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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!
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.
But do they get the first 100 hours ad-free?
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
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
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.
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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.)
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.
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.
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.
And you know the really funny thing? There *is* a way to get people to watch ads - make good ads. People didn't watch the WASSSSUP ads because they had to, but because they enjoyed them. Same with Gap adverts. Same with movie trailers. How strange an idea is it that people will watch adverts if they're good?
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
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
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.