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Study Finds Tivo Less of a Threat to Advertisers
talboito writes "AdAge.com reports that an internal study by Proctor and Gamble concludes that Tivo viewers who fast forward through ads recall their content at similar rates as those watching at normal speeds. The article concludes with a choice quote by Proctor and Gamble's former head of research on the significance of the results; "[Proctor and Gamble] may still go out and try to browbeat the networks into giving them a lower CPM [cost per thousand viewers] on the basis of it, but they'd want to know either way.""
Yeah, but did P&G know about the select-play-select-3-0-select hack?
(dunno what that means? google "tivo 30 second skip hack")
I didn't like fast forwarding thru commercials because I had to pay too much attention. But now I just hit that little time-warp button 8 times and walla, i'm back to watching the show.
Only time I watch commercials is when I recognize one I like and then instant-replay jump back to its start.
er, wouldn't they want to make the commercials slower, so they look normal in FF?
Anyway, this doesn't suprise me (except that P&G released the study results). What does surpise me is that you can still use a ReplayTV (Tivo's cousin) and automatically skip all commercials in live (time-shifted) or recorded programming.
It works about 95% of the time on 90% of the shows. 75% of the time on 10% of shows. And, for when it fails, there's the 30s jump button (also available, but undocumented/unsupported on Tivo with a minor hack/code entry).
I see so few commercials I actually started to miss them and now occasionally turn off auto commercial advance, especially during shows that tend to have cool/relevant commercials (such as The Daily Show).
Perhaps even more surprising is that you can send recorded tv shows (or whatever) to another replay using built-in features (ip based), which is especially cool using broadband with the built-in ethernet. You can also program the thing from anywhere over the web if you use the network connection (modem is included too).
Most amazing, though, is that you can use OS software to send mpg's to/from your PC!. Any PC. It's rather cool.
Sorry for the replayTV commercial, but it really is that cool. Tivo is cool too, though not quite as apt to enrage The Man as replayTV (no auto commercial advance on Tivo -- you have to press a button to skip, either 30s jump or FF). And no sending shows anywhere, to PC's or other Tivos. Both are ultra-hackable though, so if you want one, get the smallest/cheapest (40hr) and add a bigger drive (200GB = 200Hrs =~ +$200).
I know replay (sonic Blue) is getting sued over these features, but so far it hasn't affected my service (and I've backed up my system just in case, and found server emulation that will be released if needed). Does anyone have an update on the lawsuit?
everything in moderation
The conclusion is the structure of cable monopolies is preventing rapid adoption.
Hmm... That's just fucking bizzare.... especially since Comcast and Cox (2 of the top cable companies... especially since Comcast now owns AT&T) are all Tivo investors.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
If you're that concerned, you can connect a dumb terminal to the serial port of the Tivo and check just what data it's including in the upload batches. People in this forum would be able to help you further.