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Will TiVo Destroy Ad-Supported TV?
windowpain writes "According to a column in Television Week, the increasing popularity of digital video recorders will actually cause a decline in ad revenues in the next few years. 'The rollout of DVR-type technology ... will reach critical mass with 11 percent penetration of U.S. television households by 2005 and 15 percent by 2006...As a result, five-year earnings growth for TV station groups could fall from as much as 10 percent to as low as 4 percent.'
Why?
DVR users skip at least two-thirds of commercials and the 'collective impact represents a threat to revenue and cash flow growth that cannot be offset ... Fifteen percent DVR penetration implies that 9.1 percent of all ads would not be watched and that advertisers would be overpaying by 9.1 percent, or $6.6 billion as calculated from projected 2006 total ad revenues of $72 billion.'
And another business model goes down in flames."
There are other ways to advertise on TV besides commerical breaks, advertisers will just have to adapt.
I find that skipping the programs to get to the commercials to be more interesting than the other way around.
I have been pwned because my
When it's conventionally taped, don't you skip the commercials as well?
If people are talking about a show, and saying it's really good, I ussally just rent the first season on DVD, if it's good, me and my girlfriend rent the next, and so on. We've watched all 4 seasons of the Sopranos, as well as the first two seasons of 24, Simpson I don't worry about, becuase i buy those box sets anyway. We also tune in for the occasional Discovery Channel feature, or some good college football, other than that TV is shite, but hopefully I didn't have to tell you that.
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
Now, I don't like advert breaks and I don't like the rampant commercialism they imply, but seriously: isn't this going to make a lot of TV unprofitable? So what happens now? Will less TV be made? Will good shows magically suceed and only bad shows not get made (fat chance)? Or will the overall proportion of "World's Blankiest Blank" shows increase (seems likely)?
Perhaps DVD box sets are the answer.. but then again, if the only money was in the DVD release, why do TV at all? And anyway, Futurama sells by the truckload and that still got cancelled. I suspect the real answer is "new and insidious advertising methods". Hurrah for FCC-approved "cannot skip" bits, coming soon to a digital TV adbreak near you! And hurrah too for product placement! You must buy Pepsi, because Joey Tribbiani does!
Not that I can see a way to put this genie back in the bottle, admittedly. Ah well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see what whacky adventures come next.
You win again, gravity!
I don't know if it could kill ad supported television really. VCR's have been out for years, with the ability to time-shift programs, and hit the ole fast-forward button on the remote. Just sounds like a bunch of speculative nonsense to me.
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So, 72 BILLION a year just for TV advertising, of which 90% is trying to convince consumers to spend as much as possible on things that they very probably hadn't even imagined they would ever want - and then to replace those with the newer model ever 6 months.
Will anyone really lose too much sleep over this?
Of course there will be a fight - how DARE consumers want to avoid being hearded like so many sheep! the very thought of it.
Would it really be that bad to pay for the entertainment you want, rather than simply being fed the entertainment, and advertising, that they want to give you?
Then again I work in TV, but very rarely watch it. Maybe I'm just plain wrong.
The consumer is currently being screwed for television so cry me a river. Cable television was supposed to be ad free, that's why the consumer would pay. The additional cost of HBO and similar services illustrates that the dream of commercial free television is attainable. Television providers should stop shafting us long enough for us to pay for content we want without commercials, I'm sure that would offset PVR based losses.
vampirical
It really makes me sick watching some of the older shows in re-runs due to the re-editting in order to squeeze in more commercials. Twilight Zone and Warner Bros cartoons come immediately to mind. And forget trying to watch movies on ad-supported stations, damn "Compressed for Time" and "Editted for Content" can bite me.
Jonah Hex
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
How can they tell if you're skipping the ads or not? For that matter, how can they tell that you're even using a Tivo?
Also, why does this not apply to VCR's? I've always fast-forwarded through commercials with a VCR. I don't see advertisement companies crying.
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
Wouldn't PVR recorders tend to watch the commercials for products they are interested in and skip the ones that would obviously not apply?
And if they watched a commercial for a product they're interested in but missed a detail like an address or phone #, they could go back and retreive it.
So overall, it probably won't be as big a loss as is stated.
Now, if only advertisers would make commercials we want to see. Does anyone besides me make a mad dash for the Mute button every time Detrol's "gotta go gotta go gotta go right now" commercial comes on???
why is that a surprise? Just like how the RIAA is dying (no BSD jokes here), business must adapt to technology. Technology has always changed society, adapt or you lose.
VIVA1023.com | Political Fashion.
I'd like to question the premise that ads are shoring up TV revenues - I think it's the quality of the programming that's more crucial. If that's bad, viewers skip the entire stuff and move on.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
One might think that if so many people are trying to opt out of recieving these advertisements, like spam, that they would not want them... The entire system is flawed! Down with the system!
Oh God, I hope so.
I think we'll just see more advertising in the shows themselves. It'll be good news for the indie show makers but bad news for the stations.
because most people grab the remote and flip to other channels when the adverts are on anyway...
The networks are pretty wily. They are already starting to shore up things with products placement directly in TV shows, of course. I read an article in Forbes about it (there were a pair of related ones in the same issue) at end of September, around when the new season was rolling out. For those of you interested and not allergic to registration, they are here and here.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
This will only cause advertisers and network television stations to 'embed' more of their products/advertisements into the television programs themselves. Looks like Apple already has a headstart in this area.
What I started wondering right away: would advertisers notice this in any way if researchers weren't talking about how people with DVRs skip commercials? Like others have said, did anyone lose sleep over VCRs or people using the ad breaks for bathroom visits? Is there any research actually proving benefits of TV commercials in the first place? Perhaps TV ads have been a big black hole to pour money in all along?
So what ? Television can sustain itself without the revenue from advertising ? Then too bad for the broadcasters, but they don't have a protected right to a profitable state of business. I, for one, am looking forward to the death of advertisement.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
This to me is the biggest annoyance .. adverts DURING shows. I can understand that the Media companies have to make an income .. and that income is derived from advertising more than any other revenue source.
.. then moved on to "between shows .. 7 days a week" now of course it's all during shows, and there is nothing more irritating than a break during a show that you are just starting to enjoy. This makes me either walk out the room, change the channel, or mute the sound. All three ways - the advertiser loses.
.. well .. I might have a bit more patience ..
However, if the adverts were strategically aired, that would make a difference to the consumer.
In South Africa, it started off as "adverts only between shows - and not on Sundays"
But between a show
Maybe all the super high salaries pseudo-actors in poorly written popular pabulum like "Friends" will have to adjust to reality and will only make as much as people in other professions. Or, worse yet, they might actually have to work for a living.
The execs and everyone else are just scared because they have gotten used to being powerful and able to manipulate the rest of the world and they'll have to adjust to making what amounts to fair pay for the work they actually do.
On the other hand, I like the model PBS uses. I like Nova, the News Hour, and a number of other shows on PBS, so I pledge regularly. The result is well written and well produced TV with quality I can count on every day of the year. Maybe other stations or cable channels will have to count on viewers paying directly in some way.
I know most shows on the major networks would not be worth paying for, but I have no trouble paying for shows as good as Babylon 5, Farscape, or Monty Python.
I've turned my TV on maybe 2hours during the entire month of November. I hate watching TV, because of all the adverts. I really can't stand them.
If I like a TV show, I download it and watch it.
I think it's great that these devices are coming into the market. I'd love to see the advert-supported TV collapse, as I'd rather pay for each TV channel individually if there were no adverts (where I live this can only be done for certain moviechannels).
Unfortunately, I don't think that advert support TV is going to disappear. We're gonna get digital TV soon, with broadcast bits set. Anything recorded with a broadcast bit set cannot be fast forwarded.
So, what's gonna happen now?
Well, here's my prediction.
1, TV companies complain.
2, Governemnt passes law. TV companies started broadcasting 10% more adverts, and after the law is passed, they still kept broadcasting 10% more adverts.
3, Profit!
I find myslef less and less inclined to tolerate advertising on TV since spam on email became so irritating.
I also liken product placement to search-engine placemnt and fooling, and I don't like that.
In the UK we have the BBC, and if the commercial channels disappear, I can live with it.
I am old enough to remember similar prediction in 1980's. Popularity of IR-based remote control units and taping TV programs was also supposed to harm advertising - but it didn't happen. The TV commercials have changed, they are now much more witty and provocative than in 1970's and earlier (a good example of this evolution are the TV ads of Coca-Cola - they were INCREDIBLY boring in 1960's!). It turned out that people are simply too lazy to bother with switching channels or skipping ads on tape. They will also be too lazy to use TiVo. Besides, if you are not lazy, you are not a good target audience for the advertisers - if you are active enough to put some effort into skipping ads, you are probably also active enough to make your own market research and you generally don't buy something just because you saw it on TV.
With things like that happening, they've created the market for TiVos, and helped expand it. If one of two things (or even both) happened, then TV companies would be fine. 1. Commercials need to be entertaining, not boring as hell, and 2. TV programs need to be worth watching and putting up with commercials (even if the commercials aren't entertaining.)
I'm really surprised that they haven't figured this out already given that the Super Bowl has more people watching it for the commercials instead of the game. You'd think companies would realize spending more on a commercial that people will actually watch is worth more than spending less on a bunch noone will watch. As a bonus, people remember fun commercials, and the products better. That has to help create more demand for the product, and isn't that what advertising is all about?
Still, I won't be surprised if this is another industry that'll take the RIAA/MPAA route of trying to get legal protection for their flawed business plan instead of fixing it. Oh joy, I can't wait until congress passes the DMAA (Digital Millienium Advertising Act) making it illegal to skip commercials, and requiring every citizen to watch 2 hours of commercials a week or they lose their cable/satellite connection.
National governments will simply step in and legislate profitability - even if they have to outlaw the new technology.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If everyone timeshifts, then concepts like Prime Time become useless; people watch the program they want, not the one shown at 8pm on a Tuesday evening.
But there are major advantages to advertisers too. There is much better market segmentation; you *know* exactly how many, and what type of person watched your advert.
It's not all bad...
--- My dad's political betting
I mean look at what it provides, ....and of that what is actually important to our lives? Then take that and see where else we can get it from....newspapers, local news, internet.
Big Brother is watching.
I have a DirecTivo and am part of the 'bad people' who will help destroy annoying commercials. As a solution, please just sell me the channels/shows I want to watch. Why am I paying for fundie nutcases like Trinity broadcasting when all I watch is 6 different channels?
This "one-size-fits-all" method of lots of channels for a large amount of money per month is failing, not just commercials.
I'd rather pay a 20-40 dollar bill that lets me "subscribe" to 20 or so shows with the ability to view *anything* for the first 10 or so minutes (or maybe x amount of episodes). In other words I can channel surf all I want and purchase the stuff I really like. The purchased items would be just like my "Season Pass" items.
Arguably, this dynamic will force networks to produce decent content instead of filler and better ways to squeeze in an extra half-commercial here and there.
TV will have to go through 'napsterization,' the genie is simply out of the bottle. A smart cable or satellite company can lead the way and make lots of money, especially targeting the "Cable is too expensive" crowd who just want Comedy Central and 2 or 3 other channels.
The networks won't like it, but its going to be either this or DRM forced commercial watching.
Tivo III ( Rise of the AAA )
Coming to a court near you soon, Tivo3 "The rise of the Advertising Association of America". When technology threatend their business model they stood up and hired lawyers.
One member if the AAA was quoted as saying "Recording to DVR boxes is a clear breach of copyright", "We will be suing selected individuals who record as many as 5 programmes per week". It is rumoured that the AAA will soon be licensing TV shows under a GPL like license. It will be illegal to view any programme unless the adverts are also made available in full. Any modification to a show must also include a copy of these adverts.
Another source commented "We can clearly show evidence of removing ads from our programmes. Not only is this in breach of our license, but we believe it is anti-constitutional and breaks the terms of the DMCA."
The question is, is it subliminal or not (read illegal)? And does it even work? Personally, I've gotten very good at filtering advertising...
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I'm getting the CD vs. MC jitters here.
But aren't VCRs used for the same thing? I usually do. Tape a show, and hit FF every time a commercial comes on. The only difference with TiVo is that it is easier to use... and it is new(er).
Just look at the casette: Everybody could tape their favourite music. Nobody really made a fuss about The CD only made it easier to copy music (ok and in better quality) and it became a scapegoat. If you have a drop in revenue blame it on the CD-copying.
Since TiVo's do not have better quatity than VCR's, isn't this the same thing happening all over again?
You pay a monthly sub for your TV, but you still have to watch ads every ten minutes AND pay extra for special events, not to mention the way they continually group and regroup channels into packages to force you to take the maximum number possible.
Somehow I think the TV companies have enough experience in screwing money out of people to make ends meet.
This is called "Media Fragmentation", one of the biggest problems nowadays for marketing companies.
By reducing traditional advertising effectiveness Tivo will help usher in on-demand content and hopefully a diversity of unique and specialized (although less extravagent) programming. Broadcasters will have to make the up the advertising revenue shortfalls by passing the costs along to viewers, and the only way viewers are going to shell out their cash is if the content is worth watching. So expect more premium channels with focused audience types and unique on-demand options that allow broadcasters to get more of your money.
It's probably a good thing the "Friends" are getting out while the getting is good. In a few years they may only make a several-hundred thousand dollars an episode as opposed to the million they make todays. The horror!!
Oh, I'm sorry, that would KILL TV advertising industry, but should I care? I get enough advertising crap all the time anyway. At least with on demand, the tv shows would still make money. The networks would just recoup their cost directly from the consumer instead of advertisers and I'd only have to waste 22 or 44 minutes of my life instead of a 30 minutes or an hour respectively.
Between that and DVD box sets (which I figured I paid almost $1000 last year alone for), I think there's still a profitable world out there for TV production companies.
The answer is simple: Produce commercials buyers want to watch, like those 25 minute Pokemon commercials. What? That's a TV series? Fooled me.
How about, instead of complaining that no-body will watch your adverts, you actually make adverts that people want to watch. No no i dont mean you force them at gun point HEY put the gun down! What im saying is that your adverts at the moment are crap, no its not your fault its just that most of them are so crap that not only do people not care to watch them, they actually dont want to watch them, and they certainly dont want to be interrupted from whatever they are watching to watch them. Now fixing this involves two things, firstly you have to make adverts that people want to watch because people watch tv for a reason - people want to watch the show they are watching because.. well they like it, so you have to make the adverts like that. Secondly, and this is really important, where i come from we get adverts every 15 or 30 minutes, and when i watch a show from the US i can see the bits where it fades to black for a second and i think "oh that must be a suggested place to put adverts in, that would totally suck" if you interrupt people all the damn time they are going to get totally sick of you and just slam the door in your face, how would you like it if your advert was inturrupted every 7 seconds by another show? yeah i dont think it would work do you?
To sum up: If you tell people they cant use PVRs or VCRs to skip adverts they will be pissed off and not watch your adverts. If you make crap adverts that no-one wants to watch or you repete them 500 times, then no-one will watch. If you Keep putting them on all the damn time, people will get fed up and do what ever it takes (leaving the room to get a drink is pretty much a habit) to not watch them. However, if you make very good adverts that people enjoy watching them and you make them the right length and put them on at the right time then people might just watch.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Or maybe advertisers will just make ads that fool Tivo - ramping up informercials, perhaps?
With the average TV show lasting only 22 minutes * and the rest being filled up with advertisements, the television industry has over time increased the demand for nixing all of the ads. Over 36% of our time is spent watching pure ads alone! If they had fewer ads I bet people just wouldn't bother skipping past them. Instead they would go back to the bathroom/soda/food run & actually watch the ads the other half of the time.
The other route is to start making the ads entertaining again. The ads used to be the only reason I watched with superbowl in the first place.
As a result, five-year earnings growth for TV station groups could fall from as much as 10 percent to as low as 4 percent.'
We're not predicting a loss making situation here, or even a 'borderline breakeven', we're just predicting a slowing in the rate of growth of the companies.
Were TiVos slashing the profitability of the companies to the point where they lost money on the next 'last season' of Friends this would be a different story. As it stands they are 'not getting rich quite so quickly'. Awwww - poor babies!
You americans might even get the chance to enjoy the utopia of ad free television we have with the BBC over here in the UK. Instead of being advertising funded we have a yearly TV 'license' system but absolutely no commercial advertising, and the BBC still manage to produce most of the best TV shows available, and lots of hardware for the broadcasting industry (another source of funding they have).
Visiting the toilet during peak time advetising could lose TV stations millions!
Business models change all the time. TV is no exception to that. People are slow to react when their moneyspinning model starts to break down - a lot of people have made that point. The broadcasters still have their heads in the sand, but progress is inevitable. I believe technology will not stifle quality because viewer choice is becoming more and more measurable, marketable, and most of all possible : you can vote with your remote on pretty much any type of content, and really pick what you want to watch.
Taking on the start of the article -
The economic shift is beginning, we're still with the early adopters but critical mass is about to happen. This might not be such a bad thing. Those broadcasters that learn first will take these viewers with them, and create themselves a nice market out of it.
Yet the article seems to see doom and gloom, saying quality will be sacrificed, as if the networks care about anything other than their bottom line anyway :
I have a less negative take on this. Hopefully advertisers and broadcasters alike will catch on to the fact that the people don't want to be blasted with adverts. Most of us, given the choice, won't watch them, look at them, or download them as part of web sites. The dot com crash had a lot to do with the realisation that ad supported sites would not flourish; few today make revenue purely from advertising - unless their content is astounding.
