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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."
When it's conventionally taped, don't you skip the commercials as well?
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..
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 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
National governments will simply step in and legislate profitability - even if they have to outlaw the new technology.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Then you turn the current model on its head. The producer tracks down the advertisers who pay the producer. The producer then pays NBC to put the show on.
...but then again, if the only money was in the DVD release, why do TV at all
Nobody is going to shell out hard earned dollars on DVD box sets of content they have never seen or know nothing about. You could think of the television shows as advertisements for the DVDs. Perhaps this will cause the quality of shows to improve because if the show sucks, nobody is going to buy the dvd. This is a pretty strong incentive.
Or perhaps this will lead to the pay-per-view system dominating the ratings. This has worked for HBO quite well.
The Tivo/DVR watchers are skipping the commercials because for the most part they are annoying. This should be seen as a strong feedback signal to the advertisers that their methods do more to annoy than to inform.
Perhaps Hollywood isn't entitled to the gravy train that has been going on for the past 40 years or so and they might have to *gasp* INNOVATE, like everybody else to maintain a healthy profitable business.
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.
I would like to see a more direct marketing approact to TV broadcasting. Living in the UK, I often don't see shows until as much as a year after they were released stateside. I then see them on channels like Sky One, which are 25% advert. Alternatively I could download them from the 'net in SVCD quality within a week of release and watch them ad-free. If I could download the shows directly from the studios, in a known quality, then I would be more than happy to pay for this, even with some kind of `only watch 2-4 times' kind of DRM (if I want to watch it more, I can buy the DVD, although I should possibly be given a discount on the DVD if I've paid for it once already), and even if I could only watch it on a closed-platform set-top-box.
I would also be prepared to pay in advance for a second season of a show I liked, so that the creators would have enough funds to extend popular shows, free of the whims of the networks.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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).
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
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.
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..
Uh, don't give them any ideas.
Soon we'll be seeing pop-ups during the show. You know, banners across the top/bottom, or even VH1-style pop-ups right on top of the show. Or maybe a permanent CNN-style shrunken main view with commercials on the side.
Screw that.
so have them wholding a soft drink in their hands with a classic 'blue screen' that can be replaced with whatever advertisers on different networks want
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.
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.
Too right. Over here in the UK, I pay around 100 for a TV Licence, which gets me a heap of BBC TV / radio channels free of ads. Now, the TV Licence is generally unpopular, because it's seen as being rather unfair; you have to have one if you own a TV, even if you have no intention of tuning in to BBC stations. But, again, the stations are ad-free, and the BBC provides some of the finest TV out there (though it also produces its share of dross and is often accused of wasting licence money).
We also have several commercially-funded channels, which are generally much worse than the BBC - Channel Four is the best of the bunch, but mainly by virtue of the shows it imports, rather than those it creates. Ad breaks on these get longer all the time, and just about every program is sponsored by a company or product. Many channels intersperse each commercial with a one-second logo ident sequence, which is the height of madness as far as I'm concerned (actually, that will be reached when the idents are sponsored).
We then have something known as Freeview, which gives you gratis access to a variety of cable / sattelite stations once you've bought the set-top box. This allows people access to the newly created extra BBC channels. The BBC ones don't have ads; the other free stations do.
And lastly, we have subscrition sattelite and cable channels, provided though the likes of Sky. Now, these we pay for, and they cost more than the BBC licence fee. You undeniably get more channels, but they are all stuffed with ads and rife with sponsorships. So you have to ask, what are you paying for? Prior to sattelite and cable, the situation was clear-cut; you paid for the BBC and had no ads, and you got ITV free, with ads. Now, you have services that you pay for, but are still full of ads. Thanks for that.
You have the option not to pay, of course. For the moment, until the delivery system can be suitably manipulated. But this begs the question; if you're already charging a subscription fee AND showing ads, how are you going to offset the impact of TiVo on ad revenue? People are unlikely to accept a sizable hike in fees; more likely they'll tolerate a gradual lowering of standareds - more repeats, more cheap imports, more reality phone-in shows. More shit, when all's said and done.
