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AOL-Time/Warner's PVR to Skip Ad-Skipping
btempleton writes "Echoing recent comments that PVR users are thieves a story from CNET announces that AOL's set-top box plans may not allow skipping ads. Broadcasters continue to be afraid of the PVR, admitedly with good reason for their current business model. As I point out in my essay on the future of TV, PVRs and Advertising, TV ads are a terrible bargain for the user, paying us about $1.20 per hour of our attention, and something has to change. It's worth noting that they say they like the Tivo over the Replay because the Tivo does not have 30 second skip, but in fact it does."
I certainly wouldn't buy one if it didn't let me skip the adverts and I can't see that anyone else will either
Sig is taking a break!
This is so obviously dumb, I don't know where to begin.
How about... With TiVo, et al. why would you even bother with such an idiotic invention?
I have been pwned because my
Many ./ adepts adhere this slogan, which also applies to advertising. No matter how many skipping systems, popup blockers, spam filters, etc are invented, there will always be unwanted advertisment. Just as much as Falung Gong pamflets for instance just can't be killed in china.
That aside, offcourse you're free to block anything you like. I've personaly found that little on/off switch on my TV to be an excellent advertisement filter !
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Don't you get it? TV doesn't make itself. I agree that ads are highly annoying and personally I tape record items and fast forward, but if there were none at all, why would TV make good shows? It is the main source of revenue for them, and they make such programs because of the ads. If not for the ads, TV would be vastly more expensive, with every channel a premium channel. Monopolies on markets would only add to this.
Now, some companies might make money by making products that allow you to skip over ads but AOL Time Warner owns several channels and thus does not want to shoot itself in the foot.
Sheesh.... so dunt include ad skip and everyone will just fast-forward or go to the bathroom or the kitchen like we do during commericals now.. this is really silly....
But do they get the first 100 hours ad-free?
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
what da hell, i'm just gonna go live on a boat in international waters!
There are no ads on the WWW and it is free.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Well I have a Tivo. Sometimes when I FF through the ads, I'll see one that catches my eye. Then I will watch the ad.I won't watch the same ad a million times, which is what happens on alot of of shows.
Just make ads we want to watch.
Philip
. . . is that these players are all are remotely "upgradable," and that TiVo and Replay will disable features customers like in half a heartbeat when it suits their revenue model, or the whims of a judge in the pocket of the MPAA.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
Hello? Would you buy a VCR without a "FF" button?
I thought that companies generally tried to research their markets before introducing new products...
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
...paying for MY cable- so I owe it to AOL/TW to watch their commercials?
I think not.
They can get in that long line of people who are full of crap and can blow me.
I guess they can just lose a customer over this.
/. is more entertaining anyways.
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
If nobody wants to watch the ads, perhaps the ads are not worth watching? Now, this would be a good incentive for the advertisers to make ads worth watching!!!
How long will it take for one of their "compliant" boxes to be reversed engineered and a 30-60-90 second skip function added? Maybe a month? The firmware will be on a flash chip. Now as for AOL Timewarner you're going to start seeing a lot more product placement ads (ie:Spiderman & Dr. Pepper (PepsiCo)) and Rosie O'Donald & her Wendy's salad. Not that this is anything new, but were going to start seeing more of it.
... I don't own a TV or a Tivo or any of those "advertainment" devices. I choose to IGNORE all advertising... even though I work in print media and my livelyhood depends on ads.
Umm... well Maybe I won't
---
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
If people stop watching TV ads, then maybe advertisers will put more money into the banner ads. That would be nice.
-Geoff
Check out TrailRegistry.com, my hiking site, Maps, altitude pr
...in front of the TV screen?
I think they will because I'm actually "developing a technology" that allows me to "avoid restrictions" put on "digital media".
Obviously I'm joking.
They won't sue me because I'll patent this "technology" (the black cardboard) and make money from it, so since I'm getting paid for that I am under the law. A disclaimer will avoid me the legal stuff.
Thank God I didn't want to release that idea under a GPL-style license!
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
If we don't watch out, networks will go to the CNN format where the show is only a portion of the screen with crap in windows elsewhere. Think of what they could do by going to letterbox format and then using "banner advertisements" in the bands above and/or below. The up side to something like this is then we could get 30 minutes of programming instead of 22 in a half hour show.
Who's fault is it that consumers do not wish to view the adverts?
tivo and replay are providing the consumers with a service which allows them to choose what they do and dont watch
If I dont want to watch ads, no one can make me
If someone came up with an amazing device to sift all of the mail ads that you recieve as they fall through the letterbox, would they get this same treatment?
In most countries, there are services which prevent direct marketing calls to your phone, for people who dont want cold calling and the like
The same thing for SMS spam
Email isnt there yet, but it wouldnt supprise me if it was
So, if a consumer can choose whether they recieve ads via phone, sms, mail (there are some services to prevent you getting ads via mail I believe) - why shouldnt they be able to choose whether they recieve the TV ads too?
Scientific Atlanta will be providing the DVR box. It will be able to record both analog and digital channels. It will not use Tivo software. It has dual tuners so you can record one show while watching another. For more info, see this press release.
Hmmm, Etwas ist faul im Staate Daenemark...
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
AOL spokesman Mark Harrad confirmed the company's ad-skipping plans
They're skipping now? A bit of a typo...
cable operator is also looking at including copyright-protection technology in such devices. The technology would limit how viewers can use content delivered to their homes.
This is getting insane. Next they will have a CDTBPA like law for video players. If your sending out the content to my home, and im paying for that service (either through the advertising or subscription) I'm damn well allowed to do what I want with that stuff (within piracy laws, obviously).
Just because they send out advertising with it, doesn't mean I have to watch it. So how's this different from deleting it? I spose they'll be telling us what to watch, what to listen to etc, Oh wait......
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
The latter. I can defeat the latter with two well-placed pieces of cardboard. Of course, I already defeat it all by downloading what little TV I want to see. And if they take that away, I'll live happily without them. I've always been meaning to explore that, um, outdoors thing.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
Because you paid the producer for his product maybe? The BBC and, ISTR A&E and other services provide an uncontaminated feed. I'm sure you value your time - why waste it watching adverts you pay for indirectly anyway?
