of all new shows, they still might be cancelled. This is what I read according to TV Week Magazine [a competitor of TV guide]. A perfect example is, "Christy". It stayed regularly at #2 on CBS [and once or twice reached #1] for the week, but was cancelled anyways, because the market that was attracted to it doesn't spend as much as the market that watched other shows. I saw that on a "Christy" web site, so you could do a google search.
Networks and stations should focus more on doing what they are best at, which is bringing shows to viewers.
testing out my trending skills
You have discovered the great truth of television. All they care about is your money. If they can get your money with "Christy" and they can get more money with "Friends," which option will they choose? The painfully obvious answer is they will go for more money. Perhaps you would prefer that the government run television?
If you are never moderated, do you really exist?
No, I wouldn't. The government is just doing fine as it is. If anything it should interfere less.
I would prefer that most of the tv shows were based on pay-per-view. It makes it harder for the shows to offend their viewers.
testing out my trending skills
I'll pay the $250 a year without hesitation. I already pay around $90 a month now, the extra $20 wouldn't be an issue. However, I want the TV shows to start on time. I don't like sports, so don't ever give me a "We now join the normal broadcast already in progress." I don't want shows put in the guide and then pulled. Just because some larger demographic doesn't like some show that you bought 12 episodes of, don't leave me hanging and cancel after 6 are aired with everything at loose ends, you have enough broadcast assets that you can air the rest on your non-broadcast / 'cable' networks. In other words if you want me to pay you for the privelidge of skipping past commercials, I don't want flack for doing it, and I want much higher quality of service for what I care about. When I say record this episode, I don't want some producer deciding I don't really want the whole thing! Even Showtime is guilty of bad start stop times, get it together 'networks'.
The better solution that should occur rather than multi-billion dollar industries crying poor is for advertisers to come up with better ads. There have been a few that have caught my eye that I stopped and watched. I don't think the broadcast industry has the stomach to actually develop quality products though. Just look at the rash this season of the replacment shows and then the replacements of the replacements. Monty Python would be proud. It takes time for a cast to jell and the chemistry to build. Just look at how disjoint the first season of so many shows that are now well watched were (Buffy is a great example, as were the first dozen 'Trek episodes (pick any of the trek family, it seems universal, er paramount:)). But until you get a network executive that understands the TV watching audience and that it takes time to build an audience, that you can't show 2 new episodes followed by 2 reruns and a month hiatus and build a following, they just don't get it. I could do better, heck almost anyone could do better than most of them this season. It comes down to salesmanship.
Lastly, if we skip the commercials, just charge more for product placement. Put those blue "dial down the center" buttons on the phones (or the 1-800-collect stickers, like "Tracker" has on set), leave a Coke truck in the background of the shot, have someone actually unwrap a package of Hanes underware. Just don't make it part of the story make it natural and incidental and through repitition people will associate the products with the stars and you gain that influence vector, and you gain name / brand recognition.
Also, the reason I skip commercials is I want more TV in less time. I can watch 1.5 hours of broadcast time TV in 1 hour realtime by skipping. So if they went subtle with product placement I'd see 1.5 times as much advertising per hour than the broadcast viewer, so I should get paid to watch at that point. (and in fact the raw demographics that are gathered represent a valuable comodity that you'd otherwise pay big bucks to gather through multiple focus groups, etc. So don't come crying that you are losing revenue when you are gaining information on the cheap, particularly when you use the courts to get it for free.)
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
www.tivo.com
This guy is nuts - whatever he's taking, I want two of them please!
Seriously though - I occasionally don't watch a channel - does that mean that I've somehow deprived the broadcaster of revenue and that I owe them a check?
I don't recall ever signing a contract with these fools saying that I'd (drone on...) watch all commercials and buy all products (drone off....)
I record everything and watch it when I feel like it. I specifically FF across the commercials because 99.9% of them SUCK ROCKS! Moreover, I have a photographic memory, so once I've seen it - I can't watch it again, it's too boring. And how many times have you only seen a commercial one time?
I also have something that maybe 50% of the population doesn't have - A BRAIN. I use it to filter out bullshit, and being the hypercritical person that I am, I don't buy anything simply because a talking head in an advertisement said "THIS IS THE GREATEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN! WOW!" - I evaluate everything for myself. Ads don't play into it at all.