The irony is that if I had a TiVo, it would make no difference to my ad viewing. Currently, I'll read or make a drink or just mute the TV when the ads are on; with a TiVo, I might skip them; either way, I'm not paying any attention. I'm sure that in the fullness of time we'll have glorious developments like all-in-one recording TVs that don't allow ads to be muted or skipped - we're halfway there with the ads on some DVDs.
Maybe they can add a retinal scanner to the top of the set that check to see if you're watching while the ads are on, and charges your account if you don't watch at least two hours of ads per week. Those familiar with Minority Report would surely welcome such an initiative.
I'd write less, as I don't really care about all this, but the alternative is work.
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.
Advertisers have this attitude that you're obligated to watch thier shit. I know it's a huge industry and all, but jesus people, get it together. Pay less money to agencies - there's no reason you need to spend a million and a half on a commercial. Try spending 500 grand each on 3 commercials, so that I don't see the same 10 commercials in the same order every 45 minutes. It should be a mortal sin to play the same commercial back to back. Theres alot of untapped ground in commercials - and NONE of it has anything to do with being "edgy", or "flashy" or "street".
Italian Job == Mini (BMW) advertisment
Tomb Raiders == Land Rover then Jeep adverstisement
Mission Impossible == Apple advertisment
Top Gun == RayBan advertisement
The African Queen == Gordens Gin advertisement
etc...
The question is, is it subliminal or not (read illegal)? And does it even work? Personally, I've gotten very good at filtering advertising...
I'd say your filter needs updating - it seems a number of ads are getting by and making an impression on you...
Seriously, product placement will probably be the next big wave - since one goal of an ad is to get you to remember the product.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
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?
No, I used the word intentionally.
Below the threshold of conscious perception. Used of stimuli. is from The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, and similar definitions are provided by Websters and others.
When most folks see The Italian Job, they don't realise the Minis are there as advertising. They see a neat little car with cool people driving fast - they are not conscious of being subjected to advertising, compared to say TV where they can consciously "switch off" when the ads come on. That's why I say "subliminal". Sure, it's not Coke ads flashing bewteen frames, but many people are unaware that it is happenning.
Technically, you are correct about the legality. The FCC said in 1974 only that it was contrary to the public interest.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Besides,
Viewers evidentally skip at least 2/3 of commercials anyhow. The Tivo (or ReplayTV) statistics simply make people more aware of that fact.
I know that before I got my ReplayTV, I didn't sit in rapt attention during every commercial break.
Even WITH the Replay, I see enough of a given commercial to know if it applies to something I'm interested in buying, ir is in any way entertaining. I tend to watch a commercial if its of use to me.
Maxi-pad commercials and FTD Florist shilling, I skip.
I did it before Replay, I'll continue to do it.
No one's business model is being destroyed here.
Nothing has changed to any appreciable degree. People are able to make more efficent use of their TV watching time, and still get exposed to commercials. They just don't have to waste time on commercials that would NEVER RESULT IN A SALE ANYHOW.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Where I see the industury going in the future is more to the "pay TV" standard, with the price of a channel is included in your package. Some cable companys already include "comercial-less" channels in their various packages. It might even get to the point where if you want the history channels package you'll need to pay $2/month, the news package of CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC will be another $2/month. The stations themselves will have more pay-for-placement and inline ads. The cable companies will have in-line flash-like ads for the various menus (static ads are already there for digital cable). Also, I believe that good story-telling ads will become more important, where people even choose to watch the ads because they are funny, interesting or touching. With on demand tuning you might even be tempted to say "hey, man, play the new Subway ads they're side-splitting funny". Ads which the viewer choose to watch are certainly much more effective.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
When was the last time you saw a TV program or movie where they didn't use a Mac? Even my wife, who understands virtually nothing about computers, goes "Oh look, they're using an Apple" on a regular basis (her knowledge extends to identifying them by the big apple on the side).
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!
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?
Am I the only person who views ads as a valuable barometer of pop culture?