So I'd suggest that TV will lose some channels, lose some obscure and niche programming, but just maybe quality will prevail. Because good art, good acting, and good screenwriting will always seek an audience. That audience is getting cleverer, more choosy, and has more tools at its disposal. It can't be that bad if we suddenly choose to really watch stuff we want, and even if we pay a premium for it, that's not so bad. A lot of people have mentioned buying TV stuff on DVD these days, and for me Internet + fixed media (TV on demand) is a much better delivery mechanism than streamed scheduled broadcasting. TV (as defined in the traditional model) will be, and indeed should be, much more centered around live events, sports, debates, etc. I predict that eventually all non-live scheduled content will become time shifted, on demand, and paid for. This model has every chance of success.
Less content on less channels and more stuff paid on demand just shifts the econmics around. It doesn't mean that quality is lost. Most decent programmes these days rely on DVD sales and syndicated sales to other countries to make a profit. The big networks don't make money on them just on broadcast in the US. Arguably the best shows sell best - nobody buys crap on DVD in bulk all around the world, but most of us watch it on TV if we have no other choice.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Obviously they're just going to transfer their "losses" on to the consumer. Cable rates will get a hike. Then PVR's will magically become illegal, or HD streams will not be recordable so things will be back to normal with advertising rates, so to speak. Yet the cable rates for the end user will stay the same. So in the end, what appears to be a good omen for the consumer will end up costing us buckets of money, as usual.
Yes, advertisements are annoying, but without them I don't know that we'd be able to watch shows like Star Trek (or insert your favorite sci-fi show here). Shows with special effects or almost any cartoon carry high costs and something needs to be done to pay for it.
Mind you, I've never seen a professional TV studio budget, so maybe their revenues are greatly inflated after all. But I do produce a public access cable television show so I know that even the lowest of the low budget series still carry huge costs. I'd never be able to produce my own show without the tax-payer funded public access studio.
On the other hand, I'm all for buying TV on DVD (Season 5 of Buffy soon! woot). And at those prices studios should be able to afford to make high-budget shows.
Also the /. folks didn't seem to complain when everybody started using Mozilla to block their ads. Hey editors, have you seen a decline in revenue?
Wow, a lucrative publishing contract! I don't have to be evil anymore. --Meteor
Hasn't anyone else been noticing the number of in-show popup animations that push products and other shows during a program instead of during a commercial break? You're not going to see an increase in quality and content, you're going to see an increase in the blurring of advertising and entertainment.
.. and so he went shopping at the GAP!" and " ... so I drank a Coke!"
We started with advertisements that got your attention because they were funny and we're going to end with comedies that have more punchlines that end with "
WARNING: Eurocentric reply
I'm not surprised that PVRs are so popular in the US, with the amount of ads there are on US channels. Maybe it is not such a problem when you get used to it, but to Europeans visiting the US, the intrusiveness of the ads is overwhelming.
We're used to privately held channels which show a lot fewer ads, and still produce good programming. Take a look at Britain's ITV or Sky and the Dutch, German and Scandinavian channels to see fairly high-quality programming with at most 2 commercial breaks in a 30 minute programme, versus the four or more seen on some US channels.
Leaving aside the state/taxpayer-funded channels such as the BBC (which has no ads), the European model shows that reduced advertising still brings in enough revenue for good programming, while being a lot less annoying for the viewer.
If I see an interesting movie scheduled for the SciFi channel, I go out and rent it. I DON'T want to stare at that stupid, intrusive and gigantic SCIFI EMBLEM they plant at the bottom 20% the screen.
Kinda yanks you right out of the story when they slap their logo in the corner for enormous stretches of time. They pushed the envelope too far and have fallen off my radar.
This applies to commercials as well. I was perfectly happy to watch reasonable commericials at reasonable intervals, but now they've added so many commercials that they can't even show pre-80's TV shows without heavy editing. Moreover, they seem to be braindead about their placement. I WILL remember you product if you interrupt DURING the climatic finale of a movie -- I will remember NOT TO BUY IT. And if you insist on goosing up the volume to get my attention, I will also make a mental note to avoid your product.
In short, it is entirely within the power of advertisers to strike a happy compromise, but they have insisted on pushing the envelope too far. I have no sympathy for them.
It gets worse. I used to watch Transformers as a kid, and while it clearly was tied into the toy line, it was still a decent well written TV series, with only one annoying kid in it. I caught Transformers: Armada the other day and I was stunned. What the hell? It's Pokemon, for crying out loud! There are kids in it that get more air time than the robots, and even Optimus Prime is going on about catching 'minicons'. Talk about an obvious ad. Jesus..
For anybody interested in the subject (and for those who might have missed the article) I can only reccomend this article in a recent Wired edition. Looks like James Marsh read it too, and acted in consequence of it.
No one said that TV advertising would stop - just that growth would drop more than 50%. Even with gloom and doom predicition, how many people can really afford (or choose to pay for) TiVo, let alone digital and other premium packages?
I have a great old recording of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" routine. The funny thing is, they're asking about "the players on this here Colgate team." I believe it was performed for the Colgate Comedy Hour.
The amount of commercial breaks we have now is a recent development. It was a change to go to this model - another change won't kill TV. We'll have end up with the Dr.Pepper Late Late Show, where the host and all guests are always drinking a clearly labeled bottle of Dr.Pepper (or maybe some other Pepsi product).
In-show product shots, product references and product promos were - and can again become - the norm. Ever watch The Price is Right? Those fabulous product descriptions by the smooth voiced announcer who always used the full slogan of the product.
A different advertising model won't kill TV. Bad shows and far better alternate forms of entertainment (we've all seen the growth in video game revenues - especially the online games, which often taken up people's "prime time" evening slot).
No Clue.
I've read a lot of comments here expressing a fear that broadcasters/advertisers will resort to product placement in leu of traditional advertising oportunity. I for one don't think that product placements (when done in moderation) are all that bad.
/. about how the technical workarounds weren't hurting the industry?
For example, I find it much less distracting when a character drinks a Coke than when he/she drinks an obviously generic softdrink.
Bottom line, I think that this kind of advertising can be both effective and fairly harmless to the content if done right. (Not that I have a lot of confidence in the industry's ability to do it right.)
The other thing is that I see a lot of people here saying that they think that getting rid of ad-supported TV would be good-- that they wouldn't mind paying for content. While I agree that profits are not guaranteed by the constitution, I DO think that free (or EXTREMELY inexpensive) television content is something I'd hate to see go. While most programming is CRAP, there's some good stuff to be found, as well as the occasional guilty pleasure. (Terrible shows that we secretly enjoy.) Would you pay for this stuff? Would you REALLY? Or would you find technical workarounds to paying while posting on
jrjBlog
Here in France (I guess most of Europe), ads are not as boring as in the USA. I have to say that when I took a trip to the states 2 years ago, I was truly horrified by the ads.
Here we have, let's say, for a 1h40 movie, 15 min ads before, 10 min ads at the middle of the movie, and 15 min after the movie. Sometimes two breaks if this is a long movie. And thus we don't feel the need for the tivo. When the ads come at the middle of the movie, we wake up, go to the bathroom, eat maybe a bit, etc... and then we are ready for another 45 minutes of undisturbed movie.
I could never figure why in a country as large as the USA, even if it has more TV channels, the commercials policies have to be desperate like this.
If the TV channels had a bit more respect for their audience, tivo would not be a threat to them.
has already lost me, and I don't even have a DVR.
500 channels and nothing's on.
Here in Hong Kong we have ad-free cable and with-ad local TV. The time taken for ads is the same, and so is the boredom. The local TV advertises products and services, the cable TV advertises upcoming programs.
Why? Advertising your own future programming is much cheaper than filling time with real content, and it doesn't look like ads. Also, it makes the programs fill the 30 / 60 minute slots in the same way real ads do.
Both types of ads are equally boring, unimaginative and long-running. One of the worst offenders is BBC World, who give a 20-second big-number-on-the-screen countdown to the next program. Time to channel surf!
My point? Oh, yeah, ad-less TV isn't. You don't get more content, but you have to pay more anyway.
The whole advertising on TV economy seems to be based on the idea that more adverts==more consumer impact. Don't they realise that this is a completely flawed idea? Hmm, shall I buy this product from the company that annoys me by interrupting my TV viewing every ten minutes to scream "Buy this!" at me? Or this other brand I read a review of online?
Look at the number of ad-blockers for those annoying flash ads on the web. Look at the success of Penny-arcade's static, simple, targeted adverts.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
But it's hard enough to make a TV show entertaining enough to last more than a season. The reason we don't see a lot of ads that are both entertaining and effective at selling a product is that the two are very close to mutually exclusive.
What we will see, though, is advertising that wriggles deeper into TV programming. Product placement is one way; banner advertising is another. I'm not sure if this is happening in the US, but in Australia TV stations will sometimes briefly scroll ads along the bottom of the screen. Annoying? Oh yeah. But pretty hard to ignore. And impossible to fast-forward.
I should buy some cement.
Please note:
This song is not endorsed by Apple. Despite the overwhelming popularity of this song, Apple is not in the music or recording inudstry, and has no plans to change this.
Please buy more Beatles albums.
What's actually changing is that advertizers are becoming aware of the impact of technology. Their initial reaction is negative but will become positive when they realize the control it will give them, particularly interactive TV. You will have to have viewed the commercial in order to supply the correct prompts to view the rest of the program. Welcome to the future. Welcome to hell.
I kept track for two years of the money I spent because of seeing something advertised on TV. In two years, the total was something like $6.82.
I'm in favor of micropayments for shows. Five cents to watch an hour-long show would pay more than the present system.
One can only hope for so much in this life -- the end of inane, annoying commercials.... right
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
Until recently, technology has been on the side of the advertiser, because technology has been expensive. That "natural" balance is being destroyed as tech becomes more powerful and cheaper. Advertising's traditional business model is being destroyed by Moore's Law.
This could be fun eventually. How about Virtual Light style glasses that can selectively remove the ads from your visual field?
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
The cable companies and television networks will lose out because their business model is ancient. Only in recent years have cable companies slightly innovated with digital cable. But digital cable sucks. Changing channels is laggy, and it's really not *that* much different from normal cable (at least compared to a tivo).
To keep up with stuff like tivo, the cable companies will need to (gasp) compete with it. Come up with something that meets or beats the functionality, convenience, and price point of PVRs. But unfortunately I can picture what the cable companies will do instead: file lawsuits, use shady business tactics, etc. Oh well. While that might hold them over in the short- to mid-term, I think it would eventually catch up with them.
And some AC made the very valid point that commercials always always always seem to come on at the same frickin' time. It seems like its the same thing for both TV and radio, if one station has ads, so do the other three or four you care about. Prepare for more subtle (or not so subtle) product placements and corporate sponsorship.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Not so long ago we got a station that is ONLY advertising. Seriously. It went from a regular channel with some pretty good "alternative" programmes, eg South Park, to abour 8 hours of MTV style music vids (ads for CDs) a little MTV programming (ads for "lifestyle" - clothes, shoes, boards, etc), eg, Punk'd, Jackass, etc, and the rest is infomercials (ads for workouts and homeware) and ads for adult telephone services. And they still manage to have a few regular ads during the day...
I hope the very concept of advertising itself goes down in flames! And if it kills TV, so be it. Ill just use my television to make a nifty Lord Canti costume.
Once again, it all comes down to the advertising revenues - usually of crap you don't want to buy.
I gues it's yet another occurrance of new technology making Traditional Business methods obsolete.
Money from subscriptions, OK.
Money from License, OK.
Money from advertising, OK. But choose one, dammit. Otherwise of course people are going to start either skipping the adverts, or using them for comfort breaks!
When paying for the "privelege" of getting content, it gets annoying when not only do they bombard you with adverts, but they complain when you don't want them.
Gods, earlier this year there was a program. I forget which, but have a suspicion it might have been the MTV VMAs. Every damn commercial break they ran the same damn advert for sanitary protection. Important product, perhaps. But, as a (single) man, it's hardly a product line that I really need (or want) to be persuaded to buy.
And it doesn't stop there!
I'm not quite sure why - possibly to do with a legal crackdown on toy advertising durings kids TV shows - but the kids channels here in the UK are often full of adverts for Financial Assistance (Loans, car credit, etc) or Charity Donations.
The former are bad enough. That kind of stuff just has no relevance at all to the target audience.
And the latter? Well I'm sorry, but I don't think a hard push of charity concerns to children (in the form of adverts) are appropriate.
Teaching them at school/church/home/etc, fine. Guilt-tripping young kids halfway through an episode of Power Rangers or Digimon? I don't think so.
I understand the importance of advertising. but you should at least play to your target audience. (Though, as I said, I think there's a UK law about toy adverts aimed at kids) /.) at least have banner ads relevant to the theme of the site. Like Webhosting and Geek Toys. :-)
It's like the banner ads on websites. Some are offering noting to do with the site, or stuff I couldn't care less about. but other sites (including
Now if only the advertisers/TV-execs would realise that the reason people ignore the adverts is 'cos they don't want what's being sold!
TiggsYou want advertising revenue? Advertise something your viewers actually want to buy.
Tiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
Just keep the ad prices as they are. Sure, it will mean that the ads are more expensive per viewers' time, but that's not the networks' problem, and not advertisers' problem either -- all that cost is passed to the customer.
Don't tell me that less effective ads will mean that companies will choose to buy less ads and use those money to improve their products -- it's beyond ridiculous.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I'm not worried by this stuff. The basic pact I make with the people who read my stuff is: I only expect you to read it if you're interested. Forcing selling content down people's throats is not advertising, it's just annoying.
There are other ways to advertise - not limited to product placement. And personally, I think dreaming them up is more creative than writing ads today...
Chris
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
And soon the Tv stations will figure out the Clearchannel radio method. Commercials come up on the local radio stations and you just wait now as every other clearchannal station is brodcasting commercials at the exact same time. It sucks to live in an area where all the recieveable stations are for the most part owned by Clearchannal.
Is wether or not there is really anything broadcast that is so compelling I either want to sit through a million ads, or jump through a million hoops to avoid the ads.
;-)
As far as I know, I'm only missing a couple of worth-while shows, and that is not enough to make me grab a tivo or what have you.
I used to look at the whole "kill your television" set as being a bunch of pretentious jerks, but nowadays, it isn't so much a matter of killing it, as much as not seeing enough value in it to make it worth my very few dollars.
Esp since the library and litrix are free.
It turned out that people are simply too lazy to bother with switching channels or skipping ads on tape. They will also be too lazy to use TiVo.
You do not understand the ease of skipping commercials on Tivo.
In the first place, Tivo is always recording. When you're watching "live" TV, what you're actually seeing on the screen is a 2-3 second delayed playback of a 30min Tivo recording. There is no explicit action needed to record a broadcast -- the recording process for "live" TV is automatic. In fact, you can't turn it off even if you wanted to. Everything is recorded as you watch.
That reduces skipping commercials to hitting a single button labeled [>>] 1-3 times (depending on how fast you want to go), then pressing a button labeled [>] to resume normal playback.
To skip commercials using a VCR, you have to make a decision to record a program, confirm the time/channel, then go through the labor-intensive (compared to Tivo) process of programming the VCR, then make sure you have a tape inserted that has enough space. After waiting for the entire program to record, you have to rewind the tape to the beginning of the program and start the playback. Just to skip commercials. No wonder it didn't catch on.
personally i won't be losing sleep over companies that make annoying ads making less money, and less people being brain washed into buying crap they don't need.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The conditions seem ideal: In Germany are several companies selling Infos about TV programmes, online, in real time, etc. Digital TV started in Berlin - many consumer have to buy new televisions and or set top boxes in the next two years to deal with the new standards. Cable TV is widespread. But there are only few digital recorders in the market, they are very expensive and no product can avoid commercials.
Years ago Telecontrol produced a box called "Fernsehfee", which stopped the (analog) VCR whenever a commercial started, but the product was discontinued (several TV station sued the company).
So, the affiliates must get a way to pop-up those animations for local advertisers. Lots of IP related issues here, can they pop-up an ad over the network's pop-up?
-
But it's hard enough to make a TV show entertaining enough to last more than a season. The reason we don't see a lot of ads that are both entertaining and effective at selling a product is that the two are very close to mutually exclusive.
While this is true for TV shows, and possibly commercials, many/most companies don't even try. Here in the US, most commercials are just dry facts, or royally annoying songs played too loud while they advertise some car. (OK, I'll admit it, I'm sick to death of Ford's commercials, and even if I had been inclined to buy a Ford ever (I wasn't), I wouldn't be considering them any longer!)I certainly don't think it's easy to make something entertaining and effective, but enough commercials have done it that it's obvious that it's not impossible. Not to mention that not all enjoyable commercials are funny entertaining, but the make you think type, or the "whoah, I've never seen that before!" type. Remember the infamous Big Brother Apple commercial that started the whole Super Bowl commerical stuff?
In any case I agree that advertising will change, and if it becomes too annoying (the example you mention of ads scrolling along the bottom of the screen for instance) I think people will just get tired of it, and stick to buying DVDs. I saw one person post that they did that already, preferring to avoid all the commercials altogether.
Reducing the number of adverts seen by 10% would increase the impact of the adverts that are seen. Similarly increasing the number of adverts just dilutes the effect of the advert. Maybe we'll end with a two-tier system, much the same way as we do with some software where you can pay to have advertising banners removed.