Some of the monitor screens on Andromeda have the 'IBM' logo displayed prominently underneath.
And it makes you wonder if the new Enterprise series was moved a bit closer to the present day just so that you can conceivably imagine current corporations having their goods advertised on the show.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Yeah....and Time Warner sells cable service. Unlike your local stations which broadcast for free. Seems to be win/win for T/W.
I wasn't aware they did.
Possibly, just possibly, it might be worth trying to commission ads that don't insult the intelligence of a dead sheep? I seem to recall a campaign in the UK a few years ago that ran a whole mini soap-opera to promote a brand of instant coffee, and people's attention was caught because the ads were (a) well made, and (b) the audience wanted to see what happened at the next stage in the story.
(Of course, this does take a bit more effort and genuine creativity than you need to produce the usual dreck.)
You've GOT to be kidding. Television is a filthy bowl of swill as it is.
Then I assume you don't have a television, and hence none of this discussion affects you?
I thought so...
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
I had assumed that the solution is for advertisers to make high quality and entertaining commercials that actually border on content, which necessitates making fewer of them and running them for longer.
And then I remembered that last night I was watching a Captain Scarlet rerun, and thinking "Hey, these little wooden guys are better actors than half of the ones in mainstream drama and comedy shows."
So given that we've shown a propensity for accepting any old crap as original content, perhaps the solution is for advertisers to go that way and produce more content, and damn the quality. If you're watching two hour of TV, you can easily see the same advert six or more times. If it didn't work as a sales pitch the first time, it won't work the second or the sixth time. If you switch over to avoid it, it doesn't even gain brand recognition. If you make it too good as content, the message is lost (there's a lovely commercial on UK TV just now featuring cat herding as a metaphor for some service, but I'm damned if I know what service, or who it's for). And no matter how good it is, you simply can't actively watch the same advert six times a night.
However, if they ran six different commercials, even cheesy ones, you get some novelty value. Twist endings, different tunes, even the same scene but with different actors, anything to make you go "Hey! That's not the same as the last one!" Or even (gasp) live commercials. What, we don't have the technology to do that any more? Bollocks, we just don't want to do it, because it cuts out the dickweeds in Armani suits who have to run it past focus groups and debate endlessly on whether it's "on message" or not, all the time missing (or avoiding, rather) the point that we just don't want to watch the same advert more than once.
I'm not saying that I'd actually want to watch commercials, just that I believe there are far too many commercial directors who are frustrated feature directors, and want to produce a single wonderful masterpiece, that looks great - to a bunch of suits in a boardroom who watch it once. Just because I'll buy Buffy on DVD even after seeing in on cable doesn't mean I'll watch even the best quality commercial more than once. You just can't make me care enough during your 30 second slot to make me want to watch it even one more time. But make a dozen 30 second slots, and I might - might - watch them all.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
3. Lawyers
That's what will happen and always seems to happen. When will corporate folks look at this progression and contemplate something else?
Because step 4 has proved itself to be Profit!! enough times to make steps 1-3 a logical choice.
I have been pwned because my
If you live in an area served by Time Warner AOL cable, they will give you the choice-limiting box as part of the service. For analog service, you can simply bypass the box and use your cable-ready TV. But for digital cable and premium channels, you'll have to use their box.
Don't expect to buy some unencumbered replacement box from another source either. Most of these boxes are made just for the cable industry. Yes there are gray-market sources, so you can get a box that lets you watch HBO for free. That constitutes theft of service under 47 U.S.C section 553. They could use the same argument for these new boxes.
I agree that TV ads are annoying and overall not all that desirable, but the key point is no one has come up with a good workable alternative that will still give TV to the masses. Paying per channel is likely to be expensive and cost prohibited to many people (think cable, but about 10 times as expensive as most cable channels also have ads). Placing ads in the corner of the screen is IMHO worse than regular ads. You end up losing part of the show because it's covered up with an ad. And eventually those will go the way of the banner ad and become more and more loud, obnoxious and annoying. Product placement has to be the worst choice though, as you will quickly end up losing creative control of the show to advertisers (much worse than now). Do you really think any product is going to want to pay to be used by the murderer or rapist on the show? Do we really want every person on the show wearing big banners on their chest for whatever product is paying the most? And what happens when a show takes a chance and has the good guys do something controversial? No one will want to advertise on them or the bad guys at that point, effectively eliminating that show (or at least that episode).
So the question is, if 30 second ads aren't the answer, what is?
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
If those budgets are decreased, then do companies need to charge as much for their products?
If companies charge less for their products, then we have more money to pay for access to media.
It would seem that a big reason that we can't really afford to pay for television is because we are spending such an insane amount of money on our sneakers.
Stop advertising of all forms, read Consumer Reports instead. Slash marketing budgets of all major companies, lower prices on retail products. Consumer has more personal wealth, consumer then gives said wealth to the Media company in exchange for hassle-free entertainment.
(this is obviously a very cheery outlook on modern economics. naturally, removing ads from television just means more ads in other places. or simply more profit for cooperations)
I have a TiVo.
Actually, I have two TiVos. One with the stock 20 GB drive and additional 75 GB drive I added, the other with two 100 GB drives.
They're great. I record shows and I watch shows using the fast forward and play buttons to whip through advertisements in a few seconds.
I do play closer attention while the high speed commercials are playing so I don't miss the return of the show. Whether that closer attention does anyone any good, I don't know, but it's a real phenomenon.
Secondly, I've noticed that the only shows I watch live anymore are news shows. I don't record these for later viewing. Hence, those are the one place I end up seeing car commercials, etc.
The moral of the story is that if you're an advertiser, your dollars are better spent on CNN Headline News than they are on conventional entertainment.
Probably the same is true of sporting events. I doubt many people will tolerate watching "old" sports for the benefit of racing through the commercials.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
He did, uh, link to his article in case you cared enough to think "huh?" and post a comment.
"We want it in part because for most of us, TV advertising is a terrible financial deal. The TV network charges the advertiser only around a penny for each viewer, sometimes less. That means a penny for 30 seconds of my attention, or $1.20 for an hour of it. "
This is just silly:
- The viewer isn't getting paid; the network is.