Seriously - I go months at a time without watching TV, but when I do, I'm usually interested in watching ads - to see what's been going on in the world around me.
Also, ads will always have a place in live TV, as someone pointed out above, i.e. sports, news, etc. I think they'll also have a place whenever multiple people are watching TV together, sports or not.
~Will
sig?
What's really unfourtunate is that I might not only watch, but 'want' to watch comercials if they were trying to sell me on the basis of what the product can actually do. But these days that's a rarity, instead companies sell image and hype, with little to no information about what it actually does. And that kind of rot I'm going to skip by whenever possible. Thankfully in a way, there's little enough left on tv that just recording the few shows left I like is little effort - and the freedom to just skip the comercials very satisfying.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Maybe advertisers will be forced to think up *gasp horror* interesting adverts that people will actually want to watch!
That's the rule of Tivo as I see it personally. I find that I will often forget to FF the commercials if they are interesting and/or entertaining enough. But, inevitably, a Carrot-Top or similar ad, designed deliberately to be annoying, comes along. Now I am fast forwarding the rest of the commercial break. Advertisers should start to think of these ads as break killers. Sustaining interest should be of paramount importance, not just to the individual advertiser, but to the programming director as well.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
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.
I agree. A good ad and I'll "forget" to skip forward. An annoying one and away we go.
Here are my worst bets, in no special order:
anything of a Christian nature
anything sold with an Aussie accent
anything with Oxy in the title
any "sporty" car with more than 2 seats
any movie trailer for a romantic comedy
any ad for the channel I'm already watching
any ad for a channel I'm not watching
anything for Microsoft
anything pitched by John Madden, George Foreman, Martha Stewart, or Jared.
Here are my best best, also in no special order:
16:9 (or 21:9) movie trailers for movies I'll like
humorous beer ads (even though I don't drink beer)
humorous IBM ads (I don't use IBM prod/scvs either)
okay, just about any ad with humor, which I find funny - don't worry, I can wait the 25 seconds for the punchline. Oh, and subtlety works for me.
The funniest thing is when my wife and I watch something live (football) and one or both of us tries to grab the remote at the first commercial break. Damn. Man, some of those breaks are looooooong after you get used to skipping 80% of them.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
...he asks a woman to take her hand of his "heine", and she pulls out a "heineken", then it cuts away again...
:)
That wasn't cut in after the movie was released, it was part of the original movie. Having seen Wayne's World, it was very likely put in there as a tounge-in-cheek joke about that very thing. Doesn't mean that Heinekin didn't give them some cash for it though
Segfault
first off the article in TV week is as far from real journalism and fact as you can get. It's a industry rag that is mostly a network cheerleader and nobody takes anything in there as anything worth any value.
I strongly reccomend not even paying attention to an article in that "advert-zine"
the Tivo is not hurting advertising sales. Ad revinue is up, not one company that is advertising is cutting their advertising budget because "the tivo is making people not watch our ad's".
This is the equlivant of a microsoft PR employee publishing an article on how linux is destroying the IT industry.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I thought that I was the only one that this bothered. I've been noticing over the last couple of years that your basic drug commercial is a fly-over view of a dozen or so people that have apparently been cured by the new wonder drug being advertised but they never say anything about what the drug is or what it's supposed to do. Why on earth would I question my doctor about a pill that even the company that makes it won't take two seconds out of their precious commercial to tell me what it's for?
I wouldn't say I'm a bad gambler but the last time I went to Vegas I even lost a buck on the soda machine.
"nope, I saw an annoying commercial of theirs; nope, they shoved an insulting product placement in a movie down my throat; ah, that leaves generic brand, check"
There's only one problem with that: The generic brands often suck. Sure, many times the generic will work just as well, for cheaper. But I find that more often than not, the reason the name brands cost more is because they're better. Oreos are better than "No Name Frosted Cookies." Coke does taste better than "PC Cola." Cottonelle is softer than generic toilet paper, and Bounty does pick up more.