I am currious does any one know, are thier Nelson families that have TiVo? If not how do you realy know what behavior these owners exihibit?
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
Guess it's time to start having popup ads on TV... I can see it now.... in the middle of a TV show, all of a sudden a chevy truck bursts through the screen.. totally obscuring what you are trying to watch and making this horrid crashing sound.. then it drives back and forth for a bit and finally comes to rest in the upper top corner for the remainder of the show.
Hrmm.. I could swear I've seen this idea some place before!
'The rollout of DVR-type technology ... will reach critical mass with 11 percent penetration of U.S. television households by 2005 and 15 percent by 2006
Build your own at:
http://webvcrplus.sourceforge.net/howto.html
Television people actually have to make do with a decent salery in the future? Fancy that, no more 100000$ for a couple of days work.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Just because people have the ability to not watch the ads using a PVR doesn't actually change anything, at least in my mind.
Most people I know DO NOT WATCH ADS, and none of them have a PVR. We simply change the channel, go do something else, or stare blankly into space. Using a PVR simply gives people who already did not watch ads a way to avoid "changing the channel, doing something else or staring blankly into space". They aren't going to watch the ads either way.
Yes, the advertising indsustry / television industry will probably argue this, and increase rates for us end-users, probably nothing can be done about it either. But they're wrong.
Bah.. ABOUT TIME.. TV ads should have burned in hell decades ago!!!!
POWER TO THE PEOPLE.. tv ads should have burned in hell decades ago.. all it does is ruin TV and instead of making me watch it I now record everything and edit out commercials BEFORE I watch it..!
texasnuker
The biggest problem I see with this trend is that if it does kill traditional advertising, it will likely also kill smaller productions: both TV and film. If companies start to think that buying ads isn't financially profitable, then they won't buy ads, and only the biggest ticket items will get made due to the financial viability and/or the profit margin.
Of course, there will be indie works still, but less so, since many of them have private corporate sponsors as well.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
In my understanding TV advertising is the biggest ticket item in US political campaigns.
See my journal, I write things there
On-demand TV.
Basically, you'd have a tivo-like harddisk-based set-top box that hooks into the cable network or a sattelite dish. You'd have a basic subscription that would give you access to average programming, and then have the ability to buy extra programming as desired. For example, suppose you like angel, you'd rent the angel package, and get access to all episodes ever made. Stuff would be multi-casted through the cable and sattelite networks (so there wouldn't be an extra download drain if millions of people download the same show at the same time). There would also be differential pricing. If you just want to watch a show once, you'd be able to buy it really cheaply. Like, less than $1 / episode. But, if you want continued access, you'd be able to pay extra. The important things are: no ads and everlasting access to stuff that you buy everlasting access to (so even if you quit your subscription, you should still be able to keep watching stuff already downloaded). Also, stuff like contingency-based subscription would become possible. Like, for example, they could offer to make another season of insert_favorite_cancelled_show_here, if only x people sign up for it. If less than x people sign up for it, the show simply wouldn't get made, and nobody would be charged for it. There would be guaranteed commercial viability for the TV companies, in addition to guaranteed quality ad-free programming for the viewers. In fact, I don't understand why given the seemingly easy technological feasibility of this model, this hasn't happened already. Other than the TV companies being entertainment dinosaurs ofcourse.
On a more general note, that TV is dieing is yet another example of the death of the one-size-fits-all model. People want to be special. If you give them the exact same thing everyone else has, they're not happy. We've seen the revolution in clothing, where markets have gotten more specialised over the years, we've seen it in consumer goods, with an ever-growing design diversity in products that are essentially functionally identical. We've seen it in the music industry, where the bland generality of the top-50 lists has pushed kazaa to the forefront. And now we're seeing it with television, where it's becoming impossible to keep offering the same identical content to everyone.
All in all, it's a good thing these one-size models are dying. They don't serve the customer, and the customer, as we know, is king.
If people had to pay for tv I could buy couple of targeted programs with better content than the ``hundred channels of shit on the tv to chose from'' that I have today.
I mean it.
From all the shit I have on cable, recently I watch mainly documentary and news programming on Public TV and Discovery plus some Cartoon Network.
Almost all movies and series I watch come from rental, amazon and bittorrent. Had the producers came to their senses and published series for the price that I can buy ``Babylon 5'' on DVD in amazon.de (30eur per season) I would buy all my favourite series on dvd. Simultaneous tv&dvd realese would help.
rrw
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
"When I was a kid"(TM) in the early 1970s, there was much less advertising on television and watching television wasn't as obnoxious as it was. Even network-broadcast movies only had a 2-3 commercial breaks per hour, with long stretches of movie in between.
There's a lot more advertising on TV, and a lot more obnoxious advertising gimmicks. I can't help but think that if TV advertising was the same way it was in the 1960s and early 1970s, the idea of paying for a DVR wouldn't be as appealing as the advertising wasn't as obnoxious, it was more of a fair bargain.
But then there's some questions about content, too -- broadcast television used to make some weighty programming. Now it sucks, and if you want anything interesting, you need to have HBO or Showtime for drama, and Tivo and 400 other channels for anything else.
A local car dealership in Columbus Ohio has some hilarious ads. In the commercials, their cars have a button on the dash labeled "Trunk Monkey". In one of them, a guy is stuck in traffic while a road rager keeps yelling for him to get out of his car so the road rager can hurt him. The guy presses the "Trunk Monkey" button and a chimp (not a monkey technically...spare me) with a crowbar climbs out of the trunk and clouts the the road rager. In another one, a woman has been pulled over by the cops and the chimp tries to bribe the cop with money then a doughnut. The ad ends with the monkey being hauled off in a cruiser. The one I saw the other day had kids egg the wrong car in traffic. Out jumps the chimp, who chases them down and makes them wash the egg off the windshield. The ads tout that the dealership offers "innovations" like a "Trunk Monkey" that the other dealerships don't.
The spots don't make me want to buy a car but the spots are hilarious. They're easily the funniest commercials I've seen in years.
Especially if I could get commercials tailored to my demographic, and watch them before the show, instead of in the middle of them, if this means I get to watch episodes of my favorite shows "for free".
The problem with advertise-driven TV is that the contract between the advertiser/broadcaster/viewer is fuzzy. There is no delivery system which can target a specific viewer.
I suspect that in the future, this contract may be explicitly defined, and applications like TiVo will help with the implementation. I'm willing to make some information about myself available to advertizers for a specific amount of time, if feel like it's a good trade. And it is a good trade if I don't have to watch diaper commercials, and get to see my favorite shows without interruption, even if I need to press and hold a "dead man's switch" during the commercials.
It is not a good trade when I'm constantly interrupted by waves of ads because they need to fling a lot at the wall to make something stick.
A witty
I wouldn't be surprised to see a new bill written, and perhaps passed into law, that forces TiVo and all DVR producers to remove the fast-forward capability from all boxes manufactured after 200x. Or at least to disable fast-forward during commercials (using a "commercial broadcast flag" that reliably indicates what part of a showing is a commercial and what isn't).
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Yeah..."Keeping Up Appearances" is a modern classic.
-- Who am I? How did I get here? My God, what have I done?!
TIVO or not, just because a commercial has been aired doesn't mean I'm staying in my seat to watch it. I either channel surf, watch pic-in-pic or leave the room for a minute or three.
Our TIVO came up with the infamous Green Screen of Death over the weekend. ( my fault for tweaking it ). Most interesting was the reaction of my partner who was horrified. When it first arrived it was my toy , another gadget etc.., now it has become indispensible. My wife makes a concious effort to actual watch adverts to "keep up with popular culture".
I'm just curious. Would advertisers be allowed to have a portion of the video, let's say an inch on the bottom of the screen so that the ads would always appear even while you watch your show? Sure, I know it sucks but without any advertising prices would skyrocket for cable/satellite!
Just wondering if they are allowed to do something like that.
So there's going to be less shitty TV sitcoms in the future... No "Everybody Exfoliates Raymond", no "CSI: Nebraska", etc. I think I'll welcome that future.
And (Gasp!) maybe the decline of shitty U.S. TV will cause the couch potatos to finally get outside, get a tan, get a life and get involved in their community and politics. Because if there's anything the US does need it's a more involved electorate.
Yes... I welcome the day the NTSC soma of the masses disappears.
--Rob
As we already have "no copy flags" coming to TV's, I wouldn't be suprised to see a "no skip flag" on TV's now. Seeing as I pay nearly $80 for satellite service with over 100+ channels, I shouldn't have to watch all these damn commercials. Most of the time its: A) I dont want what their selling or B) I don't care what they're selling. But, as always, there will be workarounds, of course, and you can be sure i'll be buying one :).
Just my .02.
The result of this is that people start using popup blockers, and black out off-site images, disable flash etc. Looking at for example Sweden's largest newspaper website these days, you could have a hard time even finding the actual news. If you don't have flash, you will be reminded to get it, about seven times before the page has loaded.
If I read this without flash, and with no off-site images, the page is ok, but if we all did, the site would either have to adapt (i.e. use less annoying ads) or disappear.
The same I think goes for tv shows. Commercial breaks are not half as frequent in Sweden as they are in the U.S (I guess because when Letterman says "we'll be right back after this", there's only a 50% chance of a commercial break :). If they were, I'd just not watch the shows. I guess the maximum acceptable number of breaks is one every 30 minutes. That means one break in a normal sitcom, and about 3 in a movie. And even that is almost too much. But at that rate I could accept their business model and not get some ad-avoiding device. At least it's better than having full screen closeup's at every product and brand name in the scene...or having things like
Ross: "Why isn't that laser beem cutting through the paint!?"
The article speeaks of a person downgrading performance of media companies to coincide with the market, and to "only" experience 4% growth instead of the previously predicted 14% (or so). Spending on ads has been going ever higher (see Super Bowl ad pricing for 30 second spot over the last 5 years). Just like the stock market, things can't just keep going up and up and up. Markets don't work that way, and people should be smart enough now to realize that.
That being said, ads have creeped their way into movie theaters (not just 10min of trailers now...).
And yes, my roommates TiVo is the coolest thing for TV yet. But that is no different than getting up to go the bathroom/kitchen during commercial breaks. The end result is the same, no commercial watching for me.
The BAD is that they will be forced into one of the following directions:
The GOOD is that maybe, just maybe, they will realize that there is a threshold of tolerance for commercials beyond which people will spend more money to avoid then buying the products being advertised.
A Tivo, with all the trimmings, runs something around $500-$600 dollars for life membership, online recording schedules and so on. That's a lot of Pepsi Products that the consumer is not buying. That's also a lot of commercials that the consumer will never see.
However, if the number of commercials, or rather the total time spent per hour on commercials, was lower than it is today then people would be less likely to spend the $600 for TiVo or even reach for the ad-skip button therein.
Additionally they would have more available cash to purchase said products. They would more more likely to register said products in their memory, and everyone would win.
The Critical Mass here isn't about the TiVO products becoming ubiquitous in the American Society. The Critical Mass that kicked this whole thing off is the number of minutes/hour on commercials exceeded what people where willing to tolerate.
You have no idea how many movies I've stopped watching in the last 30 minutes because the commercials were just too many to bother with. In some cases I rent it for $1.25 and watch the last half commercial free because it was interesting, but I just couldn't stand all those fucking commercials.
But somehow I don't believe that the Sales and Marketing organizations around the world will realize this to be the case. They'll just sue everyone who doesn't watch their commercials as a violation of their Freedom of Speech.
Freedom of Speech: You are free to say what you want, but you cannot force me to listen to you
This isn't as bad as it seems. First off, television has always been a license to print money and while the revenue growth slows, it's not going to be crimped off. There isn't going to be rampant adoption of Tivo in most households; if there were, it would have happened already.
More importantly, the move to a 16:9 format will allow for even WORSE methods of advertising. We've all become accustomed to seeing 'bugs' in the lower quadrant of a screen, now they'll just have advertising on a panel somewhere on the screen.
I have never been influenced by T.V. ads in any way useful to the advertisers. I have not changed from soda-X to soda-Y. I have not bought a vehicle based on a TV ad. I am not a vice president for the Hair Club for Men. In my best guess most people do not change behavior or preference due to advertisement.
What will happen is an annoying little transparent rectangle advertising a product will be placed on top of the program. A lot of channels are already placing their symbol over the programming.
Get a free ipod.
DRM forced commercial watching
For many of us, the signal to noise ratio and the quality of programming is so bad, TV is a moot point. It's been replaced by rentals, games, music, and Internet.
Implementing the broadcast flag will only accelerate this trend. Most people on over the air TV will probably go without when the FCC mandate kicks in. Why spend hundreds of dollars for a monitor and hundreds of dollars more for a tuner. This is not going to replace the sub $200.00 27 inch TV you can currently buy. (which comes with a tuner built in!) DTV is expensive to get in and very little over the air content would convince me to invest in the receiving equipment. The broadcast flag lowers the value while rising the cost. They are going to get me to buy it how?
The truth shall set you free!
... is in DVDs, and it's a good thing.
Producers have seen that there is a ton of cash to be made in DVD box sets but only for shows that people want to watch. I wouldn't be surprised in the near future to see episodes put out *ONLY* on DVD to promote purchase of these box sets.
The upside is that this will encourage producers to create shows that do not suck. The downside is that they are going to be quick with the trigger finger, if it aint a hit, off it goes.
In the past money made off of DVD box sets has been gravy, treated much like syndication money but as the stakes grow larger it's going to have a lot more attention paid to it.
Even with the $10 penality, I'm saving over $200 a year with DirectTv.
The $10 penality is what is keeping me from cable internet. I don't have cable or satelite TV. Are they going to learn they are pushing DSL on those who don't want pay TV at all?
The truth shall set you free!
They're all worrying about nothing. If they ever decided to put some thought in to advertising methods, they could come up with a system that works for everyone. Most of the time, people ignore the ads because it's always about stuff they couldn't care less about. What's wrong with specifying what kind of advertising you'd like to receive via your set top box? It could be easilly incorporated in to current technology, and it would certinaly be a more effective form of advertising as they'd finally be hitting the mark for everyone instead of hoping to get everyone with the current method of TV advertising - I know I'd rather see advertising for the Alias Season 2 boxset than women's hygene products.
They're exploring new directions; they regularly put a menu option on the main menu to download a half-hour car commercial for a car they think you'd be interested in. I'm sure Tivo will change the way advertising works, but I am positive it won't destroy advertising.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Yeah I know the add problem is big and scary and easy to digest. But the real problem should scare the hell out of the networks.
When you get a Tivo there is no reason to watch crappy TV.
Period.
Seriously, why would I want to watch lowest common denominator TV when I always have something I enjoy at my finger tips?
Seems to me that is the real issue, people that own a Tivo are much, much less likely to watch something 'cause nothing better is on'.
Funny thing about Tivo and I, I watch a hell of a lot more HBO and pay TV then I used to.
90.9% of ads will still be watched.
A 9% drop is less than normal fluctuatiosn due to the state of the economy etc.
The third of PVR users are watching ads that they actually choose to, therefore the ads should be more effective and worth more per view to advertisers.
People already skips ads by switching channels, leavings the room, talking during ads etc. so this makes no difference really.
Ad supported TV can certainly survive quite nicely on 91% of its current ad revenue.
Even if everyone gets a PVR and there are no offsetting improvements to revenues then reveneus drop by two thirds and they will just have to cut the cost of the content - spend less on sports rights, less on film rights, less on poduction etc. The main effect is that a few (mostly very highly paid people) see their salaries drop (they are unlikely to go of and do anything else as they will still be very well paid).
We had relatives over from Europe a few months ago and they couldn't understand why I was watching two films simultaneously. Its just the American way I guess.
Needle Nardle Noo
....I have to admit that I am a Buffy fan, and my TiVo records at least two episodes a day for me to watch at my leisure...and of course...I fastforward thru all commercials ;)
Why would they need to adapt?
Back in the 70's an Insidious product was invented known as the "VCR". This allowed people to record shows based on a timer so that they could watch it at their own leisure. then the Evil VCR Manufactures got truly evil and decided to add "Fast Forward" to the evil box, thus allowing people to fast forward the commercials, and skip the profit generating ad's altogether, almost bankrupting all TV. Then as the final nail in the coffen, VCR Manufactures added features to automaticially skip commercials and made it even easier to steal TV by creating VCRPlus+ to allow TV Guide Users to type in a numeric code and steal TV much easier than previously though.
Tivo is no different than a VCR in the end. The only real difference is that it has a hard drive instead of a tape drive and can fast forward faster. Regardless of what you use however there's a good bet that your skipping the commercials, whether it be in 1 sec. or 20 secs.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Sorry, I just can't leave it alone... In his "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" Jerry Mander points out that the more heavily advertised a product, the more the advertisers are aware of the fundamental fact that YOU DON'T NEED THIS PRODUCT. Advertising is ALL about creating need. If you believe you actually need Coke or Pepsi then you're already lost, "You are a slave, Neo"... Personally I despise the thing, and my life is enriched immensely simply by not watching it at all. In a nutshell, without televsion I have more time for everything else. Just my two drachmas, but I tell my students that every hour spent in front of that tube is an hour utterly wasted. Well, what's to be expected from a junk and throw-away culture if not junk and throw-away lives ? I choose better for myself. Frankly, I'm a believer in the motto "You can't be free if you watch TV"... Okay, you may now return to your regularly scheduled programming...
I only watch a couple of shows on tv anyway. I'd be much happier paying for them on an individual basis, and in doing so casting a vote to keep them from being canceled. Please don't expect me to get teary eyed over the idea that I might lose such precious memories as watching football run over one of the shows I keep cable around for, and then seeing it canceled because people don't watch a show that dosn't air.