- The advertisers aren't just paying for the viewers' eyes; they're paying for the whole infrastructure of the network too (which ain't cheap).
- The viewer isn't going to be giving full attention to every (any?) commercial.
- The viewer isn't doing any "work" as such, so there goes your "minimum wage" argument.
- That $1.20 also goes to subsidize viewers like you that don't watch any commercials.
Expecting to get paid a "wage" on par with what you make at work is completely ludicrous. If "something has to change", then that something will be the viewer writing a check to the network for television instead of receiving the signal for free. Somebody has to pay for the programming, and right now it ain't you.For me, it's not a question of whether PVRs which skip ads should be allowed. It's more a question of whether ads themselves should be allowed. The whole point of advertising is to increase desire for things you don't have, and are often better off without.
If you watch US television for long, you will start to understand the obesity levels. Stuck between 10 minutes of inane rubbish featuring potentially beautiful but dangerously starved people, you are subjected to 5 minutes of carefully crafted manipulation inviting you to go further into debt, then pig out on sugered drinks and ultra high fat junk.
Simply by increasing obesity, advertising is responsible for more deaths than heroin. See this [guardian.co.uk]. One could argue that it should be banned entirely, like heroin. Personally I think dangerous and destructive things (like adverts or heroin) should be regulated rather than banned outright.
One valid argument against legalised heroin is that sometimes people's choices harm others. For instance, if I end up having to foot the medical bills of heroin users, then it *is* my business what other people do in the privacy of their own homes. So, along with legal drugs I would also support education to warn people of dangers.
It would seem a bit off to me if far more effort went into trying to persuade people to take heroin than was being spent telling them it might not be such a good idea. I don't believe in stopping people from doing stupid things, but I do have a problem with relentless propoganda telling them that stupid things are a good idea.
The existence of adverts on TV effects me adversely even if I don't watch it. For instance, the advertising for PizzaHut leads to increased obesity, the additional burden on medicaid and welfare which increases my taxes. I would be willing to pay money to educate people about dangers of eating high-sugar high-fat diets because education is cheaper than cure. By the same token, I would be prepared to pay extra not just to avoid adverts myself, but to avoid your exposure to adverts.
In general advertising leads to increased consumerism: more roads, driving, shops, stress and pollution. In fact, it leads to what is hilariously called "progress". The direction it leads people in has only got the faintest association with this idea of "choice". The only "choices" proposed in adverts are ones which will make the advertiser richer.
For a purely capitalist solution, we need to somehow calculate the true costs of advertising. So, by all means: persuade people to buy that new BMW or pizza, that is perfectly fair - just make sure the cost of the extra death, pollution, congestion, road accidents, etc is paid by the advertiser.
It looks like PVRs will destroy the current business model of TV companies. Excellent: good riddance to bad rubbish. If they want to lobby for legislation regarding advertising, they should get some backlash.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
We need an Open Source PVR system that does a better job then Video 4 Linux at helping users install and operate PVR functionality. It would be neat to see something like the sputnik distribution accept for PVR. We can call it GiVo. (GNU TiVo.. ) Make it so any Pentium or better PC with a CD Drive, TV Card, and Lots-o-disk can boot up a very small kernel and turn it's self into a PVR box.
Now they've got you right where they want you. Six months from now as you buy that Ford Escort, you'll vaguely wonder why . . .
If nobody wants to watch the ads, perhaps the ads are not worth watching? Now, this would be a good incentive for the advertisers to make ads worth watching!!!
When I was in the market for a PVR, I looked at the Tivo web site, and found that they had a FAQ which said that that commercial skip "appeals to the pirate in us all", but that us adults know that it isn't reasonable. Needless to say, I purchased my ReplayTV the same day.
By making 30 second skip an undocumented magic key sequence, Tivo seems to be trying to play it both ways. The vast majority of users will never find out about it, which will make media companies happy. However, the more technically inclined minority are more likely to care about the issue, and they'll be able to find out about it. Personally, I'd rather support a company which openly defies the advertising industry.
This could be a real problem if I ever get my idea of an All Commercial Network off the ground. I can just see the folks with their PVR's clicking on the 30-second buttons grumbling "man, these commercials go on FOREVER!".
Miko O'Sullivan
The ads don't pay us anything. The advertisers pay the TV network.
Assuming about 10 minutes of ads per hour, and a penny per 30 seconds, the advertisers pay the TV network 20 cents/hr/viewer to deliver content "free". So, assuming the content is worth that much, the alternative is to have each viewer pay 20 cents/hr to view a show with no advertisements. Would the majority of viewers pay that? I don't know. Perhaps I would. But then I rarely watch TV anyway, except cartoons with my son while reading /. in the background, so I don't
think I'm a good example.
Actually no. My life is not structured such a way as to allow me to schedule my appointments and events around a television studio's lineup, so I don't watch TV.
But I'd consider it if I could get a couple of specific channels (I don't mind paying, like for cable or DTV, perhaps even a tad more, to get exactly what I want) commercial free and when I want them.
funny munging
I use Nortel stock to buy my happy meals.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
You can...
- Watch PBS. No ads, no pay (but you should donate money.)
- Get HBO. A few decent shows (but you have to pay.)
- Rent DVDs. Some good movies out there (but you have to pay.)
- Watch the networks. Once in a while something amusing is on (but you should watch the ads.)
Hardly a monopoly, and you can choose whichever model suits you best: pay, donate, watch ads. Isn't that what we want? Choices?
Milo
From the Brad Templeton article: For a typical hour of TV with 15 minutes of advertising, I would much rather pay them the 30 cents than give them my time to watch 30 commercials.
It's so easy to claim this when you're not doing it, and I've seen this sort of claim a million times: The reality is that when systems like this go public, many of the same people who are ranting and raving about their god given, constitutional right to skip commercials (in essence stealing the TV program, as the commercials are a part of the implicit contract when you watch it) will then be ranting and raving about "the man" and how criminal it is that Dawson's Creek is now scrambled, damnit, but the freedom fighters are hard at work haxxoring it.