Of course, there are notable exceptions where the generic brand is BETTER than the name-brand. For example, I love President's Choice chicken breasts. I've tried name brands, and always keep coming back to good 'ol PC.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
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?
While in general I agree with your premise (that TV rots the brain, etc), I don't agree with your conclusion (eliminate TV completely). If I find each hour of the Fox show "24" exciting, and I'm thoroughly entertained, than who's to say it was a waste?
Depends on how you actually do it. I don't have a TV at all because it doesn't fit in my lifestyle at all. However, I have noticed a surprising lack of resilience, determination, and original thinking in people that watch 2+ hours of TV a day. The simple answer is that TV is a passive medium, and doesn't require any action on the part of the viewer to make the entertainment happen. I find some TV shows entertaining, and when I happen to be somewhere where they're showing, I take advantage of the opportunity to watch them. Hm, I also notice a lack of problem-solving in those same people.
Too much TV, like too much of anything, is very very bad for most people (I say "most" because I"m willing to concede that for someone it's good for them, although I've never met that someone). The main problem with TV is that it's passive, and since it doesn't require action from the viewer, over time it becomes easier for the viewer to just let things happen. Contrast it with books, you have to actively participate in the book in order to be entertained. You can sit and look at the book all you want, but until you open it up and start reading it, you are not likely to become entertained. This is why I object to those so-called digital books. They take all the effort out of reading and stick it on the screen, and now kids don't learn that reading really does take effort. Of course, too much reading leads to antisocial behavior as well, I've noticed. :) It's not like there's any perfect medium, it's just a matter of realizing what the limitations of the medium are and keeping diversity in your forms of entertainment. (Sex is definitely an active form of entertainment, and very social. But with obvious limitations...)
Like what I said? You might like my music
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
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..
Then your experience varies GREATLY from mine. Brand names are a premium. Do you know who created the original "oreo" style cookie? It wasn't "Oreo" brand. It was Hydrox. They are the same damn thing. Oreo had better marketing.
The VAST majority of commodities almost by definition, have zero distinguishment in quality due to brand. You know what "Windex" is? It's fucking vinegar. But sure, consumers will buy the anti-bacteria this, and orange-fairy-spirits that, because consumers are stupid and like to feel comfortable that they are buying a socially acceptable product (there is even a product on the market that kills "germs in the air"! GERMS IN THE AIR OH MY FUCKING GOD). Do your Nikes make you a better athlete? Probably not. Is your Abercrombie and Fitch wardrobe any more functional than "generic" clothes you could buy at a store like Target or KMart? The trend is actually reverse - now you pay extra for PREWORN clothing! What a deal! Can you really notice any difference whatsoever between butter and milk brands? Are you sure what you think a product tastes like is really what it "should" taste like, or just what you've grown up to accept as correct? (e.g. How did they know that the cereal tastes correct in the Matrix?).
Feel free to scale your purchases based on quality. That is something to encourage - regardless of brand name. In my experience the case is the opposite - for the vast majority of products the brand name provides NOTHING more than better marketing and more social acceptance among consumer peers. Sure there are some premium brands that are better and get my money, but they are few and far between, and usually not worth the premium even IF they are better (value is the point).
Unfortunately less and less of America knows how to make a meal from commodity ingredients or make/use commodity cleaning agents (vinegar, laundry bar soap, borax, washing soda, etc.) so they will gladly buy a product marked up %500 if it has a pretty label and includes the fashion ingredient of the day ("orange oil" seems to be popular these days). As a corollary, more and more "generic" products are getting nominal "brand names" just to make the consumer feel more comfortable with them - KMart, Target, and many stores now "brand" their generic clothes with some random name even though they are more or less generic...but they know if there is a "brand" name on it people will be more inclined to buy it (oooh, it's not KMart clothes, it's Route 66 - I feel special now).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Part of the goal is not to make you want a Jeep per-se. Its to make sure that if you want a Jeep/LandCruiser/LandRover/SUV, that you think about Jeeps, and don't go strait for a LandCruiser.