Everything will be taken away from you.
My wife and I are long-time TiVo devotees. We can't imagine TV without TiVo (you readers without TiVo, how can you call yourselves true slashdottians?)
Anyway, our commercial watching behavior is simple. We only watch the commercials that are interesting to us. Since we are not in the market for a truck, the Dodge Ram commercial gets skipped. And since I don't have a problem with feminine freshness, I rarely watch douche commercials.
But the paradoxical thing is, we *see* all the commercials, albeit at 30x speed. I never miss a commercial because I'm making a cup of tea while it is on, so I actually see more commercials than I did before TiVo. It's just that we only *watch* the ones that are interesting.
Also, we have noticed that those commercials (1-2 a night) that make it past the spam filter often influence us to buy something, because they are providing information that is useful to us. When my wife asks me to back up and replay a movie ad, it's a 95%+ shot we're going to see that movie (the creators of the new Ben Affleck SF flick will be delighted to know their message got through).
What I've suggested several times to the TiVo folks is that they define a couple of video flags that let advertisers mark the important frames in the ad so that they can make a more effective presentation of the ad at 30x and 60x speeds. This will make it easier for me to decide if I want to *watch* a commercial.
The next step for TiVo is to tag commercials with a "more info" button that jumps to a longer version of the commercial if there's one cached on the hard disc. That would be useful.
"World Domination - a fun, family activity"
I almost always wait until commercial breaks to do something away from the tube, i.e. go to the bathroom, microwaving food, putting food plates away, switching from one room to another room, etc. So I actually never watch television commercials anyway.
The advertisers make up for it though when they force you to watch advertisements during the opening previews at movie theaters and specially coded DVDs that force you to watch previews before allowing you to access to the DVD's menu (though you can fast forward).
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
And another one bites the dust!
With the new bill legalizing spam, advertisers have a new place to go.
I view advertisments as content. When I'm watching a show, which is then interupted by advertising, I often fast-forward. However, I've found that many times I stop and watch certian ads if they're interesting.
For example, if IBM, Aflac, Geico, and others have a new ad then I'll stop and watch. They get my undivided attention instead of my half-listening-from-the-kitchen attention.
I think that what we are seeing is the death of saturation advertising. After all, I have a copy of the add now. If I rewatch the show, the advertiser has a chance to get my attention again. But if I've seen an ad once, and paid attention, then why force me to watch it again. That will just make me resent the product. For example, I need to refinance my second mortgage. I am activly shopping, but I won't call Ditech. They pissed me off by advertising too much, and I'm sick of that phony bank rep. Traditional marketing says that I'm now more likely to have a positive image of the company because I'm aware of it's existance. That's not true. I now know that any ad they come up with is going to piss me off, so I look for their ads so that I can fast-forward or change the channel. Their extreme repitition has served to reenforce my disdain, and I haven't even done business with them.
This seems to be an artifact of the DVR. I don't get up and leave the room as much because I can fast-forward. I even have a more positive attitude toward the ads I do watch because I'm not forced to watch them. But if a company has a lousey advertising campaign, and tries to inflict it on me often enough, then they will face the wrath of the remote.
I don't know about you guys, but I haven't had a T.V. for the past 3 months, since I moved back to Mexico. yeah, they have T.V. here, and actually really reasonable cable rates and satellite rates. But I've discovered that I can get most of my favorite shows off of eMule.
I have no problem watch CSI or Stargate SG1 on my laptop. I could always buy a TV and plug the laptop into that as well. Let's face it, Divx does a pretty good job. So I'm finding it a little difficult to justify getting a TV or cable at this point.
We in England still get the Hour long programs split into fragments. We get to watch the two minute story intro, followed by the program introduction... and then adverts for around 5 minutes. Also the volume increases and i find myself constantly reaching for the volume control.
I propose the adverts be limited to NEVER more than one break per hour, or once in a program with a running time of over 90 minutes.
Television IS NOT an advertising medium, but a form of entertainment. Its about compromise, Ill put up with advertising if the advertisers will stop pissing me off by ruining TV programs by advertising to excess. magazines and junk mail I can just flip the page or throw in the bin, but TV? I dont have enough time to do the things i want to do, and they expect me to waste my time watching TV ads?
"On the flip side, there is not much on regular television (or even most pay stations) that's worth watching anymore. There are only about one or two movies worth watching on HBO a month for example. Netflix is a much better value."
All to true, yet even still there's just enough to keep me from commercials. The History Channel, Discovery Channel, Comedy Central, and ESPN are the only stations I watch regularly, and sports and movies are the only things I watch on other stations. That may not be much (considering that most programming on major networks is sitcom and reality, which I despise), but it's sufficient to give me something to watch during a commercial break. That, of course, means that I'm not seeing the ads even without a TiVo, so in-game ads and product placement in movies are the only things that I have a chance of seeing.
The Discovery Channel has wised up, and is tying new specials to new movies (last night's Xtreme Martial Arts was tied to Tom Cruise's "The Last Samuri," featuring interviews, behind the scenes footage, and full commercials during the show). I expect other channels will follow suit, and I don't mind - the advert was relevant to what I was watching, unlike seeing "AOL 9.0" on the field during a football game.
GL
Anyone old enough (or curious enough) to remember The Shadow will probably remember that he wouldn't have put anything other than Lipton in his cup.
Many sponsor's ads during the radio play ages were performed inline with the show, by the show's performers, but still in such a way that they were clearly advertisements. Sure, not everything could be advertised this way, but it would probably bring back some of the creativity and interest in advertising that seems to have sunk into the world of the one-time superbowl ad.
Advertisers know that people all over tune in to the superbowl just for the ads, yet they don't seem to be spending that kind of effort on a large scale to make every day ads that interesting. Sure, there are exceptions (usually humorous ads), but not enough to keep me glued to the set during show breaks.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
What'll happen is that ads will be inserted into programming, as it already is with pro sports billboards and product placement contracts. This will get *really heavy* though, with the main characters saying things like "Whew, I'm beat, I think I'll have a Pepsi." Soon our TV will be as advertising-infested as our other public spaces.
Any guesses when Brittany Spears gets a product logo tattooed on her hip?
I dont quite buy this DVR's are the end of advertising. The only difference between DVR's and VCR's as far as I can see is DVR's auto record and know when a show's time has changed (and suggest other shows someone might like). If someone really wanted to they could program their VCR to tape the same shows each week and pay attention to when the show moves etc and just change the tape every couple of days and then watch it again (fast forwarding through the commercials).
So how is that different than DVR's, except for the lazy nature of American's not wanting to setup their VCR to do this?
And critical mass is about 11%? Why is a relatively low percentage such a threat?
At least Italian Job built the Minis into the plot. In this movie they interrupted a chase scene that was arguably the only action sequence in order to let one of the characters stand between two "New iMac" posters for about five dead seconds of screen time. Totally pointless, and how cheap do you need to be? I mean, have the actual computers do something, don't just stand up a couple of posters. Awfully lame. And if it wants to be subliminal, they need not to pause for five beats, the idiots...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
For example, NBC has adjusted the schedule of their Thursday lineup by a minute or two so the Season Passes won't work. (For example, if you have a Season Pass for "ER" which starts at 9:58p, then TiVo will not automatically record "CSI" which runs from 9p-10p.)
And I recall that one of the networks (NBC or ABC, if I recall correctly -- but I couldn't track down the article) did a study about commercial skipping on TiVo and came to the conclusion that people fast-forwarding through the quick subliminal commercial images that flash on the screen inbetween their shows are just as effected as if the viewer watched the entire commercial at regular speed. The network's thought was that TiVo wouldn't be a problem any more than VCRs were. It's the ReplayTV automatic "skip commercial" technology that the networks had problems with.
(sidenote: in 1999, NBC invested money in TiVo)
Just a quick reminder: all major US television networks, some of the cable networks, and some of the satellite networks were investors (some still are) in TiVO and have had major input into its development. That's why there's no 30-second skip out of the box -- they were afraid of its impact on ad revenues. So if ad-supported TV is doomed by TiVO, the networks actually have had a hand in their own demise.
I hate all these producers and channels limiting what I can see. They have reduced a tool that could have been the best teaching tool ever created to mindless drivel anyway.
The internet allows us to go to a whole new distribuion model.
Imagine being able to download a free new show from the internet and watch it, and the only cost is a 60 second comercial at the beginning explaining the company that brought this show to you and promoting a single item.
Also, you would be free to burn these shows to CD and give them to your friends as long as the ad was left in place. If the media player could report back to the original provider when the ad is viewed, then this could guarantee that they get all their revenue from all the ad views.
Also, you get to choose which kinds of comercials you would like to see. Personally I would love to see comercials about high tech gagets or movie trailers that are similar to those shows that I already requested. If I never see a hemroid or femine itch comercial again, that will be too soon. If the server could remember the ads that I have already seen and never send me a duplicate ad, even better.
Imagine a device like a Tivo, but instead of (or in addition to?) getting a feed from a tv channel it gets a feed from the internet, and everyone gets to request what they want to see. All the boxes work in a giant peer to peer network and work all the time to load up a hard drive with a few hundred hours of content.
This could work for music too, a short minute ad before each album.
Like a dotcom business model, the US tries to make up for a lack in quality by upping quantity.
...
The result is that USians have more of worse things, e.g. the TV ads, patents,
Unfortunately the US is very good at exporting its economic model, so Europe will suffer too.
When is our advertising>demand>sales culture going to give way to a quality>demand>sales one?
Manufacturers seem to have become convinced that a soft drink with a flashy, basketball-endorsed campaign will sell, whereas a soft drink that is refreshing, tasty and *value for money* has no merit?
This applies to all genres of product - I'll give a friend's recommendation about 11,000% more credence than some TV ad, and I only buy products that are genuinely
If only the music industry, food makers etc would listen. Stop telling us what is good and cool, and let true market forces dictate success. Obviously the success of convenient and easy P2P apps shows HyperGlobalMegaNet for what they are - outdated, increasingly irrelevant and outrageously selfish.
Oh, and I use a TiVo for all of the above reasons. Last I checked Disney(R, FL) hadn't made commercial-watching compulsory, or made commericals an attractive viewing proposition. Does throwing away the crap in my New Scientist mean that I am stealing that?
Why does no-one get that WE are the power and THEY are the supplier?
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Im all for subscription TV without any ads at all, The worst thing about TV is the loud, annoying irritating and pushy ads.
Even the BBC has ads, albeit for its own programmes, but they are just as annoying as the commercial ads.
Id happily pay a monthly subscription for ad-free channels.
Demolition man == Taco Bell
I'm so sick of PAYING to watch cable and STILL having to watch stupid comercials!! I'm already paying for crying out loud! I should either get cable for free and pay by watching ads, or I should pay for cable and get ZERO ads... So I'm glad that ad companies are losing money! They should lose money. They've screwed me long enough, now it's my turn to do some screwin...er um...you know what I mean!
to changing conditions, its a shame the advertisisers don't adapt as well. Imagine having a segement at the begining of a program much like PBS does. "This program brought to you by (insert favorite advertiser here)". Plus there are already a number of paid product placements on televison programs (although they go to the producers).
Besides I don't beleive that 30% of the people don't have to pee or need a snack....
isn't it obvous? all they have to do is make funny/stupid/revealing commercials then they make a collection of those commercials and make it into a "world's funniest commercials" , then people WILL sit and watch em :)
There is one big problem with TV advertising.
The only thing that people advertise is the crap that nobody wants. Products which actually sell on their merits don't need advertising, people will seek them out.
When I was last in the USA I found TV was unwatchable because ads would happen in the middle of a sentance.
The world would be a better place without TV ads, so surely this is a GOOD thing. Why would anyone except TV ad makers care if they go?
You're far, far too generous, actors are not professionals, sorry. The Professions are: Medecine, Law, Engineering. That is all. A profession requires that its practitioners have a code of ethics that they are required to adhere to. Ethics, that part is important. And they are answerable to their peers (not plebes, other people in their profession). But thanks for playing.
While it is nice to skip through commercials with my Replay, I do not always do it. I am usually puttering around the house while watching t.v., so I don't always seek out the remote when a commerical break comes up and just suffer through the banality.
Too bad the technology isnt there yet for it.
Basicly, the idea is that the ads are targeted based on the viewer. For example, geeks are more likely to buy computer gear so they would get more ads for the latest PC gizmos. And housewives are more likely to buy things like cleaners so they would get more ads for cleaners, detergents and such.
Better yet is if the viewer could choose the categories of ads they get (everyone would get the same number of ads but they would get a mixture from whichever categories they picked, perhaps with a requirement to choose at least n categories)
Example catetories:
Financial services (i.e. credit cards, home loans, bank accounts etc)
Electrical (i.e. TV sets, stereos, DVD players etc)
Movies (i.e. ads for movies that are in the cinemas or coming out on video)
Junk Food (i.e. ads for hamburgers, chicken, subs, ice creams, chips, lollies etc)
Health Food (i.e. ads for breakfast cereals & other generally healthy food)
Boys Toys (i.e. things like GI Joe, Transformers, Pokemon, Star Wars, Action Man etc)
Girls Toys (i.e. things like Barbie, Baby Born etc)
Toys (i.e. things that are unisex like LEGO, Pool Toys etc)
Music (although I suspect that music would be big enough to warrant a split up into things like Classical Music, Rock & Roll, Rap, Pop, Jazz etc)
Technology (i.e. ads for things like MP3 players, Cellular Phones, PDAs, Computer Gear etc)
Some ads might be in more than one category (for example, an ad for a McDonalds Happy Meal featuring Disney Movie toys might appear under Toys, Fast Food and Movies)
The real looser would be those companies that advertize/sell things which you dont want and would never buy were it not for the pursuasive marketing campaign. For example, its doubtfull that many people here would be interested in Credit Cards & would probobly choose not to watch ads for them (I know I wouldnt, I dont have one and dont want one). On the other hand, its a good bet that at least some of the people (not necessarily here but in general) who arent interested in Credit Cards and who would not select to watch ads for them have been convinced by one of those ads to buy a credit card.
Basicly, this problem essentially boils down to the fact that certain kinds of ads wont be selected by enough people (for example, its likely that kids will probobly all want to select "toys" and "video games" and "movies" and probobly "pop music" but who would voluntarily pick "finantial services" unless they were specificly looking for such things.
Not to mention the case of things that you would never have thought of buying in a million years but which you decide to buy after seeing the ad (for example, someone who is not a classical music fan per se might not select "classical music" but at the same time that same person might be likely to consider going to a concert if they saw an ad for it).
Another problem is the case where you already have something (such as a home loan) and have no plans to switch. Therefore, you would probobly not select "home loans" (say) and wouild be less likely to be sucked in by the "you already have this but the one we have is better, buy from us" marketing trick.
Another problem is how to decide which category a given ad falls under. For example, what categories should a 15% off everything at kmart sale fall under?
Plus, what about ads like "anti-drug" ads or whatever, do you really think that a teenage drug-adict is going to want to watch ads designed to help kick him off the habit?
Broadcasters have already won the first battle to restrict PVRs. The Broadcast Flag on HDTV will let them control the ability of PVRs to record their shows. As more people move towards HDTV, the networks will regain their control. And the people who are most interested in HDTV are generally the same set of people who are most interested in PVRs.
Fortunately, there's still another 18 months (I think until June 2005) to buy an ATSC tuner card for your computer that ignores the broadcast flag, so you can build your own TiVo-like system.
I don't see what the big deal is. The networks are already handling TiVo in their own way.
Yeah, they're driving away 18-to-34 year-old males, the demographic segment most likely to own a TiVo.
How? Shitty programming that doesn't interest men. One lame reality show after another. Even the basic cable mainstays are sissifying their shows-- I used to watch Discovery and TLC a lot, now practically all they have are semi-disguised "decorating" shows and junk like "A Dating Story."
The only network with shows I actually watch is FOX, and even they do dumb shit like "Skin"-- maybe it was an interesting show somewhat aimed at men, but you're not gonna beat Monday Night Football with anything acceptable enough to be run on broadcast television-- and you might not even beat it with Naked Lesbian Jell-O Wrestling.
Spike TV actually has the right idea-- they ran a James Bond movie marathon during most of the holiday weekend, and unless it was Simpsons time or there was something more interesting on the History Channel, that's what I "watched" if I had the TV on while I was doing something else.
~Philly
Even the cable companies are offering us to switch out our only 1-year old digital cable boxes for newer suped up models that have some degree of PVR functionality (I think its about 30 hrs) - and at only 6 bucks extra / month, its pretty cheap too.
A geeky idea occours to me.
Pressing a button to skip a commercial is annoying if you are trying to do somthing else while watching TV. Imagine lots of PVR's hooked up to the internet. The PVR's talk to each other and form groups that are showing the same channel. When someone hits the skip-commercial button his PVR sends out some UDP packets addresses to other PVR's that are watching the same channel. The other PVR's send out relay packets to half a dozens others and so on so the messges gets out as quickly as possible and one PVR dosn't have to directly inform a hundred others.
A cancel-skip button would take you back to befor the skip and reduce the repuatation of the person who just pressed the wrong button on the remote or deliberatly caused a bad skip. People who cause bad skips get ignored.
Plenty of scope for options, eg immediate skip versus on-screen text "autoskip in 3...2...1", learn mode to find other people who use the skip button at the same time you do etc, require several votes to skip when there are over a dozen people watching the same channel.