In essence what I'm saying is this: If all the networks switched to a pay model tomorrow (BTW: If they DON'T and you continue to advocate for commercial skipping PVRs, realize that what's next is in show commercials [yes, we already have them to a point, but expect them to get worse] : i.e. Joey holding up a box of Cheerios and dead panning "Cheerios, the choice for the new generation."), I GUARANTEE either the circumvention would go in full gear, or the absolutely laughably moronic "Uh, why don't they just use a tip jar? Oh, I'd tip FOR SURE if there was a tip jar! Just don't force it on me, man.". Blah.
There was an episode of the Simpsons once where nearing the end Homer exclaimed "When will people learn? Democracy doesn't work!" : While laughable, to a point it has some merit -> So many people will promote whatever self serving rhetoric fits their needs today, never considering the whole picture from beginning to end, creating a sustainable system that works for everyone.
So what's the problem with the 30-second fast-forward? Ad producers don't want to take advantage anymore?
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
Actually, the 30-sec skip was not included in the 2.x version of the software (currently on 2.5). I neverf really like the 30-sec skip, anyway. I tend to fast forward through commercials on the 2md fastest FF speed and always stop for something that looks interesting. I at least -skim- the commercials.
-- derby
-- derby
Watch PBS. No ads, no pay (but you should donate money.)
PBS most certainly has ads. They're just placed in positions that are easy to skip (between shows).
Watch the networks. Once in a while something amusing is on (but you should watch the ads.)
Should as in morally? You're saying it's immoral to go to the bathroom during the commercials?
TV ads are a terrible bargain for the user, paying us about $1.20 per hour of our attention
It's worse than that because ultimately it is the consumers themselves who pay for those ads, in the form of higher product prices. Why not just tax consumer products directly and give the money to the television networks? At least we wouldn't have to watch the ads.
btempleton: For a typical hour of TV with 15 minutes of advertising, I would much rather pay them the 30 cents than give them my time to watch 30 commercials
With product placement and product re-placement (where a budweiser beer is digitally replaced with a miller beer in a movie), I'd say there's more than 15 minutes per hour of adverts in TV and movies.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
I fully support AOL/TW's rights to make a PVR that doesn't do ad-skipping. Hell, I support their rights to make a PVR that replaces all programming with a picture of Bugs Bunny(tm) flipping off the viewer. If people want to buy that, they can.
But what's going to happen is that the media companies are going to buy enough Congressmen so as to make unauthorized PVR technology illegal, and then the media companies will only authorize non-ad-skipping PVRs, eliminating customer choice. And it'll happen, too, because few people will raise enough of a stink, and the money will keep flowing into the campaign coffers of the very representatives who are selling our freedoms for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver.
So, AOL/TW, by all means feel free to come out with your crippled PVR. But have enough respect for the citizens of this country, put your cowardace behind you, and let the people decide what technology they want to support.
Is if the pvr had the ability to recognize repeated commercials, and would allow the user to skip over a commerical they have already seen.
I mean seeing the same damn cell phone ads over and over again isn't going to make me buy something I don't have any use for.
A recent article in Ad Age quotes statistics which show that
PVR users are as likely to watch ads as ordinary viewers
and
PVR viewers watch more televisions than ordinary viewers.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Slashdot had the same problem. I filtered ads, and so did a lot of other people. Then Slashdot solved the problem: they gave people a way to pay.
PBS never had the problem to begin with, and they gets a couple hundred dollars per year from me. Try to tell me that Frontline (#1 on my season pass list) and Nova (#8?) aren't good shows.
AOL Time Warner can either solve the problem too, or suffer the consequences of not keeping up with technology. And if they decide to not keep up... well, the world won't miss them.
I will be a happy camper when ad-funded-anything is faintly remembered as a 20th Century historical oddity. The amount of waste and inefficiency (which gets paid for by you and me, whenever we buy an advertised product) is immense. Think of how absurd this is: Coca Cola is priced higher than gasoline.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
In fact, you've got a bigger problem:
For instance, my TiVo (as opposed to my wife's) gets all the NBA playoff games. I estimate that over this particular version of the playoffs, with the horrific Eastern Conference, and the (to date) non-competitive nature of the series in the Western Conference, I've watched maybe the rough equivalent of three to four games, none from start to finish.
Now, the cable company is (presumably) getting feedback that someone's watching the program, when in fact, my TiVo's watching the show, and I'm ignoring the vast majority of it. Kind of like the early Neilsen household who watched ABC from 7-11 every night. The owner of the house didn't watch TV, but his cat seemed to like ABC the best.
If anything, I'd think sports viewers are MORE likely to skip through stuff they don't want, including programming. For instance, when I taped the NCAA Men's Hoop Tournament's First round (16 games on Thursday, then 16 more on Friday), I implemented rules (once a team's up by 15, triple-fast-forward until the lead's back to eight or the next game starts) just to get me through to the footage I wanted to see. With octuple headers, getting home at 5 was an issue, but I was still done by midnight.
I suspect this would hold for other sports as well. Baseball games that are 9-2 in the third inning, 4-1 soccer matches entering the second half, 122-50 Aussie Rules Football games, and so on.
Off topic, but baseball actually looks better at single-fast-forward, IMHO.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Now, some companies might make money by making products that allow you to skip over ads but AOL Time Warner owns several channels and thus does not want to shoot itself in the foot.
Well, we'll see how their PVR does in the marketplace. If consumers really want commercial skip, they'll just buy the PVRs that offer that feature. Which means AOL/TW will lose in the marketplace with their PVR.
That's how the free market works. It's really that simple. They're betting that consumers don't really care. Well, we'll see one way or the other.
My journal has hot
I'm saying you should recompense the networks for the shows you watch. They factor the fact that you go to the bathroom, go to the fridge, zone out during the commercials into their pricing. They don't, and can't, factor in that you skip them entirely.
You do want to pay your fair share for the shows you watch, don't you?
Milo
Personally I see a couple of things that could be improved to provide a buffer for both the ad industry and the consumer.
