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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.
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Oh God, I hope so.
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."
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 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 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?
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.
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).
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 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
"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.
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).
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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)
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?
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
-- Robert A. Heinlein
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?
[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...
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.
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
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 . . .
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?
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!"
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?
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?"
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!