It would not need a huge mass of people to be usefull. Three or four people who happen to watch TV at the same time would be enough.
Don't own a TiVo. I think they're great, don't get me wrong. But with cable running me $60mth for only 100 channels I can't see adding the subscription to TiVo anytime soon. There will always be a market for TV. The big 3 networks thought cable would kill them, and it didn't. PVR's won't kill TV either. This is the same paranoia that keeps the RIAA and MPAA pursuing 15 year olds for trading Britany Spears songs.
The one really impressive thing I noticed when looking this up was the ratings. The top rated show November 17-23 was CSI, watched by approximately 16 million homes. That's out of 100 million homes. So the best-watched show on TV is only watched by 1 out of 6 households? And they're getting how much per ad? But, you could support a TV show for $8-$10 per season. Granted, that adds up, but not bad.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
but i certainly hope that it causes companies to rethink their entire identificatory-ad model.
OK, nike spends $X million for a 30-second ad during the superbowl. Do they really need name recognition? Would anyone not know Nike if they didn't have ads like this?
The marketplace is increasingly becoming dominated by consumers who actively seek the info they need, and/or who are generally sophisticated enough to ignore the bulk of crap-ads on television, radio, etc ANYWAY. More and more sales (I imagine) are becoming the result of the freer exchange of information BETWEEN consumers - an avenue that was (pre-Internet) limited to one's social circle and possibly Consumer Reports. Quick - name the last purchase over $100 that you didn't research on the internet?
When I look at the massive budgets companies spend on advertising I wonder - "could this money:"
a) be saved
b) be reinvested to make a better product
c) lower the sales price for the same profitability?
Perhaps the demise of the current profit model will make companies actually LOOK at these numbers, instead of accepting them as gospel.
IMO what's happening is that PUSH advertising is dying. Someone will eventually realize this, and their market advantage (they're not spending money that others are) will prove irrefutable.
Alternately, the ad money will be spent more wisely, on truly interesting/entertaining advertising campaigns - the BMW mini-movies, the Volkswagen or Sprite ads (almost always entertaining), etc. - there you have name recognition without an obvious push.
It *still* doesn't make me want to buy a Beemer or drink Sprite, but I'm more likely to at least have a positive opinion of a company that has a sense of humor, and the wisdom to not shove their product up my nose to sell it.
-Styopa
-- Robert A. Heinlein
In order to get the numbers from the article you would have to assume to much: That people are only taping and watching tv, thus never watching a commercial. And the other is that all commercials are watched and are effective. The same thing happened when the remote came out.
Plenty of people already turn off the sound during commercials. Is there that much of a difference?
It's sort of annoying to me... I sort of like commercials... Some of them are funny. The placement of a given commercial tells you who they think is watching.
Then they have to start selling their products by reputation and by quality! Oy we!
Ads are just a way to sell things that isnt good enough to be sold by their own. A side effect of the ad-based selling we see today is the decline in quality in most markets.
With good enough marketing you can sell outright crap wich kind of makes the free market miss its best feature.
HTTP/1.1 400
There's oodles of benefits, just think about it
- the programming quality is usualy better
- its a much more direct 'vote-with-your-wallet' business model
- stations could focus more on their audience than bending to the advertisers presure to appeal to everyone (like get this, TechTV could actualy get... dare I say it... technical!
- The FCC pretty much sits on the sidelines
I have digital cable right now with something like 200 channels, but I've only tagged about 25 of them as my 'favorites' and those are the only ones I even flip through.
I kept track for two years of the money I spent because of seeing something advertised on TV. In two years, the total was something like $6.82.
I don't think this is something you can know. How can you measure brand recognition? A lot of processing goes on subconsciously; there's no way to know if seeing an ad repeatedly for brand x made you more favorable to that product at the subconscious level. Or perhaps you saw a character on a show stop by Wendy's, and the next day for lunch you're craving a single with cheese.
Just being aware a product exists is worth something to the advertiser. "Hey, I need a new razor. I wonder if that Mach 3 is any good?" So you buy a Mach 3, not attributing the sale to the ad you saw 3 months before, but the fact you were aware of the product made you consider it.
Oh, yeah, television. I remember TV. It's what we used to watch before we got all these DVDs. Aside from Jeopardy! I can't recall when I last watched video coming from outside my house. It's just not worth my time.
Let's face it: we're saturated. A 15 second spot saying "Widget X is 15% better than crappy old Widget Y" is unlikely to work the way it may once have, given that there is an equal and opposite amount of Widget Y propaganda out there. Admittedly, there are exceptions -- take McDonald's and Coca Cola, for instance. In fact, any time I mention Coca Cola's market dominance my 20something peers immediately jump into a defense of its superior taste. Hint to them: you are drones.
Commercials are increasingly amusing, unusual or abstract. It's downhill from here. Sure, IBM's horrible, *horrible* Linux ads may be better today than a vanilla ad saying "Linux is good and here's why". But a vanilla ad in 1985 saying "Linux is good and here's why" would have been immensely more effective.
Advertising must be novel to be effective. Unfortunately this means it always needs to be placed in new places, which means it will be ever-more intrusive on our daily lives. The death of the 30 second TV spot is just a tiny upside to the horrific travesty of the commodification of our private lives.
Suppose product placement completely replaces commercial breaks.
Then TV stations would get their revenue from film producers (who would in turn get it from product manufacturers). Which means stations would actually get paid to show a film, rather than have to pay to show it.
Means film producers would be willing to pay you to see it, hence not run after you if you make an illegal copy.
So movie piracy might not be a crime anymore, in the future, as it benefits movie producers who will earn more income from product placement because of the popularity of the movie.
What do you think?
I guess they are assuming that all DVR users don't watch Live TV, which isn't true. Plus did they ever think that DVR users maybe watch more TV then they ever did before.
www.emergants.com
Because they're going to drop your precious analog broadcast and render any channel but "3" useless. Then you'll go out and buy a set top box like a good little lemming.
;-)
Don't worry, it's still a couple of years off. If you don't agree willingly, you'll be beaten into submission. There's still time to repent.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
[ed. note: in the following text, former TV developer Master Controll Program gives his reasons for abandoning TV]
When I stood for election to the TV core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the TV project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
TV used to be fun. ...
I'm sorry. I can't go on. It's too fuckin easy.
Read the rest of this comment...
Haven't we been here before?
Phil
every contemporary movie lately,
tell me, where can I buy a cordless phone with the at&t logo under the mouthpiece.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I am not a marketing professional, but if 9.1 percent of adds are skipped, that would seem to imply a 10% overpayment. If 100% of adds are skipped, does that mean that marketers are paying only twice what they are worth? (100% overpayment) For that matter, where did the 9.1% figure come from anyway? Two thirds of 15%?
I will leave the math as an exercise for the reader.
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.
The crux of the matter, for me anyway, is the quantity not the quality. This has occurred as a direct result of deregulation to both television and radio. To alleviate the onslaught of television advertising I bought Tivo, for radio I bought an iPod car adaptor and simply stopped listening to anything other than NPR.
During the 80's the average number of commercials run hourly was 10 to 12 when the federal government regulated commercial time. Since deregulation the average is about 20 commercials.
I see three viable choices for the future:
1) Change the compensation method. Harry Shearer had an item on his radio show awhile ago that it would cost about $280 annually from every TV watcher to do away with ads completely. Do something similar to what the UK and the BBC do now. It would give the content producers more freedom as well, no more sponsor pressure to change this or that.
2) Cable companies need to change. ATM I pay about $80 for 250+ channels of crap I mostly don't watch and about 8 channels that I do. Let me pay $1-$2 per month for the channels I *do* want and pass the extra back to the networks that I support. The networks would then have more incentive to have better programming and less incentive for advertising. The cable company has to pay a monthly fee for every channel they carry - let the consumers decide via the marketplace which are worthy of survival.
3) Tivo/RePlay and FF past the commercials if networks don't get a clue. I suspect sometime soon we'll see a major television set manufacturer embed a Tivo, or a Tivo like device, in the set itself.
If the content producers and networks think they can get around this with product placement they are just wrong. In my house we have a game: anytime we see product placement in a show we all shout "Product Placement!". The key to stripping its power is to be aware of it (and making fun of it also helps).
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - BF
Maybe banner adverts will be used?
On the other hand, cheap content (e.g., Reality and cheap animation) is finding a lot of success. I think the TV business will be OK.
-Dave
I was thinking of 3 tablet PCs, but one of them BSODs.
..i always fast forward through adverts on my VHS ...this is exactly the same - but with digital
recording. nothing new here. move along.
How long do you think it will take for people to achieve a "television-on-demand" peer-to-peer network similar to what kazaa has done with music? The infra-structure for this is already going in to place. How many hard-drives in tivo units are saving television programs across the US? With hard-drives, solid state memory, and DVD burners getting cheaper by the day, it won't be long until a group of tech savvy people on broadband connections bypass all standard tv show distribution methods in favor of peer-to-peer, maybe even bit-torrent type tv show distributions. (I can see another failing business model: commercials during the download time) And once they start it, its not gonna stop. The thing that worries me is that the cost of producing a high-quality television program utterly dwarfs the cost of producing a record. The economics are simple: if its free to consume, consumers aren't going to pay for it. It is conceivable how music will survive peer-to-peer (performing-artist != starving-artist), but how can quality tv shows? Will it come down to giving up privacy for happiness?
My only regret... is that I have... bonitis..
Oh boo hoo! I've had TiVo for years and it *has* revolutionized the way that I watch TV. Yes it's nice to be able to watch what TV I want to watch when I want to watch it, but equally important is the ability to skip over commercials.
Americans are bombarded with advertising, and it's a filthy business. Everywhere you turn there's an advertisement launched at you. They're even so sleezy that they mark up prices so that they can say they are 30% off and make a sale.
What irks me is when I listen to a radio program or watch a television program and the actual content is only 3/4 of what is played. Some simpsons episodes are as short as 18 minutes! Other shows run for 22, but jeez - 18 minutes?! That's almost 50% commercials! Doesn't that seem ridiculous?
TiVO has simply made us the consumer more aware of the amount of advertising flung at us on a daily basis. The advertisers are going to have to find some other business model, because I believe that when TiVO takes off there will be no going back.
Do it for da shorties
...do not neccesarily equal "Most of the best TV shows available"...Now, I'm off to Wally World...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
I know this is offtopic, but: I was watching some show (60 minutes? Dateline?) where they were following families who were living 'at or below' the poverty line. These were families that were getting food from the food bank, et cetera. As the cameras went inside one family's home, I couldn't help being *floored* that this family that was poor enough to get food at the food bank had enough money to have CABLE TV. *I* don't afford cable TV -- and I'm supposed to donate food to the food bank so that someone else can afford cable TV? WTF? Since when was cable TV a necessary part of life? The other thing I'll bitch about, while I'm at it, was the car - an (older) SUV. WTF? I drive a goddamned '88 Corolla because it gets 30mpg, and I'm supposed to feel sorry they have a hugeass SUV that gets 15? Ugh.
TNT started that nonsense a few years ago. They take a 100 minute movie, schedule it for a 3 hour block. The first part of the movie will play non-stop for 20 minutes to get you hooked, but by the end of the movie it gets down to short 5 minute segments like you saw.
Needless to say, we rarely watched moview on TNT unless there was adequate reading material at hand.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
I found a way to completly skip commercials: READ A BOOK. I am currently rereading the Elric saga, but I didn't notice the part where Elric shares a coke with the god Arioch the first time I read it . . .
It will be our own remote control actions that determine what type of ads we see. Do you change channel when a popvert shows up? Do you let commercials play that have 3 seconds of silence at the beginning? Do you choose movies with more or less Xanax trucks in them? Do you "rewind" when you see the color red in a football game? Does your household skip feminine product ads during recorded Star Treks? Do you frequently allow the ads to play but then always "rewind" back to the point just after the ad break (possibly you went to the bathroom and relied on your recorder to not miss the content)?
The bad news is that we will be experimented on unmercifully. The really good news is that our choices will be reflected more quickly.
How? Each DVR that makes it into the household, and has reporting capabilities upstream, gives the advertisers better data and all kinds of interesting business models based on interpretive statistics: pay less to channels where the ads are being skipped, pay more for primo live ad times like presidential inaugurations, etc., or new prime time episodes of hot shows. No big news here, just a refining of the math based on "better" numbers.
Hopefully we will win based on our habits turning into real $$$ discussions at the ad companies PHB level. Of course we could also lose -- think DRMed unskippable ads, ads downloaded based on your viewing habits, etc.
In the old days they assumed an ad was getting watched by looking at Nielsen ratings or whatever. (Now that's interesting -- the Nielsen ratings may just go bye-bye. The data gatering will be automated and MUCH more fine grain -- down to the second. Another failed advertising business model!) They did not know if you were going pee or getting a beer to enable the pee cycle, and obviously still don't. But now, if it is recorded or paused for 5 minutes at the beginning, my favorite method, they have SOME data. They can try all kinds of tricks with that data and get better feedback near real time. Their interpretation of statistics will lead to some business model that balances our annoyance level with their advertising profits. Gotta love market mentality.
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Apparently, the guys at Television Week haven't read the Proctor & Gamble study which found that Tivo users remember ads about as well as other viewers, either because they're too lazy to skip ads, or because they're watching shows as they're being broadcast instead of time-shifting, or because they actually want to watch the ads, or because the ads are effective even at fast-forward speeds.
Personally, I sometimes forget that I'm watching through Tivo and that I can skip the ads. Other times I do skip the ads I'd have otherwise ignored, but I stop for ads that I enjoy. Still other times, I watch ads at high speed that I recognize. Frankly, I think I harbor less ill will toward companies whose ads would otherwise annoy me, and I still feel pretty good about companies whose ads (and more importantly, products) I like. So what's the harm?
I have a policy of actively avoiding companies who advertise. The more intrusive the method {Spam; advertising in DVDs / videos; that goes double if fast-forward blocked, and the disc goes back to the store as FAULTY} the more extensive the avoidance. If they are spending money on advertisements then they must either be spending less on quality, or cost more. So here you go, big corporations: if you want AJS318 to buy your products, don't advertise them to me - let them speak for themselves. I think most people I know feel the same way.
If I never see another advertisement on TV again, it will be too soon. I already record my favourite satellite programmes {on reliable, analogue, sequential access VHS} just so I can fast-forward through the advert breaks; otherwise they are next to unwatchable what with adverts for get-out-of-debt loans {I'm no expert but if you run into debt, shouldn't the Dish be the first thing to go?}; sue-me-quick legal shysters {"Had an accident that wasn't your fault? Profit!!!"; JML tat {breaks as soon as you unpack it}; mobile phones {Is there really anybody who hasn't got one and doesn't have a good reason not to get one?}; "savings plans" where you put away 10 a month for the first year, your payments increase geometrically and you eventually get back less than half of what you paid in; and various companies' versions of even cheaper car insurance {some for over-50s, some for women only, mostly for people with over 4 years bonus}. When I have the wireless on, I always listen to Radio 2 or Radio 4 - good old advert-free BBC.
A HDD-based video recorder which can record and play back from different parts of the disc would be great, as it would give you the ability to watch almost-live {say 10' later than the sheduled start time} and fast-forward through the adverts till you eventually caught up with the broadcast. Of course, you would have to be able pause the playback anytime whilst carrying on recording.
Just when are these people - the people whose wages we, as the consumers of their products, are paying - going to realise that our private screens and speakers are not their public hoardings?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Personally, I've always found ads a good time to make a cup of tea, or have a piss, or just knock off the sound and talk. I reckon I skip a lot more than 9.6% of them in this way. Having said that, there have been some classic ads: the "surfer" Guinness ad is a personal favourite.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Nah. If PVR's destroy ad revenues with traditional TV, that'll just make it that much more likely that PVR's won't work with the new Digital TV format(s).
I think that TV advertisers started getting scared when VCR's got the ability to do visual fast forward/reverse, which allows VCR users to skip through commercial breaks very quickly anyway. It got worse when VCR's in recent years got the ability to skip through tape in one minute or 30-second increments (my Mitsubishi HS-U595 VCR can fast-forward through the tape in 30-second increments from 30 seconds to three minutes).
Using this ability, you notice how much shorter the actual shows are nowadays, to say the least.
Couch Potato: TiVo, what is good in life?
TiVo: To block commercials, delete them unseen, and hear the lamentation of their advertisers.
Couch Potato & TiVo: bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! bwa-ha-hA-HA-HA!! BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I don't care for cottage cheese. I think I'd have a much harder time getting into an argument over its merits than I would over Coke v. Pepsi, don't you?
Come to think of it, I don't like Heineken either, but I bet I could get into some arguments with people over that -- not as many as over colas, though. It'd be interesting to compare how easily a person can be drawn into debating a product vs. that product's advertising budget.
I realize this undercuts my previous point re: advertising's effectiveness waning as it saturates a given medium. But there are of course certain exceptions -- pervasive campaigns that make us use things we otherwise wouldn't, or, perhaps more insidiously, care about things we have little reason to care about.
Perhaps these products' ad campaigns are acting on us in a way I can't put my finger on. But it seems clear they have got a firm hold of our brains.
What about local advertising and things that aren't brand names? Local car dealerships, concert events, political campaigning, preview of next week's TV episode, etc.
Actually, Alvin Toffler in his book The Third Wave predicted this 24 years ago. Back then, VCR's were starting to become popular and one of what his predictions was that as VCR's become more popular they would effectively make the whole idea of prime time useless, since people now can record their favorite shows to watch at a much later time. Why do you think David Letterman became well-known as the popularity of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC coincided with the fast rise in the popularity of VCR's?