As far as I'm concerned, they licensed public airwaves to deliver programming, they can deal with how the public wants to consume it. But as for this piracy argument - don't make me laugh... just go home and beat yourself with a stick until you can't move, you stupid asshole of a TV executive
N/T
there's another reason the commercials are better. "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television", by J. Mander, comes to mind... it's because ad _have_ to be more attention-getting than the shows, and the easiest way to do this is to make them better than the show they are on. it's inherent in the technology and hierarchy of tv. advertisers do not like putting effort into a commercial, only to have it upstaged by a show more memorable than the plug they shelled out their {cough} hard-earned {/cough} coins for. they will not throw money at a show just so that people don't remember their client's corporate logo.
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Give me a wealth of TV viewing choices with no commercials, no product placement, and honest and open non-marketing agendas, and I'm all over it.
Turn off the TV. Don't record anything. Find other things to do with the time. If you think they're upset about skipping commercials, just wait and see how upset they get when nobody is paying attention.
TNT (or TNN? I always get the two confused) has been doing this for many years; most of their shows are offset by 5 minutes or so.
Neither. TBS starts programs at :05 and :35. TNN is the one with the black status bar at the bottom, which lets the channel run ads without interrupting the program.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Windows 2000 --0000000000000000000000000000000000
Microsoft-IIS/5.0 --0000000000000000000000000000
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63.79.81.214--0000000000000000000000000000000000
NT4/Windows 98 --0000000000000000000000000000000
Microsoft-IIS/4.0 --000000000000000000000000000
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63.79.81.214 --00000000000000000000000000000000
Elogic --0000000000000000000000000000000000000
Windows 2000 --00000000000000000000000000000000
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16-Mar-2002 --00000000000000000000000000000000
63.79.81.214 --00\00000000000000000000000000000
Elogic --0000000000000000000000000000000000000
NT4/Windows 98
Microsoft-IIS/4.0
15-Mar-2002
63.79.81.214
Elogic
Windows 2000
Microsoft-IIS/5.0
12-Mar-2002
63.79.81.214
Elogic
NT4/Windows 98
Microsoft-IIS/4.0
11-Jan-2002
63.79.81.214
Elogic
Windows 2000
Microsoft-IIS/5.0
3-Jan-2002
63.79.81.214
Elogic
NT4/Windows 98
Microsoft-IIS/4.0
28-Sep-2001
63.79.81.214
Elogic
going to have to do some crashing of my own.
I cannot remember the last time I turned it
on.
Modern DVDs *do* come out in HDTV format... "anamorphic widescreen", or "Optimized for Widescreen TVs" is what you want to look for. They'll play on standard NTSC tv's with the black matting above and below the screen, or on a widescreen TV taking up the full screen.
Surely you knew this already?
Call me old fashioned, but I guess I'll just keep stealing my TV by channel surfing during the commercials of the shows I watch. Of all of the rediculous things to be upset with, I'm suprised that this didn't come up when they introduced VCR+, those damn thieves who have taped their shows can fast forward through commercials too.
On a related note to tivo, legally or not, you can't tivo a pay-per-view event (such as wrestlemania). It completely blocks the recording function. You have to trick it by setting tivo to record a long show on another channel, and then change the cable box by itself. Could be worse, but what a pain!
Why not charge for what I watch? Why am I paying for 15-20 channels that I never watch? I don't mind commercials, I understand the tradeoff, I can zone out when they come on or whatever. But why am I paying for them in the first place?
To address the issue, Kellner's on crack if he thinks it's stealing. Also, he's not offering no commercials for $250/year, he's telling you that for you to have the "privelige" of doing a 30 second manual skip on your PVR. If he were offering that, sure, lots of people would take him up on it. Also, the idea of him being a "friend" has some merit, because I'm betting that aside from the techies and geeks, it's high-dollar CEOs that have these devices and make the most use of the commercial-skip feature to save their own time, and once these comments travel back up the food chain, he'll probably get a smack or two from his buddies at the country club.
- ...because when they kiss ass they...
...bit them square in the ass
...lazy asses complaining...
...some a-hole with money to burn.. (interesting censorship considering the rest of the post)
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Last post!
DVDs are not available in HDTV format. They are available in anamorphic widescreen, which is a squashed widescreen image that takes up the full 720x480 (interlaced) NTSC resolution, rather than wasting space actually encoding the "black bars".
