How Could TV Survive Without Commercials?

Milo_Mindbender asks: "I'm sure many of the readers of this site know the joy of skipping commercials using a TiVO, Replay or other form of PVR box. I'm sure it has occurred to a lot of us that if someone produced a schedule of commercial stop/start times the PVR could easily make all commercials instantly vanish from a recording. While this would be really cool, if it got really popular it would KILL all the local TV stations and TV networks who depend on ads to survive. Sure, you could say it's their fault for having an outdated business model, but there's a problem: these sources are where A LOT of the content for your PVR comes from. If they die, there's nothing for your PVR to record. My question for this crowd is: 'If the commercials stopped tomorrow, what business models can you come up with that would keep TV content flowing to your PVR?'"

"I've heard a few interesting ideas such as:

• having people pick a few ads from a list and watch them before each show...
• ...giving advertisers a profile of your interest and let them show you a (smaller number) of unskippable ads for things you are really interested in...
• ...ahaving the products show up in the show itself (product placement). For example: Buffy, after killing a vampire, could then slam down a Mountan Dew.

The most obvious alternative is to send your favorite shows to you via broadband and have you pay by the show. But would you pay to watch Buffy, The News, Star Trek? Would you prefer pay by the show, subscribe to a show/network or be forced to watch commercials? I'm interested in hearing what system would bug you the least, or if you have your own ideas how it could work."

Comments

Re:I got one...

[Anonymous Cowtard]

How about this one:

What about not thinking yourself better than others because you don't choose to partake of a particular form of entertainment they might enjoy?

You smug, self-important assclown.

Re:Um, how would anything change?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

People who think TV doesn't affect their buying habits make me laugh. Do you really think that commercials don't work? Why do you think companies pay millions of dollars for them if they don't work?

Blockquoth Lord Leverhulme:

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is I don't know which half

Moral: Companies pay millions of dollars because they think they work. That does not in fact mean that they work. Entire industries have spent decades or more laboring under shared misconceptions. In the case of advertising, the measurement tools are so coarse and the data pool so vast, I think very little is demonstrable of cause-and-effect.

Re:Um, how would anything change?

[harlows_monkeys]

I think an even better example would be things that you don't care about. I care about my refreshing drinks, and tend to develop brand loyalty. Getting a drink you don't like really sucks, so it takes a lot to get me to try something else. Coke can advertise their ass off, and they aren't getting me to switch from Pepsi and Dr. Pepper.

However, consider something like dishwashing detergent. I don't give a damn about dishwashing detergent. I have ZERO brand loyalty there.

When I buy diskwashing detergent, I am most likely to simply buy the one that seems most familiar and isn't too much more expensive than the ones I've never heard of. In short, the one that has advertised the most.

Re:Some Business Models Still Work

[FyRE666]

I have to agree - I used to find it a little annoying that I had to pay the TV tax for a couple of channels no matter whether I watched them or not. But recently I've worked out that the BBC channels are pretty good value for money.

It works out that you pay just over 10 quid a month for the BBC, with zero adverts and mostly original programming. Contrast this with Sky which is almost 100% repeats, and 30% adverts (there's roughly 5 minutes of adverts every 10-12 minutes it seems) for the same price.

Plus, unless it's a mere coincidence, most of the satelite channels switch to adverts within seconds of each other, probably to stop channel switching, but I always flip to one of the BBC channels when the ads start for 5 minutes while they're on.

If the beeb can make it pay with no ads, why can't the other satelite channels?

Re:Well, the BBC has "survived," hasn't it?

[PhotoGuy]

The comparison to the BBC and licensing fees doesn't cut it. A couple of hundred bucks a year for under 10 channels would never fly in the US, where broadcasters provide, and consumer expect 10x that number of channels. For the economics to translate, consumers would have to pay thousands a year in licensing fees. Not gonna happen.