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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."
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
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!"
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.
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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
"Face it, TV broadcasting is a service."
TV broadcasting is an imposition. They blast my property and my person with their rf without my permission. They should be paying me.
"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."
I watch no TV at all, thereby depriving the broadcasters of exactly what an ad-skipper does. Does that men I "owe" $250/year also?
"So what's wrong with that?"
What's wrong with that is that viewers of broadcast TV have no contract with and no obligation to the broadcasters. They have no more right to complain about ad-skipping than the owner of a billboard does about people who look at only part of the billboard.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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!
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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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].
I haven't either, mostly because none of the networks carry it. It's now primium content requiring a subscription (cable/dish/cartoon network) to receive. I haven't seen it on ABC, NBC, CBS on Saturday mornings in years. It seems to have been replaced by infomercials.
The truth shall set you free!
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.
"Why don't they just make better commercials with continuing stories? "
Ehm, isn't that what the "programs" are, really, think about it...
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
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.
Most magazines these days are more ad than content, it's just spread out so much that you don't really notice.
I don't mind the ads so much as those stupid fucking blow-in cards. I'd gladly pay a few extra bucks for magazine subscriptions where I could flip through an issue without those damn things flying out at me.
And just to keep things on topic, this Kellner guy is a moron and an asshole... he's like the Dan Quayle of AOL/TW. If I'm gonna pay an extra ~$20/month to not have to watch commercials, I want programs that are 30 or 60 minutes long to fill in that space. Unless they do that, fuck 'em... I'll just keep using the 'jump ahead 30 seconds' button on my TiVo remote.
~Philly
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.
I'm pretty sure that when I went over to a friend's place to watch UFC, he had his TiVo recording it. When your cable box only feeds your TiVo in a normal hookup, do you think the cable company (or whoever) would be so stupid as to force people to rewire their AV systems when a PPV show is on?
(Then again, with the subject of this story, maybe the media pukes are that stupid. :-P )
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Modern DVDs *do* come out in HDTV format... Check the spec. HDTV is not widescreen. HDTV is not NTSC. It's a high resolution digital format. Where is the HDTV output on a DVD player? Anything that is just NTSC or PAL (butchered versions with Macrovision) is not HDTV regardless of the aspect ratio. Show me the digital HDTV output!
The truth shall set you free!
no. you're not getting a 'product' (watching tv programs) so why should you pay for that product? its simple. if you don't watch, you don't pay. if you don't buy soda, you don't pay for soda.
all this should be pretty obvious.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
"you're not getting a 'product' (watching tv programs) so why should you pay for that product?"
Broadcast television is no more a product than are the words on a billboard.
"its simple. if you don't watch, you don't pay."
But my not watching at all costs the broadcasters exactly as much as does your watching of everything but the commercials: nothing.
"if you don't buy soda, you don't pay for soda."
Bad analogy. Soda is a physical product: every soda I drink is a soda someone else can't. And the soda manufacturers don't pour soda over my head without my permission and then demand payment should I swallow any.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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?