Conveniently, because of the way film is encoded onto interlaced DVDs (telecining) and the difference in framerates, it is possible for a progressive-scan DVD player to reconstruct 480-line progressive picture from the 480-line interlaced picture. FOR FILM MOVIES. Doesn't work for things that were originally recorded in NTSC at 60 fields per second interlaced. So if you coung 480p as "HDTV," then yes. But I don't think you get the "H" until you get to 720p or 1080i. Which are not available on DVD.
I'm sick of broadcast TV, anyway. I'm waiting for TV on demand. No more schedules set by TV execs strictly looking for the best demographics, no more 8-minute breaks for commercials. Just a nice "preview" function and the ability to schedule your own playlist for anytime you want, and pay for the time you watch. All it takes is bandwidth, interactivity, and waiting for the entire TV industry to change its business model.
Just like we're waiting for the music industry to change its business model.
In other words, don't hold your breath.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
How many times have you seen blatant product placements in a program. For example, a computer monitor with a highlighted logo on the back, one that is color-keyed for visibility when the real product doesn't have that? Or on Survivor last week, the challenge winners using a Visa (tm) to pay for something they won on the show. Or a game show with it's embedded ads. Or a sporting event, with the athletes platered with logos and the arena with a coporate moniker?
And Mr. TBS dude, every time th Braves play on your station (what, about 13,232 times a year?) every time you see the batter, there is a banner ad behind him. Meanwhile, the announcers hype up the 32nd run movie that is on after the game and then tell me what the Delta Airlines Scorebaord has on it, with the other teams playing in their corporate named stadiums, and so forth and so on.
We won't even talk about NASCAR.
And is MTV and other music anything BUT a commercial for record companies and their artists? Think they do videos to make art? Nope. They do them to sell plastic waffles. Don;t kid yourself. And that's "content."
So don't tell me I should pay you to make something more convenient for me. You are already bombarding me WHILE I am watching your programs, so don't try and bullshit old men like Ernest Hollings into legislatively giving y'all a revenue stream.
...when would we go to the bathroom?
You can have your cake and eat it to.
b .net - version with timer built in
Get a TV tuner card, set it up to capture your shows, edit the commercials out, voila.
"Record the past" by going onto IRC and finding a fellow encoder who encodes the same show, in the event that you miss your program or your Microsloth operating system decides to spontaneously reboot 2 minutes before the end of Andy Richter.
http://www.VirtualDub.org
http://www.VirtualDu
Any old capture card will do.
Out with the old, in with the new.
If skipping commercials on TV is stealing, then flipping pages in a magazine should be too, right? Granted, I paid for the magazine ( other than the ones I read at Barnes and Noble ), but the magazine cost was subsidised by the advertisers.
No, the advertisers aren't paying for you to watch their commercials. They're paying for the *opportunity* for you to watch their commercials. Viewers have always had the opportunity to chat with their friends, go take a leak, or skip the commercials all together. The opportunity they paid for still exists.
Ha. The other night, I paid 7.50 to see a movie, 2 hours or so of commercial-free entertainment. Trailers notwithstanding, there were 5 minutes of ads before the movie, and a bazillion product placements within.
You think if you paid them $$, they'd remove the commercials? No, they'd leave them in for you to skip, then double the product placements, then pocket your cash.
That post-sports "we now join our regular programming, already in progress" happens because of the very specific contracts major sports have with TV. The broadcaster (cable or airwave) has no choice in the matter if they want to carry that sporting event.
You may also have noticed that until recently, when the 10am (PST) football game goes past the next game's 1pm (PST) start, they'd cut away from the unfinished game and go to the next one. That was because the NFL's broadcast contract stated unequivocally that you MUST broadcast the beginning of ANY game you carried, and if that meant leaving a game in progress, tough.
Similarly, sports contracts often don't allow broadcasters to truncate a game in favour of regular programming.
Also, typically sports are a bigger ad revenue market and often their viewers are the largest demographic in that timeslot. And when sports events *are* truncated, the backlash can be horrific. It took one network decades to live down the infamous incident where they cut away from a critical NFL playoff game, in order to broadcast the scheduled content (which IIRC was an ancient and oft-rerun movie, "Heidi").
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I remember, not too long ago, one of the Tampa TV stations got major flak for cutting away from the critical moment of a golf tournament, showing Tiger Woods making an important shot, for...
... a tornado warning.
Shows where the general public's priorities are. "Screw the tornado, I wanted to see Tiger Woods!"
o/~ All God's children shall be free in Pirates of the Caribbean, when we reach that Magic Kingdom in the sky... o/~