The satellite channels in the UK are saturated with ads because, presumably it's very cheap to advertise in this way in channels with relatively low viewing figures. The terrestrial commercial channels are much better because their higher viewing figures mean they can (and do) charge a lot more, so fewer adverts. Basically it's a vicious circle - low viewing numbers mean more adverts, which pisses off viewers even further. VH1 is almost unwatchable these days - 2 or 3 songs with over 5 mins of adverts in between. Not surprising, therefore, that it's now preferable to record the stuff and FF through the ad breaks. If only my recordable DVD could do it automatically (the technology is there, but no-one dares enable it).
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
I've thought the ratings were skewed, anyway (I won't even mention how ideology overrides ratings). I mean, there have been some *really* utterly stupid shows that claimed to have top ratings.
The ratings *also* don't take into account that lovely button on the remote labelled "mute".
But finally, the broadcasters seem to miss one little point: the anger of the audience.
Over what?
1) the airwaves are OWNED BY THE PEOPLE.
Broadcasters are allowed to buy leases
only as long as they broadcast in the
public's interest.
2) cable, when it first came out, was sold
on the basis of "tv with no commercials
or editing". That's *ALL* cable stations.
I gave up on USA, for example, when the
editing was so extreme that whether it
was t&a or serious drama, you couldn't
keep track of the plot.
3) when I was growing up, in the sixties,
the *law* was, I believe, *five* minutes
of commercials per half hour. We're now
up to one-hour shows having 22 min. of
commercials.
So, whose "fault" is it that we don't want to watch commercials? If I want all commercials, all the time, I can watch one of the shopping channels. In the meantime, I will *NEVER* buy some products, like Bowflex (6-8 commercials/hr, often two in the same break), etc.
Maybe Yahoo Serious had the right idea, and there needs to be a hostile takeover of a national station....
mark "can I have my public media, and
equal time, back?"
I guess if the poster meant that in a very strict sense, as in by selling 30-second ad spots, he could be right. But television will be sponsor-supported for a very long time to come. If you've ever seen the type of car your 'average' television producer drives, then it's dawned on you that these people are fiendishly good at making money. They'll find ways to adapt. You'll see product placement taken to a whole new level (Will & Grace suddenly get jobs in a Pepsi bottling plant.) You'll see running banner ads at the bottom of the screen right as the program airs. These are already proven to work: soccer probably generates more ad revenue worldwide than all other sports combined through product placement and scrollnig ads. This despite having only one half-time commercial break.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
We never watch TV live. Even sporting events are started a few minutes to an hour into the event to create enough padding to skip commercials.
However...
We do, and do frequently, back up and watch a commercial in which we are actually interested.
At least in my household, a given commercial stands more chance of being seen on the Tivo than it did back in the bad old days when we just muted the volume and went to the bathroom/kitchen... Other Tivo owners that I talk to seem to also do this (re-watch commercials) at least some. Do the Tivo stats capture this? Can broadcasters charger MORE for commercials that get re-viewed on Tivo at any significant percentage?
Remember what they said about the VCR roughly 20 years ago....and now Hollywood makes most of its money from video rental and sales than from the box office (which is more like an advertisement ploy now).
And besides....nowandays, alot of the stuff to be advertised are in the shows anyway....in sort of a subliminal way....it might be in the dialog or in play sight or by the colors, etc. It use to be that in movies, most brand names in the story were fictional but now.....they aren't always so. Take Santa Claus 2, they blantantly show product logos, including McD's. Or the newer James Bond flix and the fancy cars. Or the Italian Job with the uber mini-cooper exposure, which made ME want one too.
Quit worrying, guys. By the time the analog TV transmitters are turned off, which will probably be 2010 at the rate things are going, you'll be able to buy an HD tuner from one of us "early adopters" on eBay for $10. You don't need a new TV, most of the tuners will downconvert to NTSC so as long as you have a video input on your TV you're fine.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
The cable companies will simply put some sort of DRM on all the content that they stream, so that people wont be allowed to record it (using DVRs or anything..). No TiVO then, and people will have to view all the ads. BTW, does anyone know what rights does the consumer have over content that is streamed over cable? Is the user allowed to record it for personal use?
Television is also getting cheaper to create. Actors arent', but most television now doesn't use actors. As long as networks can cut there costs by 10% from a few years ago by producing more mini docs and reality TV, they don't really have a big problem.
Sometimes it's cool to record the commercials. When my family got their first VCR back in 1984 we recorded the Wizard of Oz off TV. Because we were new to VCR Technology we recorded all the commercials. Now I can sit back and watch 20 year old commercials I haven't seen since I was little. Commercials like "where's the beef" and commercials for Pepsi Free, remember that? I think there's even an old Max Headroom commercial for Coke on there. It's also wierd to hear car dealers saying that you don't have to start making payments until 1985. I know it's a strange point of view but recording commercials can be an interesting trip back in time if the recording lasts for 20 years or so.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
New Dawn 2-in-1 action packs... blah blah... in new Dawn 2-in-1 action packs.. blah blah blah blah... New Dawn 2-in-1 action packs... blah blah blah blah... New Dawn 2-in-1 action packs blah blah... New Dawn 2-in-1 action packs blah... try new Dawn 2-in-1 action packs... blah.
The most annoying commercial EVER. I have vowed never to purchase Dawn or any derrivative product ever again. And advertisers wonder why we hate them and their crappy ads?
MythTV (www.mythtv.org) often figures out where the commercials are all on it's own, you don't even have to skip them yourself.
I no longer know what movies are out, what new shows are coming out, anything that is usually communicated via TV commericals.
Tivo/replaytv might have an edge in reliability, ease of configuration, etc. but MythTV creams them in feature set, hands down. No monthly fees either.
Have you ever watched Alias? Nokia practically owns that show. Their horrid ringtone can be heard at least every other week, and a few episodes ago, their 3650 model became a technological centerpiece in a spy mission.
I'm not sure what frightens me more -- that Nokia does it, or that I recognize it so easily...
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
So the market model changes and advertising dies. So be it. I for one will welcome it.
According to this site, a 30 second spot during the Superbowl is $2.2 million dollars. That gets you approximately 89 million viewers. So, an advertiser is paying approxiately $0.025 per viewer potentially reached. Assuming 20 minutes of advertising an hour, that's 40 30-second ads. Total income received per viewer per hour: $1. So if we get rid of the advertisements the networks will be doing just fine if they can recoup $1 per viewer/hour. I for one would happily spend $1 per hour for commercial free television. And that's for the Superbowl, one of the most expensive time slots each year. I regrettably can't locate the article, but I've seen claims that typical programming would be even cheaper, perhaps by an order of magnitude.
HBO and similar cable networks have shown that you can be profitable without ads. That might be an idea whose day has come. While the loss of free for the taking broadcast television would be unfortunate, it may simply be economically unviable.
Let me get this straight?
The concern is not that they'll be losing money. No, the concern is that their growth rate isn't quite as large as they'd like.
Boo freaking hoo.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
I have a tivo and I actually watch commercials. If a commercial is good and catches my attention, I watch it. So what if I skip ads for a swiffer sweeper? I don't care how many times you shove that ad in my face, I'm not going to buy one.
That's easier to do for some products than others. And it may be harder for, say, a western to come up with good ways to advertise than, say, a show like "Friends".
While the technology to track ad skipping is easy to understand (and these things are connected to a phone line to get programming information anyway, right?), I don't understand why Tivo would sell or give this information away.
If it turns out that Tivo users are having a serious impact on advertisers' messages, won't there be a strategy around Tivo's abilities? Won't advertisers mix ads into real content, or worse, seek legislative control ("Tivo alters the artists' copyrighted works")? It seems to me that it is not in Tivo's best interest to report ad skipping because it sets up strategies against one of the features of the product.
And, has there ever been serious study on the impact of ads anyway? I don't have Tivo and rarely record to VCR, but I also "tune out" most ads by either using the commercial break to do other things, or return focus to the newspaper or something. Has television advertising become similar to spam at this point -- tuned out and easily ignored as background noise with very little "hit" on each message? Is TV advertising headed for some kind of dot-com type meltdown as people realize how much money is chasing very little return?
Sleep is for the Weak
Worse than paying for cable is having to pay for cable you don't want. There are half a dozen channels we actually watch, but they're spread out over multiple bundled packages of channels so it costs a fortune to get them. I'm paying for dozens of news and sports channels that we literally never watch.
My understanding is that the big corporations don't want the cable companies to unbundle the channels. Their model is that they want to be in as many homes as possible, so (for example) Disney forces the cable company to carry a bunch of Disney channels in its standard package, in return for the right to carry ABC.
I can only hope that we move to a model where you pay for the channels you want and only the channels you want.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
This TV season is really the first that I'm watching my favorite shows off of BT rather than the TV.
I watch 10 hours of Prime time per week
4 hours of that is SG-1 on sci-fi monday nights (until my DVD/RIP collection is complete).
the rest is:
NCIS (CBS tuesday)
Smallville (WB wednesday)
Enterprise (BT, wed. runs alongside Smallville)
JAG (CBS friday)
1 hour FOX sunday
most shows I watch on BT, skipping the damn commercials. most are highly annoying anyhow, local car peddlers, drugs and M$FT...
Granted some are hilarious, MGD, Bud and Aflac rarely disappoint in the humor department, but the rest REALLY GET ON MY NERVES!
With the average ENT episode clocking in at 42:30 with intro/end credits (the last 60s are the end creds which on broadcast are always overlapped by ads anyway that means... 18:30 of commercials (17:30 not counting the end creds overlay). frankly, thats obsurd, and 10:00 of that are the same damn ads over and over and over and over again. i don't have TiVo, but i do have BT, the next best thing IMO considering i do have the bandwidth and time (and don't EVER tell me that i'm getting them for free, bandwidth costs $$$, time is also a huge ass commodity.
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
One thing the article talks about is that the traditional way of building an audience for a new show (lead ins and lead outs) doesn't work with Tivo users. A lead in or lead out is when you place the new show either before or after an existing popular show to hook in people who tune in early to the show or who don't quickly turn the TV off or change the channel when the show is over.
OK, so how about coding the ads for shows (like when they advertise a special or a new show) with some kind of meta data so that you can press a button on the Tivo remote to have it auto-record the show. I think that would work just as well.
How many times do I see an ad for a show and think that I'd like to watch it, but I'm too lazy to stop everthing, go into the Tivo's menus, and set the show to record. That happens some for me. There are a lot of "marginal" shows that I'm not super enthused about setting up to record, but would record if I could push a button.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
So you are the one to blame for the lack of informative advertisements? You're the reason that I have to endure 30 second spots of something filmed by an epileptic?
I've got a tape of some ca. 1960 auto commercials. Incredible how informative they are. XX horsepower, show someone with a tape measure in the bed of a truck, etc. Now I get these 'entertaining' lifestyle ads. Yay.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
but it's going to be a little harder for other types of advertising where new products or companies are trying to convince you to buy their products or services. The "why should I buy" part.
One thing that advertisors are trying in order to cope with the unimaginable (to them) loss of advertising revenues because of the "infiltration" of a new "alien" DVR technology is something called "Viral Marketing".
See that pretty girl at the bar? She's smiling at you and asking you to light her cigarette. The conversation quickly turns to...cigarettes and how great the brand is that she's smoking. By now your ego is feeling pretty good and you feel the adrenaline rush of "being hit on". She's actually a sales woman simulating a social envirnoment in order to sell you the cigarette she's smoking!
Walking to your job in New York City and you bump into a handsome young couple who are "from the midwest" (so they claim). They ask you take a picture of them with their "hot new picture taking cell phone". You use it, think it's cool and a brief discussion ensues about how cool this new gadgetry is.
You go to Starbucks and there's a handsome (see a pattern here?) young fellow playing a video game on his laptop. He's really into it, making a bit of a show of what he's doing. He's using an amazing looking "cyber glove" to play the game. "Would you like to try it out?" says he. Next thing you know, you're playing the game with the glove and asking where you can buy the same thing. "I got mine at Best Buy" he says, but "you can get them just about anywhere electronics are sold".
Of course, I personally think that you'd have to be a bit of a twit to actually fall for this sort of thing. The reports I've seen on TV make the whole affair seem pretty darn artificial. But I also have no doubt that this sort of thing will work on a certain precentage amount of the population. It strikes me as more than a bit disgusting and shows just how low advertisers are willing to sink.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
The whole issue begs the question of the advertisements themselves, which are largely insipid, at best. I like being entertained by a good ad! Make it funny. Have some good production values, and I'll be happy to watch it. Bang me over the head with a hammer ten times per hour and I'll fast forward through it. I have a "TiVo-like" system (Dish Network), and if the ads are good, I let them roll.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
In the "Golden Age of Radio", the sponsor (sometimes two or three sponsors together) owned and sponsored the show - they paid for it, and it was their show...I believe that they paid the network for the time. Then the show was named after them, and could be shamelessly plugged, but in a funny way - the stars of the program would find every which way to work in the sponsor, and it was classy and often hilarious (in non-comedy programs, it was more subtle). While this might not be realistic or profitable in today's markets, I think a return to this format would be great for the consumer.
If your business model is dependent on people sitting through the broadcast of things that they essentially do not want to watch, then it was doomed from the start.
Say someone's TV breaks down - how often do you hear them saying "Aw shit! Now I wont be able to watch any of those high quality commercial messages!" You don't. Viewers don't give a shit about advertising, they are interested in TV shows.
Driving the audio signal volume up in a desperate (and fucking irritating) attempt to make people turn back towards the screen during ad-breaks was never really going to work, either.
The advertising industry has done this to itself by splashing their crap everywhere, all the time. I dont know if this is the case all across the states, but I have seen recordings of episodes of the Simpsons, for example, where there is an advert break after the show's intro credits! Do you really feel that you are so entertained by the credits that you are happy to put up with 5 minutes of frantic pimping before the actual show starts?
The ads themselves have often not helped. Basic advertising textbooks claim that the purpose of advertising is to alert the consumer to the existence of products and give them some information as to their nature. Bollocks. Look at car adverts - lies lies lies about the freedom of the road, or about how this car will supposedly make you less boring, etc. When was the last time you saw a car in real driving conditions in an ad? It's all beautiful empty roads and a lovely blonde in the passenger seat, despite the fact that the people to whom they are trying to sell will spend most of their driving commuting in heavy traffic. It is all so pathetically transparent, it's no wonder people ignore it..
I imagine that annoyance with advertising was a major reason behind the purchase of a LOT of DVR's. Ad companies have bought their riches as the price of credibility, and, much like the boy who cried "wolf!", no-one really listens to the boy who cries "bargain!" anymore. Or the one who cries "social acceptability!", or "new and improved!", or...(etc,etc, etc until you give up in despair and switch the TV off)
IRC, a study not to long ago mentioned that sponsorship was one of the bst form of advertising (something like 2/3s of NASCAR fans buy the products sposoring the race or their care (excluding Jeff Gordon, ofcourse). So how far of a move would it be that (like the season premier of 24 this last year (previous years) and PBS) a sponsorship token be added to the beginning of the shows?
The adertising ideal would change from visual Spam to customer loyalty (ie. I only buy GM/Chevy b/c their (or atleast were) easier to work on.
It's either that and/or more billboard type advertising, since the blipvert version just leads to new software that seeks segments of show 5 sec. in endurance... Thought the pay-to-view programs is interesting as well (but like Spam puts the advertising cost back on your wallet/purse/under-matress-cache...)
"Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun."
How I wish that buying TV on DVD were a valid business model! Unfortunately, many of my favourite series have still not been released on DVD and those that have are as many as 5 seasons behind currently aired episodes.
I can only hope that Tivo decreases ad-revenue to the point where television producers stop forcing fans to pirate.
The Matrix - leather catsuits, trenchcoats, sunglasses, technology appeal, etc.
*looks out the window, expecting to see all those girls who were inspired to wear leather catsuits by The Matrix*
Hey, what gives?!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
If commercials weren't so offensive, I would be much more tolerant. Here in the South, car commercials scream at you, with accompanying attack strobe visuals. Sears has a commercial with a woman whose smile is so offensively smarmy, I want to kick her in the face. Everywhere, screeching harpies predominate, piercing the ears with their inane babbling.
These are highly effective commercials, just not in the way they want. I make a note of the ones I really hate, and make sure I avoid the advertised products (and the companies).
On the other hand, there are some commercials I love. Gallo had a commercial years ago for champagne (which I don't like), which helped encourage me to buy their wine, repeatedly. The commercial used beautiful classical music and a woman gliding across a dance floor. VW had the street scene in New Orleans, with everyone moving to the music. Suzuki had the Grand Vitara one with a huge moon, and the trilling bird at the end. And there's one now for Westin Hotels that is timely, as I expect to do a lot of traveling soon.
For these kind of commercials, I'll cheerfully watch. The annoying, stupid, shrill, insulting ones, I'll note which company it's for, and jump to another station thereafter.
Advertisers are idiots.
... and a 30-sec forward button. All I have to say is: TV has ads?
With the new broadcast flag system on it's way in, soon advertisers will pay a little extra to have an equivalent flag which does not allow the commercials to be skipped or forwarded through. It will be illegal for a pvr to allow any of those functions that we enjoy now. So unless you're gonna roll your own, don't worry about TiVO running anyone out of business. It'll only let them target you more specifically, which I suppose may not be the worst part of it... And (probably redundant) but I'm sure 9.1% of all ads are already currently going unwatched, since I'm not gonna go get a beer during the friggin show...
ascii art
Well, actually, Matrix Reloaded has a famous CLI scene!
