TiVo Starts Testing "Pop-up" Ads

mkraft writes "ZDNet is reporting that TiVo has started a testing a new pop-up style ad on a random and limited number of subscriber's TiVo as of this weekend. The ads are designed to be displayed on screen when the user fast forwards through specially tagged commercials. Clicking the thumbsup or select button on the TiVo remote will take the user to a menu containing more information about the advertisement (text and/or video). Unfortunately according to reports on the TiVo Community forums the ads are also showing up during actual programs as well."

Comments

So much for TiVo

[maotx]

Nothing like watching a great show and having to minimize the link for the latest viagra pill with your kids.
And to think, TiVo use to be a quality DVR...

I guess the pressure about the ability to skip ads and their lack of revenue convinced them to take this approach.
One would think that with the recent signing with Comcast that TiVo wouldn't have the need to pull something like this.
Given my choice in the future I do believe I shall stick with something more like MythTV

Re:So much for TiVo

[airjrdn]

Tell your sister to go put together a MythTV box.

See how Tivo is still relevant?

Re:So much for TiVo

[ntshma]

You know, it doesn't change how long it takes to fast forward whatever you were fast forwarding through. It's not like they are increasing how long you have to look at advertising. If if took you 10 seconds to fast forward through the commercials before it will still take you 10 seconds, even with the new advertising. I don't really see it as interferring with my viewing.

Re:So much for TiVo

[NeuroBoy]

The only thing more sad than an out-of-touch geek is a sexist, out-of-touch geek.

My sister could put together a MythTV box in her sleep, as I suspect many other "sisters" or "daughters" out there can. That said, your point about not everyone having the technical know-how has merit, but you might consider leaving gender out of your next comment with a stereotype. I'm sure the three female slashdotters will appreciate it. ;)

Re:So much for TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

To play the devil's advocate...

it's not greedy to want to *gasp* make money. You want to make money, I want to make money, and OMG TIVO wants to make money, and yes even Advertisers want to make money.

You have to be a moron not to accept the fact that the delicate balance is thrown to the crapper when you all of a sudden remove the ability for advertisers to make money. Where do you think the TV Stations get the money to finance the TV Shows? I'm willing to be a LARGE chunk of that money is from advertising. If my revenue depended on something like that, I would be considering pop-up ads myself, as evil as they are. No Ads = No advertisers = bye bye money they are sending = bye bye TV shows that depend on that money.

I think Enterprise is a good example of this. Alot of it's viewership is based on downloaded episodes sans Ads. And what'do'ya'know? It's getting canceled.

but you live in your Utopia without greed. The rest of the world will continue on as it has for millenia - making ends meet and trying to get rich in the proccess.

Dam hippies. not anywhere did I see the parent stereotype. But enough of my ranting as Devil Adv.

Re:So much for TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally don't think skipping ads is a problem. The viewers paid to avoid ads, so they should get something. The problem is that the company people pay to avoid ads is serving ads. I guess that's one more company to avoid doing business with.

At this rate, I'll be Amish by June.

Re:So much for TiVo

[Tibor the Hun]

The advertisers paid for the spot?

I also seem to have paid for the cable subscription.
But maybe you get your cable for free, so the only way for the cable company to make money is from the advertising.

My 50 bucks a month must be buying toilet paper, or 1 dollar bills for lighting cigars.

I swear to god, if all this no-ff-through-commercials and advertising bullshit keeps growing, I'm gonna buy me a VHS and learn how to program the recording timers.

Re:So much for TiVo

[Grishnakh]

The advertisers payed of the spot, so they should get something.

I don't give a rat's ass what the advertisers paid for, or what their business model is. They paid the TV networks to broadcast their ad, and that's what happened.

If I own a TiVo, then I have paid TiVo for a digital recording device which I can use to time-shift programs and skip ads. I have not signed any sort of contract with the TV broadcasting networks, and to my knowledge, TiVo has no contract with them obligating them to prevent users from skipping their ads. If they do have any such contract, then I want no part of TiVo's service, and will look for an alternative.

It's not my problem, or that of the DVR manufacturers, that the advertisers' business model isn't working. That's their problem. All they're paying for, and getting, is the chance at getting someone to watch their ad by broadcasting it. This does not imply any guarantee that people will actually sit there and watch it, instead of fast-forwarding past it, or even going to the crapper while it plays. Why should I pay for a device which forces me to watch ads? If the advertisers don't like this, they can go find another way of advertising.