1) go back to old style TV/Radio ads where the stars of your favorite shows are actually the ones pitching the product right from the set. Here in St. Louis we have the Dave Glover Show and almost all of the ads during his show are either him live, or recordings by him trying to sell the product. It's much more personal and really talks just about the product not all the hype and flash (no models, no stunts, no underwater SUV's, just the pitchman and the product)
2) Try new business models. Instead of just saturating the market with ads, try to find some niche. Change the way you're creating the ads or placing the ads so that they get people where you need them. Ads for food products that are not on the way to the food product are useless. It seems that most ad models are more focused on creating brand recognition instead of selling product. Refocus on the product and the brand recognition will follow. Likewise with the "branding" of TV channels. Most people know what channel they are watching during any given program and therefore the quarter sized or larger "branding" icon on the TV is just there detracting from the show.
3) Shorten commercials. In an hour long show there are between 22 and 28 minutes worth of commercial. Long commercial blocks encourage the viewer to go away and do something else or flip channels to fill the space and possibly find another program with fewer ads or your competitors ads. Reducing the length of a block of commercials reduces the risk of losing the consumer eyeballs and increases the chance that they will see something they like. In an hour long show one might make the longest block of commercials towards the middle of the programming, say 2 to 3 minutes, long enough for a quick bathroom break but short enough to sit through if no break is needed.
Space the commercials more evenly. I use my PVR to record shows for my wife. I then cut the commercials and burn them to VCD for her to watch on the weekends. During one hour long show the break down looked like this.
0-3 min Story intro
3-4 min Show theme/title
4-7 min commercials
7-16 min Show
16-20 min commercials
20-23 min Show
23-26 min commercials
26-32 min Show
32-34 min commercials
34-40 min Show
40-44 min commercials
44-50 min Show
50-56 min commercials
56-60 min Show wrap-up and credits/mixed with news/station ID/what's next
6 commercial breaks, 22 minutes worth of commercials mostly repeats (one SUV ad showed every single commercial break), plus 3 minutes or so of credits, intros, station branding, and information on the next ad filled show, leaving 35 minutes for the actual show and plenty of opportunities for program switching or other attention diverting possibilities.
My model would be 15 minutes worth of commercials between 2 and 2.5 minutes per break except for the "intermission" commercial that would be 4 minutes (tops). Then show intervals would be between 5 minutes (beginning and end) and 6-7.5 minutes for the rest of the show. I think once it gets taken down to that level and a return on investment starts to show then the advertisers could see the benefits of taking it even farther below those thresholds. Oh and no repeat commercials. If you are getting the consumer to watch the whole show then there's no reason for repeat commercials.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
I already do. It's called a "Cable Bill".
See above. IANAL, but the way I see it, it's not my problem that network television can't support itself. I pay my local cable carrier (AOL/TW) more than enough money each month for DCable (full of crap)/Premium channels (some good, some crap)/Roadrunner (slower by the day, yay!) to compensate them for me refusing to watch ad's on my television. And don't tell me that I'm just paying for infrastructure, it' supposedly included. Nor is there any mention in my contractual agreement/AUP/TOS w/ AOL/TW regarding my viewing habit's, or lack of them.
Sometimes people just have to learn and adapt to change, it is one of the requirements of being a living thing.
Should I feel guilty about that?
Well yes, you should. You're a free rider, meaning whatever money the networks don't make on you they have to make on the rest of us, increasing our cost for watching television. In most ethical (and economic) systems that's frowned upon.
Milo
Someday soon, a company is going to make a real innovation in TV that will benefit the "content providers" without fighting consumers. That company will thrive, and the other media companies will either rush their imitations to market, or fight that too until their deaths. It seems big media companies think it's easier to fight to keep the old system in place rather than try to lead the pack to the new system. If one of these companies were to produce a new system that respected the rights of consumers, rather than force-feed advertisements to us, I'd invest, and I'm sure a lot of ther people in the /. demographic would invest too.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
a) All British coffee is crap
I was going to say more, but I think that it would detract from the point.
Disclaimer: I'm English, but I live in the US.
Verisign
--
E_NOSIG
Neither is my life...that's why I have a TiVo. In addition to watching what I want when I want, I can cut a "1-hour" show down to 40-45 minutes. Before TiVo, I had a pair of VCRs doing the job (still use one of 'em to deal with scheduling conflicts...Enterprise and That 80s Show are on at the same time, for instance). At home, I haven't watched live TV in years.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Well yes, you should. You're a free rider, meaning whatever money the networks don't make on you they have to make on the rest of us, increasing our cost for watching television. In most ethical (and economic) systems that's frowned upon.
The networks don't have to make money on anyone. No one is forcing them to use the public airwaves to broadcast their shows. If no one watched commercials, and the networks went out of business, and we used the airwaves for something else, like multicast internet distribution, I'd be perfectly happy.
Also, the networks don't know whether or not I am watching the commercials. If anything, I should only feel guilty if I'm a neilson family. Or do you suggest that it's immoral to watch the commercials and not buy the products as well?
I think you have a pretty screwed up concept of most ethical and economic systems. There are quite a few which include the concept that if no one is being harmed it can't possibly be wrong.
I don't know about you, but I'm a TimeWarner customer already. I use their digital cable service. Since TW is an investor in TiVo, I was begging them to integrate TiVo into their digital cable box a couple years ago. They didn't. So I bought a TiVo anyway, and now I feed the S-Video output from the digital cable box into it.
How exactly is TW gonna force me to use their box without ad skipping? If they've got video outputs on the box, which they will, then I can continue to use TiVo.
Simple as that.
If they want to offer me an integrated cable/PVR, well I'll look into that as well, but without ad-skipping, I'll be skipping that!
"And like that
I did. Now I have lost of time to hack and kiss the wife. TV will NEVER enter this house or my life again. I'll never again channel hop for hours looking for anything good enough to catch my attention.
And to the advertisers, I say: When *I* want you, I *find* you. The rest is just noise.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
What he said.
My theory is, that if *advertising* were not the main revenue source, then the kind of crap programming enjoyed by people who are *susceptible to advertising* would diminish.
Only tangentially related: Why are there no nation-wide public/community access channels?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Is there a legal precedent set in the telecom industry that either allows or disallows people to attach their own devices to telecom networks that would be applicable to cable TV?