I didn't know Jeep had a new thing they were calling a Rubicon until they made the second Tomb Raider. I didn't end up seeing Tomb Raider II, and I wouldn't buy a Jeep on a dare. But I know its there if I'd want one, and probably wouldn't if it weren't for the joint marketing blitz.
I wonder what percentage of the Tivo owning public hasn't been missing 2/3 of commercials anyway, because they're the part of the market demographic (like me) that flips channels. They're probably losing less than 2/3s of commercials, since many were already being skipped/muted/ignored before. Still, I do remember commercials (I remember the Jeep Rubicon, which I don't want, being advertised with Tomb Raider II which I didn't see).
Then again, web advertising works, too. I saw an ad for a Honda on Suck.com or some such site while I was looking for a car, and ended up test-driving a Prelude after adding Honda to my list of possible cars. I wouldn't have known that the movie Scotland, PA (MacBeth in a diner) existed if it weren't for a banner ad on The Onion. All these jackasses that measure ad effectiveness by click-through are jackasses (as I may have mentioned earlier in this sentence).
Advertisers need to get their panties out of a wad.
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
Fast and the Furious (I and II): cars, performance parts, soda, clothing, sex
WRONG!
90% of the "performance" cars that are imitating the Fast and Furious movies are poser-mobiles.
simply look at the cars, High wing that is worthless or installed wrong as to decrease handling stability. big rims showing off dinky front rotors with stock single cylinder calipers and rear drum breaks. oh and the ultimate poser add-on the resonance muffler tip.
Those movies created a GIANT market for poser parts. Performance parts sales have been the same as they always have as it takes a large amount of knowlege and abilities to actually install the stuff.
the "advertising" in F&F series of shiny pictures was the best example you could have came up with... as it has thousands if not tens of thousands of teens and 20 somethings buying low grade poser crap for their cars at higher than market prices in droves.... I almost bet they had the stuff being manufacturered before they started shooting the first film and only made the first film and the last two abortions called films simply as a infomercial that people pay to go see.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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?"
Somehow I can't envision how they could manage to place products in sitcoms and miniseries which take place during WWII, 70's, or any other period than present time.
More subtle placement than "oh look, the cool and highly-emulable lead character drinks Coke, wears Nikes, and drives a Lexus" can sometimes work better than beating the viewer over the head with placements. In a very old setting, such as the Moses-with-a-PDA example, you could have clouds vaguely look like the Nike swish. In reasonably modern settings, such as any time this century, many of the big names in common products already existed, and they can use th "nostalgia" angle to place products.
Don't underestimate the ability of advertisers to find ways to stick in references to products. They will, no doubt at all.
And personally, I would prefer product placement to normal 30-second spots. Think of it this way - We unavoidably see "product placement" in real life. For example, just looking around the desk I currently sit at, I have a Compaq computer (not mine), a bottle of Mountain Dew, a pair of JBL speakers, an AOL sign-on disk (unopened), a bottle of Advil, and a sharpie. I can clearly see the brand of all those from just a quick glance, and think nothing of it. By comparison, if my desk suddenly vanished for 30 seconds to allow the new 2004 Ford Destructor to appear covered in girls or mud or whatever, then came back at the end of a few similar product appearances, I would find that highly disturbing to my flow of consciousness.
Current model of advertising just isn't efficient enough, and horribly outdated on top of that.
Real, formal ads don't so much count as an "outdated" business model, as an annoying one. People have always sought ways to remove annoyances from their lives, whether or not the source of those annoyances either allows it or not. Advertisers took advantage of the general omplacency of society by making commercial content more and more annoying, but now that consumers have a means of addressing that, it no longer works. Nothing "fair" or "unfair" or "outdated" about this, just the never-ending arms escalation of "get people to do what we want" vs "screw you, we'll do what we want".
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.
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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
So basically you're talking about audio books, though apparently they've evolved slightly since the last time I bothered with one ;) I tend to think they serve their purpose well in situations such as driving long distances, but then I don't use them at all (the last one I tried to listen to was Stephen King's The Gunslinger, which just put me to sleep, in part because of Stephen King's voice).