I'm building my own PVR... Skipping commercials wasn't in my mind when I started the project. Actually, I might skip commercials. I will skip the commercials that I've already seen, that I'm tired of seeing. I only like commercials that make me laugh. Commercials is something I haven't asked to see, they are something that are forced upon me. A commercial has to be damn good to convince me to buy a product.
Actually, advertising companies should pay me to tell them which commercials I don't want to see.
My Tivo can't cope with the networks intentionally skewing start and finish times to prevent recording of shows. It also can't help me when I'm unable to read subtitles on Discovery Channel, Sci-Fi or TLC because the ignorant buggers leave HUGE logos in the lower right hand corner. I can't believe they are willing to compromise the content in order to tell us we're watching their channel. We KNOW what we're watching. I hope Tivo DOES force the eventual move to a pay per channel or pay per show model. I hate subsidizing lousy sitcoms and sports networks. A show like Family Guy or Firefly comes along and invariably gets canned just as I take interest. If more people could vote directly with their wallets, I suspect some of these shows might live to see the light of day.
My Tivo lets me pick shows and set it to start recording 3-5 minutes before the hour. So if the show starts at 10:00pm, it'll start recording at 9:56pm.
This isn't a hack, it's in the stock DirecTivo unit.
I'm sure product placement may help, but the obvious solution is to do what this very page is doing ... give up some real estate for advertising.
TV stations already do this for important announcements such as school closings and election results. I think it's only a matter of time before it starts happening for commercial reasons.
Sure, a few people will complain, some people may even stop watching the first shows to try it, but it won't be enough people to offset the additional revenue they receive for it.
It might even boost DVD sales for a series. Who wants to keep the taped (or even DVD recorded) versions with the advertisements?
I doubt this would entirely replace full screen advertisement, but on the plus side, it may result in shows with longer running time than 45 minutes and less break in the action.
The incesant commercial chatter even to see a bit of 'news' has turned me into a non-watcher of any TV.
They used to joke about a program break between commercials - from what I saw yesterday that has become reality. Since I pay nearly no attention to the TV when it is on, I have concluded from watching my wife continually channel change that I think the 'loss' of commercial TV has happened prior to PVR.
Maybe they could just spend 9.1% less on shows? So someone like Seinfeld, who, at the end of his series, was making $1,000,000/week, would have to drop to $909,000/week? And the budget for Fear Factor could drop from $10.00/week to $9.09? Nope, you're right. Never gonna happen. TV is doomed. The parasite TiVo will kill the host.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
(I must be really bored... obviously)
In 1986 the Dr Pepper company merged with the Seven Up Company to form Dr Pepper/Seven-Up Corporation which was later acquired, in 1995, by Cadbury Schweppes plc. It would become the largest operating division of the non-cola beverages firm, Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc.
Does he also suggest that sex would not happen if it weren't advertised? Is that something people need to be persuaded to do?
Those are the same examples The Closing Bell was using last week.
The only solution is for Madison Avenue to get more sophisticated and target me as a unique consumer. When all I see are adverts for denture cream, feminine hygiene products, diapers, et cetera -- none of which apply to me in the least -- of course I'm going to skip said advert. Maybe if they started advertising geek gadgets and things I actually cared about, well then yeah, maybe I'd be inclined to pay more attention.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Why don't TiVO users form a group that assigns moderator tasks to its members, a la slashdot? The more entertaining/useful ads get seen.
Might be hard for any ad to get past "-1 Troll" status, tho.
I read this article and a conspiracy theory came to mind. The MPAA and television corporations secretly backed this article. The purpose: to start sowing the idea that DRM is needed to protect television as we know it. We will need DRM to avoid fast forwarding through commercials.
True? I don't know... but considering how DRM is being rammed down our throats, it is an interesting idea.
homestarrunner.com is better than many of the cartoons on TV, yet it has no ads, yet its creators quit their day jobs to work on it full time. How did they do it? They design and sell lots of merchandise based on the web site. So, technically, the web site is nothing but an elaborate toy ad. The ad came first, the toys came second. As with pre-1998 Nintendo Power magazine, you can't see where the show ends and ads begin because the entire site is product placement.
But another business model will. Programming on demand, a space that TIVO can plan in, but it may be superceded by Comcast and the current cable providers.
As I've said before, I believe that on-demand programming with digital rights management supplied by a central player (such as Time Warner, Microsoft or others) will be the dominant model.
TIVO is simply a bridging technology to on-demand.
In 10-15 years, we'll still be paying $40/month (2003 dollars) to get X-hours of TV per month; except they will be ad-free hours, and they'll be on-demand hours. Comcast/TimeWarner will be the distributor....Microsoft the technology provider.
I'm sure this is here.. I'm too lazy to look
The whole point of tivo is convenience.
It's a pain to find the remote and fast forward over the commercials while you're zoned out watching Sienfeld or whatever. So, you just end up forgetting that you _could_ skip the commercial.
At least, that's what I do
I think the whole idea that everyone wants to skip every commercial is just the ad company's primal fear
Most of the comments have to do with the TV industry wanting to force people to watch commercials. Something else occurred to me.
The cost of a TV commercial is basically two things, the cost to produce it and the cost to display it on TV. The cost to display it is proportional to what the TV station CLAIMS is the number of eyeballs that are watching the ad. The claim is based on surveys done by "independant consultants". In otherwords it is at best a guess at how many people are watching the ad.
There is also the perception that by advertising something you sell enough of it to justtify the cost of the advertising.
With a PVR that reports what is bing watched there is no longer any guessing. Perhaps the TV types are more worried about having exact numbers on how many people are actually watching the ads.
I'll bet the advertising agencies who get paid big bucks to produce the stuff are also really looking forward to exact figures on how effective their ads are in selling the product.
Apple rarely pays to have their PCs placed in movies. They've just got really pretty boxes and screens and are MORE THAN HAPPY to donate a number of systems to any given major-studio movie.
As a matter of fact, I've seen Apples in two recent indy films, which suggests that they're going pretty far with this program.
Example: Apple donated several machines to Seinfeld's show.
As a side note, though, Apple did pay for placement in MI.
-Riskable
"Those who choose proprietary software will pay for their decision!"
That's true and that's why I don't pay for it anymore. I'm not going to pay $50/month to get techtv, the learning channel and discovery and then suffer through thier adverts. Did I start watching broadcast garbage again? No, it's gotten even worse than it was 15 years ago when I first got cable and I've got better things to do. The 25 minutes of adverts movie theaters inflict has even cut back on the number of movies I will go see. TV is hardly watchable as is, I hope the advert morons don't try to put even more adds on. Chances are, they will try to put some kind of "modify" flag that will turn off your abilty to skip comercials. Let them, it will only screw them.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
- Adapt your business model and prosper, try to be the first and yet the best out the door and you will place yourself in a strategic point of power.
- litigate (includes legislate)
- trick your way in
That last one would be where commercials use various tricks to make the user and/or his system think the commercial is a viable program. It is the multimedia/broadcast version of mail address and IP spoofing for SPAM.Obviously, a careful and diligent consumer will adapt and if necessary eliminate that channel/show/program. However, will power is not often the shining beacon it is claimed to be in most consumers.
Or changing channels.. Reading a book, or playing a computer game during the commercials.. Though alot fo the time I'm programming away and chatting while a commercial is playing hidden away in the corner of my screen, muted as I press enter in XawTV.
...then you don't belong on /. - but nonetheless, the article points out an interesting problem.
Lots of posters have pointed out good ways to get around commercial skipping by doing in-show product placements, etc. Those techniques work well for dramas, sports, etc.
The network affiliates - you know, local stations - don't have that option. They don't produce the shows. The revenue that they get is from their (short) block of local commercials per hour and from the local news shows that they produce.
Doing product placements in the news isn't going to work - and those nastily produced local commercials are going to be skipped BIG time.
I love my THREE TiVos as much as anyone, but even I can see that the local affiliates are going to have trouble in 5 years.
Long Live TiVo!
They will pervert the new technology but it won't really work. We already have the "broadcast flag" and DVDs that disable remote control access durring commericals. It does not take much imagination to see what comes next, a "no modification" flag. This will be much nicer solution than "no recording" So, national governemts will legislate profitability, but it will only work short term. Unless governemts can outlaw all free networks, new media will arise to take the place of the advert poluted ones.
I already don't watch TV and have curtailed my movie watching because of the high advert content. Half an hour of adverts to watch a two hour move is an unacceptable waste of my time in a theater. I don't listen much to radio either. I'm just another one of those "unreachable" people that the advertisers fuss about.
News flash to you silly advertisers, YOU MADE ME! Thanks for being so abusive. Where ever I go, I'm against you. I vote against billboards, spam and other things. Because you have driven me off the corporate controled networks, I hardly care about the bullshit they push as news anymore, so being unmolested is job #1 for me. New self organizing pull media makes you obsolete anyway. Try as you might, the market for lemons is evaporating, so your budgets will go to zero. Bye Bye!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The US Supreme Court in Sony v. Universal (the case that held that recording off the air TV shows was legal under the fair use doctrine) only held that time-shifting was legal. It never addressed skipping commercials. In other words, the major TV networks might actually have a legal basis to stop the sale and use of DVR devices.
You know what the RIAA would do if they were in the same predicament that the networks are in, they'd go to Congress and get new laws passed and they'd sue everyone in sight. Heck, we all know that the RIAA would even sue individual TIVO owners.
Why are the networks taking such a lackadaisical view to the dangers presented by DVRs?! Do they know something we don't? E.g., are they waiting for broadcast flags to take care of the problem? Or are they just ignorant of the problem and are hoping it'll go away? Sort of like what the music industry did until Napster became widespread.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I agree! I refuse to step into a "Big Bob's" until they cook & eat that annoying bird that "cheaps" all the time!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Personally, I sometimes forget that I'm watching through Tivo and that I can skip the ads.
I believe that's the issue, however. You're conditioned to watching ads, and don't even notice that your TV show has been interupted by the commercial interests. If you grew up without a notion of ads -- or of ads as something you'd *always* skipped, I think you'd have a different result.
Don't believe me? When's the last time you listened to an NPR pledge drive or the like? That's a noticable change, isn't it? How about the last hour or so of movies on TV? Now that they've got you invested in the end, the commercials are both much more plentiful and noticable. What if you were watching The Matrix at an IMAX, Neo and Trinity dancing off walls throwing bullets, and *wham*, outta nowhere you've watching a giant advert for Coke? No matter how great the ad, you'd probably find you'd've preferred to buy the world a Coke *before* the movie started, as such.
But if any of the above were the norm and had been for years as you "grew up", do you think you'd notice? I doubt it. You'd've learned what to expect, and not noticed any different, like you do now. It's all about contrast
It may not happen overnight, but long-term I wonder if adverts are viable if TiVo-like jive gets widespread/cheap enough (most people using/able to afford it) and easy enough to use if adverts as we know them today aren't a thing of the past. Ad placement and "picture on top of picture" are going to get a lot more common, folks.
That said, I miss most adverts now by clicking around anyhow. Lots easier to "always watch something" with the scores of channels I've got today than the three I had "growing up". But in a scary bit of conditioning, I can usually feel about how long each break should take, and flip back to my original show the split second that it picks back up a statistically significant amount of the time.
Was that a lunch bell?
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
There is an alternative worse than product placement -- the dreaded overlay banner! This is where they actually put what exactly amounts to a banner graphic over the bottom quarter of the screen, actually blocking out completely whatever's on screen at the moment.
I've seen this done (in other countries) where they completely ignore what's on screen at the moment, and you can actually miss critical (visual) parts of the show.
The concept is very similar to when USA or TNT/TBS put one of this little dancing icons promo'ing one of their own shows in the corner, but imagine it being then entire lower quarter of the screen!
Oh, the horrors! Less TV?!?
If TV can't adapt to a new advertising model, or a new business model altogether, then it should die. The current model is based on advertisers shelling out huge coin to pay for audiences that the networks aren't really delivering. Take a look at the Nielson ratings; by any scientific standard those are completely bogus measures of the audience. They asked me to help them for a month, I didn't respond, they left me alone... hmm, does there seem to be a problem with their selection of data? A little less American Experience that month in their records. The networks and the advertizers have been willing to live in that let's-pretend-they're-real-numbers dream, but they're about to wake up.
The monolithic networks will take this very hard, and they're likely not going to survive this change. The general audience they aim for just won't be there. It's been eroding forever, but once the advertising model frays a bit, that sucker's going to split wide open.
if the only money was in the DVD release, why do TV at all?
Actually you imagine an acceptable alternative. Sounds a lot like other point-to-point models, or somewhat like HBO's approach to TV, which has gotten a lot of good press lately. People buy those shows on DVD, and buy them avidly.
Personally I'd imagine a future in which corporations go back to actually producing soecific shows because the target demographic works for them. "Beauty and the Beast" would have various "women's products" as sponsors, for example. Shows like that (not that I ever even saw B & the B) are a good example of how the current system fails; that won its slot amongst adult women, but it didn't attract that audience the networks want, cutting across demographics. In the real world, at least for anyone with the $8-a-month cable I buy, that world doesn't exist any more anyway.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
But do you gotta catch em all? Oops, wrong slogan!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Several approaches are in development. I used to work (until a month ago) for ACTV (www.actv.com), now part of OPTV (www.optv.com) who had a deal with TIVO to provide patented services which would have privileged certain ad providers so that their ads could not be skipped.
Besides this radical solution other changes could be:
1. Bugs - ad strips shown continuously on top of TV content. You may have noticed the Zenith HDTV ad strip at the bottom of every Enterprise episode in the first 15 secs.
2. Compelling interactive ad content. Advertisers are hoping that by making ads interactive and fun - think of the Orbitz dump the fool popup ad - users will stop the FF'ing and play. Interactive ads provide deeper brand awareness studies show.
3. Targeted ads. Digital settop boxes know where you live and thus they know your demographic. ACTV has developed ads which by multi-plexing their video stream are simultaneously targeted to their demographic. TIVO (see ACTV press releases) was working with ACTV to allow for these targeting and privileging to occur.
4. Old-fashioned ads within the shows. Some shows will be merely ad vehicles.
Don't think for a second that ads are going away from TV. The future will mean more ads, more annoying ads and more choices. But advertising IS television.
jeff
http://jeffharrington.org
idealord music
"... inevitably, a Carrot-Top or similar ad, designed deliberately to be annoying .."
Do you really think that a company goes to an ad agency, plonks down a million dollars, and says to them, "make us something that will piss people off -- we want them annoyed!"
No, of course not, that would be stupid. They're just commercials designed with a different taste in comedy than you have. Don't ascribe to malice what can be explained through different points of view.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
If the ad is compelling or for a product I want, I'll watch.
If the entire ad segment is for feminine hygenine products, I'll fast forward.
It's that simple.
looks like someone from the riaa had mod points today, and modded the parent 'flamebait'
I've not heard reports of such a garish movie. Would you care to fill me? I'm always curious/cautious of such bad films.
Though I should point out that "totally commercial romantic comedy" and "a chase scene that was arguably the only action sequence" indicates your confusion with genres.
fs
It's not my fault that the delivery model for television advertising is lagging behind the technology. Why should I waste my time watching commercials that do not apply to me or that I have no interest in seeing? Now.. there are a few commercials that I will watch - even on the Tivo -- Commercials for TV shows that I am interested in, funny commercials, commercials for other sci-fi shows, commercials for motorcycle stuff, some commercials for home remodeling/etc... What this world needs is more Victora's Secret and AFLAC commercials! ;)
...
I watch *more* television shows/programs in *less* time than I watched before.
By skipping commercials, I can watch 2 "1-hour" shows in 1.5 hours. Watching 10 "hours" of TV programming can be done in 7.5 hours with Tivo. I do a lot of things that interest me with an "extra" 2.5 hours of time! To me, my time is more valuable than whatever some advertiser is paying for their 30-second slot. People that waste my time piss me off!
If I want to go out to dinner, go to a movie, or go out of town, I don't have to worry about taping and/or missing any of the shows I *really* want to watch - this is especially handy on weekend nights.
Yes.. I skip commercials.. BUT, I would say that I have absolutely no interest in > 90% of the commercials being shown:
-I'm not looking to buy a new car
-I'm not looking to buy a new PC - "Dude! I'm NOT getting a Dell!
-I don't eat fast food
-I'm a guy and don't need make-up, feminine hygiene products, nor do I want to have an "organic experience" when washing my hair
-I am not looking to refinance a house
-I don't watch Oprah, Dr. Phil, or any of those other mindless talk shows.
-I don't care about commercials for other shows that I have absolutely no interest in - I don't care what time they come on nor do I want to see whatever stupid teaser you're going to put in the commercial
-I'm 33 years old - I don't need denture adhesive, senior citizen "supplemental insurance" and/or home delivery of drugs, etc.
Have I left anything out?
What I would like to see is more targeted advertising that gives me information that I really want to see. Have the commercials downloaded to the Tivo and insert them dynamically into the program at the commercial breaks. Set aside an "hour" worth of disk space and fill it with 120 30-second commercials that can be inserted dynamically into my shows. Maybe embed a signal in the broadcast that would indicate the start of the commercial break and how long it is to run.. Let me "rate" the commercials like I can "rate" programs on the Tivo - 1,2, or 3 thumbs-up or thumbs-down and give me 80% of the commercials that I have said I want to receive and 20% of commercials that you think I would want to receive based on the ratings of my tv programs and commericals.