Didn't we go through this battle with modems, where we were required to notify the phone company if we used a modem and they had the right to approve or disapprove?
The real question I'm asking is this: Can we hook up our own PVR to our cable feed or can the cable company lawfully deny us such access and require us to use their device? Second, is there any reason that we can't get descrambling technology, lawfully licensed, from a third party or ever write our own?
I did have this conversation already. But, isn't Slashdot the land of inifintely recurring discussions? I think it's an interesting argument (although admittedly less so the more I spend work time making it.)
I think there are good arguments for trying to drive the networks out of business, but I haven't seen them on this board yet. I also don't really think that most of the people who don't want to watch ads really want them going out of business, they really just want to be free riders [?]. It's the (IMHO of course) hypocrisy that bothers me.
For instance, see the above thread where the person argues that he'd be perfectly happy if the networks went out of business, right before calling my understanding of ethics screwed-up. Seems like his ethic is selfishness.
You, OTOH, have some good questions. It is pretty clear that the networks don't expect you to necessarily buy a product to watch their show. They do hope that you watch some commercials and have a good feeling about the products, so just noting who is advertising seems like it is not enough. I don't think there is a bright line, or at least I can't draw one. I think this is like most free rider problems: ask yourself, what would happen if everyone did what I do - would the result be a good one or a bad one? If you are watching network TV and skip all commercials, the result under the previous test is that the networks go bankrupt or make their shows pay-only. Probably not the intended result, and certainly a bad one for at least 90% of the population. Applying this to some of your questions still leaves them questions, thus the lack of the bright line.
Okay, okay, I'll stop arguing the point. I know it's spitting into the wind. Although it's always nice to see someone else who actually thinks about it (as Tom did in the thread you linked) rather than simply tries to rationalize. Probably better that some people have a balanced view that they can articulate than the networks or tech companies get their way entirely, due to lack of critical, informed discussion. Making arguments that are easily shot down (ie. "I don't care if they go bankrupt!", "I paid Time/Warner cable, so NBC should be satisfied!", "I let them use the airwaves in my house!") means that we get tuned out. When someone make a good argument I will trumpet it from the rooftops.
Milo
TV ads are a terrible bargain for the user, paying us about $1.20 per hour of our attention
...and we have the TV companies telling us that ad skipping is theft as we have a contract with them to watch their advertising. So, if they honestly regard it as a legal contract, can we sue them under minimum wage legislation?
It'd be kind of entertaining to charge for 2 hours a day x 365 days a year x the last 20 years worth of my back pay. I think I'm owed about $60,000. *grins*
Manticor writes:
I agree, I do believe that the advertisers are taking things too far. I do also think that advertising is a necessary evil for many stations.
Advertising makes sense for commercial broadcast television, they are not in a position to change their entire business model overnight, or even over a few years.
Where it fails to make sense is the commercial cable companies. A typical non-premium (eg. Comedy Central, CNN, etc) gets a certain amount per subscriber (often $0.25 - $0.50) from each cable company that shows their services. That's many millions of dollars per year without showing a single ad, and they still have the same 10 minutes of ads for each 20 minutes of content as the broadcast stations.
Though I do wonder, and perhaps someone knows, how do HBO, SkinaMax and other manage to be profitable and provide programming at the same time. I imagine because we pay extra for those as premium channels the cable providers pass that on to the these companies.
The premium channels get far more per subscriber, although how much is probably a matter of contract between the cable company and the channel. This is further complicated by the fact that one of the biggest cable companies in the US (Time Warner Cable) and the most popular premium channel (HBO) are both owned by the same company (AOL-Time Warner).
Perhaps with the advent of digital people can have 2 cable options:
1. Cheaper package you get commercials.
2. A premium package you pay more per month for but you don't get the ad.
I, for one, would welcome that, provided the prices were reasonable. Cable deregulation has unfortunately encouraged cable companies to do unreasonable things with their pricing, since they have state-granted local monopolies without state regulation.
And the $200 payed in Britain is something everyone with a TV pays even if you don't have cable and even if you don't watch the BBC.
From what I understand, in Britain, if you have a mainstream television, you have to pay the license fee. People without TV's don't have to pay anything. People who hook up cable or satellite systems to antennaless monitors that can't get broadcast TV don't have to pay the fee. Elderly don't have to pay. Sounds reasonably fair to me, since if you really don't want to pay the fee, there are many other options. The only thing I would add to such a system is an exemption for the first television if your household income is below a certain amount.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
You don't pay your cable bill to the networks. The cable company doesn't pay the networks.
The day the networks require payment from the cable companies is the day your cable bill goes up by $5 per month. Personally, I would rather have the choice of not watching network TV and thus not watching ads than being forced to pay for something I don't use.
Milo
I also agree with your second point, that of "grace." I don't think advertisers believe they garner 100% of the attention of the people they are shouting at. There are studies that show that advertising is, in fact, a cost-effective marketing tool (believe it or not) so the prices they are willing to pay to reach people seem to reflect the current reality regarding attention.
Skipping ads entirely, though, seems different. The only argument to make if everyone skips ads is that the people who *want* to see ads watch them (this is essentially the argument that free trade magazines make.)
I agree that the networks may be doomed. But as I mentioned in the above thread, it still doesn't make it right. Does society really want the death of ad-supported television?
Milo
Taken from a interview With Jamie Kellner (CEO of Turner Broadcasting) here
;)
in reference to his attitude about people who skip ads during shows...
CW: What if you have to go to the bathroom or get up to get a Coke?
JK: I guess there's a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom
So you see there is a "certain amount of tolerance" for normal bathroom users... but beer drinkers who just go around urinating willy-nilly at every commercial break, and people with weak bladders should certainly not be allowed to watch TV
ask yourself, what would happen if everyone did what I do - would the result be a good one or a bad one?
This doesn't always apply. I pay off my credit card bill every month. If everyone did this, credit card companies would lose huge amounts of interest income and either go out of business or charge cardholders more. Am I being immoral by declining to pay 18% interest rates?
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Small independent stations generally take the first option, while big network stations take the second. Therefore, you are probably already paying the networks from your cable bill, via their affiliated stations.