I like the smell of new paper (or even old paper at times) and the weight of a good book, as well as having it on my shelf to pull down at any time (with the only requirement being good light). At the same time, it's much more convenient for me to read text on the screen most of the time.
As for social/antisocial, I find the skills I lack most in social situations are the ones that irritate me the most, such as interrupting people to get a word in or raising my voice to be heard over other people. I doubt I'll ever understand why people that do these things are considered social, when in reality they're simply trying to focus attention on themselves. Luckily, as long as I intend to stay with my girlfriend, she drags me out enough to keep me from being a complete hermit. On the whole, though, I tend to find most social engagements to be unproductive and boring, so I avoid them as much as I can.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
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.
Yeah Americans would NEVER pay $50 a month for cable TV.
I pay enough to watch TV without having my viewing interrupted by adverts. All that Tivo will cause is a small rejig of the revenue model.
I think we will see the end of the network TV model and the low end cable model. There will be fewer channels but what is left will be more like HBO than CBS.
The low end cable TV shows that do the bare minimum to get an audience will probably have difficulty finding people who pay for them.
The network TV model of spending five million dollars to create another episode of a formula TV series like Friends will also crash. Those guys are not that funny, they were not as funny as Seinfeld when he was still going and they have not got any funnier since Jerry stopped.
The thing I find fascinating about the US network TV model is how they spend so much money to achieve total mediocrity. For example what is it with summer re-runs? You have a sparse resource, network time. So you pay one guy $2 million an episode you will show repeatedly, why not get a second string guy in who will do a cheap episode for a mere $10K or so and have some variety? The thing about summer re-runs is that nobody is waiting for the new season of the X-Files, it never stopped.
Another wierd network TV choice is that they all run a carbon copy of the old Carlson late night TV show which is itself a copy of Bob Hope's radio act. Same presenter every night with the same formula.
What is somewhat more depressing is that in the 2000 election the late night TV shows were the only place where anyone asked any of the candidates a challenging question. Thats because the campaign managers have to work to get their candidate on those shows, with news shows they will pick the most favorable interviewer. It is somewhat sad that they even avoid Larry King's softball questions these days because he is considered to aggressive.
They can all go bust as far as I am concerned. So long as I can still see Norm Abrams (on the Porter Cable channel), Jon Stewart, Jessie James, pretty much all the rest of the junk can go to the hell it came from.
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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.
I have cable with all the programs I watch on it... I flip through channels occasionally to get a feel for if I would like a show or not, then I use BitTorrent to get it.
I have to say advertising is killing advertising. If advertising was like it was when I was a child, there wouldn't have been such a huge push for PVR. They were shorter, less obnoxious, and less frequent. Now Ted drops every 30th frame or something so he can get an extra 30s commercial per half hour. It's disgusting, and I would rather not even watch TV than to watch that kind of TV.
Considering there are about 10m of ads in an hour show, a season of your favorite show probably hits you with an hour or more of ads. That's an hour that you could have spent working. If you get paid 40$/h, most boxed set of series cost less than that. It's more effecient to just buy the boxed DVD set than to watch commercials.
The best service that someone could offer by the way of television is a VCD every week in the mail with a nice, pretty, thin case to put on a shelf after I watch it. I can watch it over and over, and they can market to the entire world. They might also want to start thinking iTunes for television shows using some kind of bittorrent technology.
I hate advertising so much that I practically refuse to buy anything that looks familiar. I'ld rather use the cheap Wal-Mart brand detergent after the All vs. Tide vs. Cheer detergent wars from a few years back. I think my -1 will at least offset someone elses +1. It would only take maybe 10% of the population with that kind of mentality to get the point across. If you have something good to say about your product attach it to it. I read the bottles of detergent when I'm shopping for detergent. Make a logical arguement, and I'll probably buy your brand. Annoy me when I'm trying to relax and suffer a penalty.
I will never buy Oxyclean, and I stopped buying Tide, too.
Karma Clown
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.