Just like with the TV shows, give me something that I want to watch and I will watch it.
I predict dvrs will start playing their own ads when you hit pause, much like the software promos that sometimes show up on ReplayTV now, when it's paused.
Vote for Pedro
So instead of them making billions and billions and billions of dollars, they must now settle for billions and billions of dollars!
Poor TV people.
If I hadn't eaten in two days, I would still walk past a Hardees. I wouldn't even think twice about it. It would never enter my consciousness that going in and eating was a selectable option. This isn't out of spite or anger or anything, I just long ago dismissed the idea that I would ever get edible food from a Hardees.
The Hardees "Star" ad campaign was very memorable. I laughed at many of the ads, I clearly linked the ads to Hardees and not some other fast food chain or "fast food in general", and I even associated the ads with the Hardees star logo on the physical locations. Because of that campaign, Hardees locations now appear on my mental map. I even navigate by them: "Turn left at the Hardees on Swift Ave."
But I still haven't been inside one in 10+ years. I would have said there was nothing they could do about it at this point: My brand perception is fully developed, and it repels me from their restaurants.
This current campaign is a stroke of genius. They are spending millions to talk to me about the flaws with their products. As far as I know, no-one has ever done that before. And they are getting it right: The flaws they are talking about are in fact the reason I'm not going. When a major advertiser is prepared to speak openly and honestly about their own defects, they have my attention.
-Graham
Did they take into account in their study that many people watch another program while adds are on? Our TV does picture on picture, so when the adds start, we switch to another channel and wait for the adds to end. If we get a TIVO (or Canadian equivilant) then we still can't fast forward through comercials for realtime broadcasts. The result is that durring comercials, we would still flip to another station unless the show is pre-recorded.
The only time that we actually have comercials playing is when the TV is on in the background. Even with a TIVO, we would still hear those comercials because why would you pre-record a show for background noise.
The end result: In our situation we will end up viewing the same number of comercials with a TIVO than without.
What's the big whoop?
Believe me, Transformers absolutely was the Pokemon of its day. They just hadn't gotten things quite as perfected back then.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I have a TiVo and I never understand why everyone openly admits they don't watch the commercials.
If we want this whole ad paid TV thing to keep working we have to pretend that we watch them and secretly laugh amongst ourselves that we are just forgetting about all those ads.
By the way, I do watch an ad every once in a while that is entertaining or about a movie that I might want to go see. The advantage is that I only have to watch the movie ad once. Not a hundred more times.
It ties in live events so that people that skip the commercials as they are aired do not get the benefit.
When the commercials air, they have a discount code the is good for 10 minutes only. For the people that watch commercials, they get the deal, or whatever else is being offered. For those that want to skip the commercial, they don't get the deal.
It's no longer good enough to expect me to sit and watch something without getting something in return. I get enjoyment out of the TV shows. I don't get anything from most ads I sit through. If they want me to stop skipping ads, then they need to start offering more.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
according to the commercial, microsoft hires a buncha people who are obviously doped up to run around in slow motion, screaming, jumping into each other into your work place...
or are they selling a new drug?
they use brainwashing at a very basic level..
show a buncha people happy and feeling good, then flash your logo, instantly, you get this thought in your head that "hey, it looks like a great product! those people are happy!"
No fair using the Apple/1984 commercial as an example--that's the most famous ad in history! Any company would love to produce an ad that memorable.
But we're not getting dumb, annoying ads because companies and ad agencies are lazy bastards who can't be bothered making anything interesting. Tens of billions of dollars are spent developing, test-marketing, placing and measuring the effectiveness of today's TV ads. They're 95% dreck because it's so difficult to be entertaining without reducing the effectiveness of your sales message, not because nobody's trying.
I should buy some cement.
You still watch TV? TV shows are nothing but one big advertisment these days. The quality of TV programming took a big nosedive a few years back as TV execs shoved anything onto the airwaves they could to get more advertising dollars. Sure there are a couple diamonds in the rough ('24' is probably my only current favorite on a regular network, but I borrow a friend's tape after he's finished removing commercials). Even my beloved Discovery Channel and Cartoon Netowrk are getting seriously annoying with the adverts. I've taken to just reading a book whenever I need entertainment. Yes, the paper-and-ink kind. Let me see them insert a 30 second spot there.
I've noticed recently that some commercials give you the 'Press Thumbs Up for more information' icon. This is usually done for upcoming shows. For example, there is a commercial for Law and Order, and an icon will appear prompting you to press the 'Thumbs Up' button to automatically record it.
Now, they are doing this for products as well. This was a commercial for a Cadillac Escalade. When you press 'Thumbs Up' you are taken to a three minute infomercial about the Escalade.
So, whether or not Ad Supported TV will be destroyed remains to be seen. But, Tivo has already changed advertising possibilities.
Commercials are dead (they'll fight it, but they'll lose), I just hope that what wins out is people will pay for commercial-free tv (i.e. a few extra bucks for the cable bill) rather then product placements becoming more overwhelming then they are now. If I was a betting man however, I'd say we'll end up paying and having more product placements.
Fifteen percent DVR penetration implies that 9.1 percent of all ads would not be watched...
As if I watch them now w/o a DVR? I do useful things during ads on tv shows I have to watch live...like using the restroom or getting a bite to eat or checking my email, etc, etc, etc...
I pay as little attention as is physically possible to ads as it is and I would assume a statistically significant percentage of the general tv-viewers out there do the same.
It seems to me as though ad minutes are constantly rising while minutes of actual programming seem to be falling. Take NFL football broadcasts...a team scores a touchdown...break to an ad...2 minutes later...extra point (a whole 30-45 seconds)...break to an ad....2 minutes later...team kicks off to other team(another 20-30 seconds)...break to yet another ad...now after 6 minutes of ads and 2 minutes of football finally we might get to see another 4 or 5 minutes before a punt/td/fieldgoal. Then, you guessed it, we start into more ads....and lets not forget each team has 3 timeouts per half(12 total in the game) and there are built-in TV timeouts and of course half-time which is another 80%+ filled with ads.
With this much advertising interrupting a show, is it any wonder people like DVR's? I record a few shows on VCR to watch later and I can tell you it takes only about 25-30 minutes to watch an hour show when you can fast forward through the ads.
I guess my point is that people are already ignoring ads because of the large volume out there so ad companies should take the hint and find a less intrusive way to pitch their products while still continuing to sponser tv programming.
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
Great. I'm a person who played by the rules that the networks laid down. Watch our commercials and we'll let you watch our show for free.
If between-show commercials can no longer be used to pay for programming, I will now be forced to either pay to view each show, or I will have to put up with incredibly intrusive advertising woven into the programming -- something that can't be skipped.
That's just great. Pay more or be annoyed more. And just how is everyone better off because of this?
Talk about killing the goose that lays golden eggs.
The "spiral of death" could rapidly lead to a further deterioration not just in viewing and advertising support but also in the quality of programming. If broadcasters are taking in fewer revenues because they deliver fewer viewers, they will have less money to invest in programming. Broadcasters' outside promotional costs could rise because they are "fighting for every viewer," he said.
Bullshit. The quality is all on cable. Look at HBO, which is TOTALLY paid for by subscribers, with NO ad income. Free TV is pure junk, and I welcome its death.
I'm looking forward to TV financed by people who are willing to pay for it, rather than paid for by the eyeballs people too dumb to have a DVR or to simple minded do something else while the commercials are on. THEN we'll see quality TV... when they've got to make it so good they need people to actuall open their wallet, rather than stare, slack jawed and drooling, at their commercials.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Well, Sporting Events are one thing I like to watch Live, and the only thing I have zero interest in watching a recording of (except Classics). What if we saw the following changes in the industry?
Free Channels:
Sporting Events Channels
Home & Garden Channels using Sponsors Products
Live News Channels
Subscription:
Everything Else
Debate News Channels
There's only three ways for stations to make money. Ads, In-Show Ads, and Subscription Fees. Unfortunately, it's my understanding that in-show ads are currently not allowed. See, everyone here complains about commercials, but a long time ago people felt that was better than having their favorite show butchered by an in-show ad. How would you like it if Kiefer Sutherland suddenly started talking about how much he likes his new Colgate Toothpaste?
I think the bigger issue is: How will this affect channel lineups? Will we see Sporting Events shifted toward networks-only and most network contect shifted towards a subscription based model?
Rules need to change. Everything needs to change. As with most technology, let's just shut our eyes to its impact and hope it works out. That's what I'll be doing with my Tivo.
Well if advertisers were very sinister they should putting advertisements in peoples dreams. It worked for Fry.
The super-bowl is great, the ads are mostly interesting and various. If you're watching the TV I watch (simpsons, soccer, star trek re-runs), you'll quickly notice that the same 4 ads are replayed every commercial break, and that they are crap. (oh boy a car comercial with pictures of a car driving through the woods - yawn). If the networks wouldn't beat us over the heads with chump advertising, it might actually not get skipped over. You say they have to play what their buyers send them, and I say they should price the advertising based on how amusing/denigrating the ads are. Just another car commercial is the average, a funny commercial costs less to air, a locally produced car dealership sale ad is the the most expensive. Want to put your ad on 8 times in the same hour? Fine, but it costs way more than if you spread them out over several shows.
I've basically stopped watching TV because of ads being stupid.
Yes, they may be overpaying ONLY if we determine that advertising is effecting consumers 9.1% less. I doubt that 9.1% less viewings will equal 9.1% less sales and brand awareness.
Do I really need to go through the plethora of reasons? I don't have the energy for that right now.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
TNT, as you may or may not know, is now digitally placing sponsor products INTO THE SHOWS where they weren't before, e.g. a Coke can on Lt. Van Buren's desk during Law and Order.
If that's what TiVO is gonna lead to, I want no part in it...
I don't know about elsewhere in the world but in South Africa we have an interesting form of advertising during live sport broadcasts.
Periodically, the sport window is scaled to say 60% of the original into the upper right corner. Advertising messages are then flashed on the left and bottom margins of the screen.
I suppose it's acceptable for sports broadcasts and I can imagine it would unacceptable to most viewers if this was done to normal television programming.
Yet, I can also imagine that there would be networks with the gall to do this to their whole programming line-up.
User's of PVR devices wouldn't be able to skip this form of advertising.
For years my family has habitually put commercials on mute and either used the time to talk, go to the restroom, or grab something to eat (and no, never all three simultaneously ;). Yes, I FF through commercials with TiVo instead of sitting there and ignoring them, but that doesn't mean TiVo has made me watch fewer commercials.
/. article.
In fact, I may be paying -more- attention to the commercials I'm interested in as at least once every couple of days I see something that catches my eye and I rewind and watch the commercial.
Not to mention the studies that show that people who FF through commercials (which means you have to closely watch the screen to see when the show has come back on) show the same level of retention of commercial contents after 1 hour. I'm too lazy to look up the URL of the study but I found it from a long past
In other words, TiVo hasn't damaged commercials, it has just given the large corporations a way to get big discounts from the networks and/or more insidiously get their products inserted into the program content like a close-up on a can of a specific soda brand, etc.
We'll always be stuck with advertisements.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Ok, so they are not exactly parasites, ad sales are where I guess most of the money comes from. But IMNSHO, ads themselves are killing ad-supported TV. It has gotten so bad that you can't hardly watch for more that 10 minutes without there being another ad. They make a 90 minute movie into a 180 minute movie. Even when it is something I like, after watching for so long, I just get fed up and turn the damn thing off before the show or movie is over. In other words, there are so many ads that it is not worth trying to watch anything. IMNSHO of course.
I couldn't agree more, and I can't understand why nobody but us smart people has figured this out yet.
Can anybody out there seriously say they don't know what McDonalds makes? Why are they advertising period, considering that their ads consist of subjects as relevant to burger-eating as a DJ spinning records, or kids playing soccer. They don't even mention their food, everybody already knows it's there and knows it's crap. They advertise, well, nothing more than the Corporate Name. which isn't in any danger of being forgotton. To my mind, they could stop advertising on TV tomorrow and their sales would be completely unaffected. In fact, their bottom line would probably be up considerably given how much their ads must cost to produce.
I think that consumers, TV ad producers, and the businesses who use them have all gotten so desensitized to the TV commercial that nobody is asking anymore if the whole premise is even valid. I mean, back in the 50's you had ads that actually talked about their products and why they were better. Hardly any ads do this anymore, preferring to dwell on shiny happy people holding hands as they walk through a McDonalds. Ads today sell a feeling, not a product, and should be seriously examined by their producers and buyers as considerable wastes of resources.
Speaking from my own point of view, the only effective ads that work on me are word of mouth ones. When I heard about Krispy Kreme, when I heard about my favorite record store (that I still go to), when I heard about slashdot, it wasn't a TV commercial that told me. It was a friend. Companies have shown since (TTBOMK) the early 80's that this was a very effective line of marketing, that's why they started giving Guess jeans away to the popular kids for free. It worked like a charm. So why this tired old blindered approach to advertising, that the only thing that will sell a product is a TV commercial? IMHO that's the thing most guaranteed NOT to sell a product, in the same way that junk mail is guaranteed NOT to make me enter the publishers' clearinghouse sweepstakes.
The bottom line is, as long as commercials are ignorable, a lot of people will ignore them. Whether the means to that ignorance is a VCR or a tivo or, God forbid, your own power of attention, is irrelevant. When I'm at the gas pump and they start scrolling an ad for some cigarettes they've got on sale, I... actually look away. It's easy, especially if there's any girls around. I don't think TV commercials were effective when they started, I don't think they were effective 20 years ago, and I don't think they're effective now. If fact, I kinda suspect that they're just an excuse for the entire business model of broadcasting to exist at all. I would be THRILLED to be able to pay for the equivalent of network TV (non-movie channels) with content that I enjoyed and with NO commercials. I think many many other people would too. I think that this could result in a revolution of TV content many of us have been waiting decades to see. But as long as TV networks have to worry about their advertisers, we will continue to see programming as bland and inoffesive as possible.
One thing I don't understand is how skipping commercials is a huge problem with tivo, but it wasn't with VCR's. IMHO companies buying ads in a medium with as wide a demographic focus as network TV are suckers anyway - like somebody else in this thread said, if I'm watching an episode of "Law and Order" I can see ads for both douche and nursing homes. It doesn't take Einstein to figure out that those two demographics are mutually exclusive. Wheras when I watch any discovery channels, I see ads for things that I might actually possibly care about. Most of them still don't hit home to me, but at least I can tell they're *trying*.
The TV advertising business model is dead, long live the TV advertising business model.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
then it's the advertisements that ultimately did it in. If the commercials were half-way interesting or entertaining, people wouldn't want to change the channel or use the time as a bathroom break. All TiVo does it let consumers express their displeasure with incessant, inane advertising much more loudly.
It's called changing the channel until the commercial is over!
I do the same, but usually, by the time the commercials go off, I have forgotten what show I was watching. Or I have found another show to watch. Then commercials come on again. Since 99% of what is on sucks, I usually end up back on the original show wondering what the hell happened during the 5-10 minutes of show that I missed thanks to my being on another channel. Now I'm pissed. I turn off the TV. I get online. Software filters ads of all kinds out of my life and I get to what I'm interested in seeing/hearing/reading for as long as I like.
As a result, I have gone from watching 4-7 hours of TV a day several years ago to 1-3 hours of TV per week. TIVO may be the only hope TV advertisers have of getting people like me back.
This would be wonderful! Personally, the best TV I see today, I order online and then it is delivered to me by mail on DVD. I watch what I want, when I want, and I return it when I am good well and ready!
Even with current blocking tech many websites may benefit from this with a increase of revenue if they can prove their ad penetration is better than a TiVo's.
How do they advertise Tivos?
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
Television advertising has never really worked. The profit directly generated by TV ads has never offset the cost of the advertising... and guess who's been paying to make up the difference? National advertising campaigns have been a significant factor behind inflation for decades.
Statistics can be great. They can also be utterly totally horrible. Sure, perhaps one day, 15% of people will own and use a DVR. But how many of those people previously owned and used a VCR?
I've used my VCR for time shifting for years, and I always skipped the commercials there. I doubt 15% of people that have never used a VCR are going to purchase and use a DVR.
Moreover, the 15% prediction number is fluffed up. Oh so many digital cable and satellite providers give you a DVR right in the box they make you use. I wager a significant number of people with DVR boxes do not use them.
Health is simply dying at the slowest rate possible.
Is it just me or does everyone seem to be missing this? People, they are not losing money! Their growth is simply being slowed. Sure, they aren't making as MUCH money, but they are still making money and growing! I'll be the first to admit that I'm no economist, but it just kills me that we get sucked into this kind of FUD. I just don't get it. What am I missing?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Take a look at "Love Actually" and compare it to an old episode of "The Love Boat." In terms of the plot structure, even the points-of-departure opening and closing: they're almost identical. Both basically involve bringing in "guest stars" to walk through braided storylines that are written so boringly that they'd fall apart if you saw any one plot together in sequence.
It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it's thoroughly mediocre and commercial. The stars kindle some "chemistry" maybe, but the movie has no idea about "love" whatsoever. (Plus which, it actually refers to 9/11 at the beginning as if it has a single clue about how "love" bears on those events. And then it winds up with a big chase scene in which a 10-year-old foils airport security by running fast. Yelch.) (/review)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.