My replayTV tends to leave a half a second or so of ad still on the screen right before the show starts again, so I do "see" ads, albiet on thier way out... and you know what? It's just enough for me to catch the product name and mentally jot it down as a company pr product I will NEVER buy from. Yes, that's right, I intentionally *don't* buy anything that I see on TV, and I even go so far as to tell my friends no to buy it either. Watching ads, in my case, is "theft", so I do the rigth thing and keep my eyes away from them.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
AOL/Time-Warner could charge people $30/month for the watching their content. Oh, wait a second....
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Then again, I don't have a TV.
This is an INTELLIGENT solution to the problem. Just how do you expect this to be even the least bit helpful? The AOL/TW execs aren't just going to grow brains here at the last moment are they? PLEASE PEOPLE! If you are going to be suggesting ideas, make sure they are IRRATIONAL, POORLY THOUGHT OUT, and above all else, ANTI-INNOVATIVE (preferably sucking the life out a previous innovation through both legislation *and* poor technological replacements). If you can't keep your ideas in line with the status quo, you are part of the problem, not the solution?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Getting the aim right can be tricky. I found that it actually works better when they're fairly far away from the box, which can be inconvenient.
I've seen paste-on emitters with other products which seem to work better, but these aren't what came with the TiVo.
This is not new. In 1997 I bought a VCR which automatically skips commercials, all by itself.
It does this by rewinding to the beginning of the recording and analyzing the tape looking for the moment of black screen and zero audio level that typically marks the beginning and end of commercial breaks. It places index marks on the tape at these points. It takes about 5-10 minutes per hour of recorded material to mark a recording.
When you watch the tape, it detects the index marks and automagically fast-forwards through the commercials, resuming normal speed at just the right point. It works like a charm, and only occasionally misses a mark, in which case you can recover quickly using the remote. I'd say it is 95-97% accurate.
The technology is called "Commercial Advance" and is trademarked and patented. Don't confuse it with the "commercial skip" function on some VCRs, which is simply a 30-second fast forward to be used manually.
To this day I continue to be amazed by 3 things:
(1) it works as advertised;
(2) it is still on the market and has not been suppressed by advertising interests;
(3) my VCR is made by RCA, and RCA is owned by GE, which also owns the NBC network, whose revenue stream this product subverts. (Panasonic also ships this feature on some of its VCRs).
There are more details and a review here .
You've got some good points there, but you're making a couple wrong assumptions. First, the Nielson ratings set the BASIC ad rates. It is really just a starting point for price negotiation. Advertisers are just as interested in demographics as they are in number of people watching. Most advertisers want younger viewers who are more influenced by advertising, so a show that teens watch will merit a premium price over the basic ad rate. If advertisers or ad agents don't think price is right, they don't buy, and the ad time has to be sold at a discount, directly impacting the network.
Second, all this is based on some Nielson families. So your use of a TiVO to watch shows you normally wouldn't doesn't actully change the ad rate unless you are one of the Nielson families. I would guess that Nielson families are not allowed to use DVRs. So the more that the general public uses DVRs, or even a regualr VCR, to skip the ads, the less that advertisers and their agents will be willing to pay "the rate."
You are correct though that if viewers are given a choice about what ads they watch, then they may pay more attention to the ones they choose. If networks could convice advertisers of that, then they might be able to increase advertisers faith in ad time, and therefore protect their rates. But devices that automatically don't record the ads to begin with really do kill the networks current business model.
Not that I think that is a bad thing, but a judge probably will.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I agree that they have monopolies on each market and that aside from satellite there is often (in my market at least) only one provider. I think you misinterpreted what I meant.
What I meant was that without ads on TV the prices would go higher, and the fact that the cable companies have monopolies on the markets would make it go even higher (if there weren't ads, of course), since there's virtually no competition.
Amidst all the crap there are a few good shows. Family Guy and Futurama were two hilarious shows, Family Guy perhaps one of the best ones ever written, and those aren't going anywhere...oh wait. Well, there are still a few good shows that haven't been cancelled, like Frasier, Spin City, The Daily Show, etc. The TV is also good for news if you don't mind bias from AOL-news, MS-news, or conservative-news (foxnews) and the fact that the people on those shows are getting dumber (they are also looking better...coincidence? at least they can read the teleprompters)
Heh, pay the fair share? I tune out advertising except for the few funny or well done ads, which I enjoy. I don't buy products as a result of it though, and most of the ads I tune out in my mind. Oddly enough, the advertisers seem to think that advertising helps, so there must be somebody out there who the ads take in.
And no, I don't have to pay my fair share. It's my right to ignore the ads just as it's their right to show them, so ignore them I do. They get their money somewhere, and I'll let all the other advertising drones subsidize my viewing.
Heh. Think before you speak.
The advertising companies DO make money on their ads, regardless of the actions of one or two people. His actions are already factored in. What's wrong with being a free rider anyway? Let all the other people be the idiots. You are arguing the arguments of a communist, saying everyone should work hard, when in fact there is no compelling reason to listen to all the ads. Many ads treat the viewers as idiots, so why should they be viewed?
I don't think either of your two examples would make you unethical.
In the first case, rebates, this is the sort of explicit gamble that is more analogous to the advertiser showing you a commercial and hoping you will buy the product. It is also a form of price discrimination (in the economics sense of the word.) Likewise, it is not unethical to buy things at an outlet store rather than at the full-price store even though the company would go out of business if everyone did. If this didn't work for the company, the company has the power to cease doing it.
In the credit card case, this is an explicit contract under the control of the credit card company. If they wanted to charge you 18% on everything you buy, they could. But then you would get a different credit card. Again, the company has some control over the pricing of their product.
For a transaction to be fair, the seller should have some control over whether or not to sell to you at a particular price. And the buyer should have some control over whether or not to buy from them at a particular price. A good subject to the free rider problem is one where the seller does not control whether or not you can buy it or the price. These goods have to be priced by social compact or law.
I noted that the "what if everyone did it" test applied to the free rider problem. It also applies to the tragedy of the commons problem. There are ways besides a social agreement on ethics to solve the free rider problem. They involve making the implied contract explicit and enforceable (ie. the DMCA). Personally, I would rather have a somewhat flexible ethic that is agreed on and followed by most of society than the sort of inflexible and imposed regulations of the DMCA. The third option is, of course, that the resource you free ride on goes away.
Milo
While most commercials demand me to channel surf or go to another room until the show resumes, only one company consistantly makes commercials that I will rewind the VCR tape just to watch: Jack in the Box.
Their commercials are hilarious, entertaining, and very witty. I have even downloaded a few of their commercials off the net. They get your attention, make you laugh, and I never get sick of them. I remember his presidential ad campaign from 1996, the Spicy Crispy Chicks, the Meaty Cheesy Boys, and the Carnivores Football team. The new one has Jack saluting Americans of all types, while eliciting a chuckle.
I have to give this company a 10 for originality! In fact, I think I will stop by them today to grab a bacon ultimate cheeseburger as a reward for being clever!
There are moral systems where people do not care about the free rider problem. Ayn Rand's objectivism is, arguably, one of them. Her system solves this problem by only caring about the individual... the "Virtue of Selfishness" as she titled one of her books. This isn't the moral system in any country I know of (although it does seem popular among computer geeks for some reason.) I don't believe it is a self-sustaining system, but I'm not really smart enough to argue that point.
My argument is simpler: are the results of your actions (assuming many many people do the same) really what you want? Are they best for society? The networks aren't complaining because you and two of your buddies skip commercials, they are worried that millions of people will. The result of that may be the demise of all but the most profitable TV shows on ad-supported TV. Goodbye ad-supported CNN, goodby ad-supported network news, hello Survivor! It may in fact mean the demise of all ad-supported TV shows, if enough people use ad-skipping. Maybe you don't care, because you prefer pay TV or renting DVDs, but why would you take that choice away from everyone else?
Milo
I myself actually hope TIVO doesn't catch on...not because I don't use it and love it, but because of the consequences if everyone uses it. I'd much rather it just remain for the techy masses and everyone else who doesn't know what they are missing can suffer through the commercials.
I'm sure there will eventually be widespread adoption and the consequences will be felt all around, but the longer that it is delayed the better.
How's that for selfish motives.
Agreed, and I'd argue that whether or not I pay attention to the commercial is also part of their gamble.
If they wanted to charge you 18% on everything you buy, they could. But then you would get a different credit card. Again, the company has some control over the pricing of their product.
True, but TV broadcasters also have control over the pricing of their product; they could make their shows pay-per-view or put them on cable channels. But like credit card companies they choose to make the base product free (or less, my card pays me 1%), and also bundle a revenue-generating product with negative utility for the customer (ads for TV, high-interest loans for credit cards). In both cases they are betting that customers will "use" these bundled products without taking the effort to unbundle them. That's certainly their right, but I fail to see how it can be my ethical responsibility to validate a such a business model.
So maybe ad-supported TV goes away. Really, so what? I can easily see this leading to an increase in quality, since a show would then have to be good enough for viewers to pay for, rather than just watching it because it's on. This would especially help shows with relatively low ratings but a strong following. While millions more people watch Friends than Futurama, I bet the percentage of those willing to pay for each would be quite different.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
they could make their shows pay-per-view or put them on cable channels... So maybe ad-supported TV goes away
So, you would rather have only pay TV than the choice you have now, between pay TV, donation supported TV and ad-supported TV?
Milo
Nobody's asking you to watch the ads if you're not watching TV (as your comments about wishing the TV were not made imply.) Wouldn't society be better off if everyone else got to make their own decision? I generally think having choices is better than not having choices, all else being equal.
Milo
It's our airwaves, we should be free to tune selectively on them.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
The vertically compressed picture is really annoying, particularly as it makes people's features seem unnatural. Maybe it's true what they say about how the TV adds 10 pounds...
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Frankly, I wouldn't mind paying to watch TV, if there were no ads. I might even buy cable if they had decent programming without ads. As it stands, I will do what I can to get out of watching them, because they annoy me, and they're just plain not good for me.
I'm making my choice. Let the media companies find a better way. If AOL/TW thinks that better way is to force me to watch commercials, then they do not understand their customers.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
I don't like adds. On TV, I generally channel surf to another show, which is kind of annoying in the middle of a movie. I don't buy stuff from ads. Intentionally. At worst, I mute them, but they annoy me.
When, exactly, did it start making sense to annoy your consumers? Some jackarse stuck a Harvey's flyer under my windshield wiper... who told him he could touch my car? If his belt button had scratched the side, I'd have been some p*ssed off. And I made a conscious decision, after having him touch my car without my permission and force me to choose between litter or going looking for a place to dispose of the flyer in an environmentally sound manner, that I would never patronize Harvey's burger-chain again. I've stuck to that. Over my lifespan, given my horrendous eating habits, that'll probably cost them a fair amount of cash.
At what point does making the buying public actively dislike you seem to be a good strategy? I've never bought anything from a pop-up add on the Internet. How does this make sense to those purchasing advertising? Are they clueless or is the vast bulk of humanity clueless enough to buy these products foisted on them so odiously?
And why won't these services, failing all other signs of civilized behaviour, charge me $5 or 10 extra a month and let me subscribe to a "commercial free" service? I'm _sure_ a lot of us would pay the premium, and all added together that might compensate for some of the lost add revenues. And it might make their services attractive to people like me who aren't about to buy into a new service if it doesn't offer significant advantages (like commercial deletion) over existing ones. A few more pixels is NOT a sufficient forward step. Content control (and that includes removing annoying ads - ie all of them) might be.
But that might just be to revolutionary....
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
I would much, much rather have only pay TV. As things are now, most TV is ad-supported, and most of it sucks. Pay TV tends to be much higher in quality, on average. If ad-supported TV went away, we'd probably see a good bit more pay TV, and much more quality stuff.
There's little doubt in my mind that advertising can work, depending on what's being sold. One summer I had a job fielding calls to a toll-free number that was associated with an AT&T marketing campaign. You could tell when a commercial was aired: Suddenly there would be an enormous flood of incoming calls. Traffic swelled by a factor of 50, easily. So it's clear that advertising was working in this case. What's less clear is whether or not it works for something like, say, soap, where you can't respond so immediately to the ad.