I think it would be interesting if they did something like this for free downloads of shows. 5-10 seconds for an image of the ads that would normally be where a commercial break is. You can pay to not have the ads.

This would only be acceptable if they gave away the (ad-enabled) TiVos for free.

Re:So much for TiVo

[GeckoX]

We bitch here all the time about parental responsibility.

And then a responsible parent comes along and what do we do? Sheesh.

Have a kid or two and gain some perspective on reality.

Re:So much for TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

"I also seem to have paid for the cable subscription.
But maybe you get your cable for free, so the only way for the cable company to make money is from the advertising."

The cable company does not get money from selling ad space, the networks do. The cable company pays the network to carry their feeds. The cable company then delivers these feeds to us, the consumer.

The money paid to the networks by the cable comopanies does not cover all their expenses, so they sell ad space. This is the same as a magazine or newspaper. They have tones of ads in them, yet they are not free (well, most aren't).

Why does this not seem right?

[scifience]

Let me get this straight: I pay for the TiVo device itself, then I pay a monthly service fee. Now I also have to put up with highly invasive advertising?

This might be acceptable if there was no monthly fee for using the device, but this is akin to adding commercials to HBO. Either choose to be subscription-supported or advertising-supported, but not both.

Re:Why does this not seem right?

[mattmentecky]

Good point, I mean, this is unique to Tivo, the whole mixing of subscription/advertising just doesnt happen...

...in magazines...
...on Slashdot...
...with DVDs...

Re:Why does this not seem right?

[mshiltonj]

Either choose to be subscription-supported or advertising-supported, but not both.

Yeah, like newspapers and magazines.

Re:Why does this not seem right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ads increase the costs of goods you buy. Don't think for a moment that ad-supported content is less costly!

Re:Why does this not seem right?

[FooAtWFU]

The difference being that the advertisements in newspapers and magazines are off to one side, and don't generally interfere substantially with the content. They're much easier to ignore.

No, this is not a suggestion to use the edges of the television screen for advertisements, either. This is video, not print. =b

Re:Why does this not seem right?

[Jack Johnson]

These things have a way of working themselves out...

The Washington Post is cheap ($0.35) and easy enough to navigate that I don't mind the ads and buy one when a story catches my eye.

Wired has become so ad heavy that I chose not to renew my subscription and now google the topic of an interesting cover rather than buy the magazine.

The Washington City Paper is completely free and I read it more often than either of the former.

If HBO introduced commercial breaks and product placement into the middle of Deadwood they would lose my subscription in seconds.

Tivo Users

[smartin]

Complain loudly and complain often. Tivo is not on the most stable ground that they can afford to piss off their user base. As soon as this starts happening on my machines i will be calling them threatening to cancel my subscription.

Re:Tivo Users

[slashkitty]

calling them threatening to cancel my subscription.

Unfortunately, I think it'll take a lot of people /actually/ cancelling their subscriptions before they get the hint. Otherwise, they just see a lot of publicity, but think that users will stay w/ tivo no matter what.

Re:Tivo Users

[Anonymous Coward]

"...but think that users will stay w/ tivo no matter what. "

And they'll be right. My wife and I quit watching TV a few years ago. Whenever people complain about what's on TV or the adverts or whatever, we tell them what we did. They look at us like we're aliens. They then justify their TV addiction by claiming to watch only PBS or Discovery or the History Channel.

Tivo's safe. The addicts will complain, but they'll continue to watch.

No, Tivo. No.

[katsushiro]

I'm sorry, if I allready paid for the machine, and on top of that, I'm paying a monthly fee for the service, I do *not* find it acceptable to have the service push ads at me. If you're going to be pushing ads at me, then start refunding my monthly fee. That's the way things work for me. I'm willing to pay you for your service, no problem. But I'm going to pay you in *either* cash or ads, not both. And seeing as part of the reason I got a Tivo was to skip ads, then replacing those ads with other ads is *not* acceptable to me.

Looks like it's time to finally sit down and build that MythTV box I've been thinking about.

Re:No, Tivo. No.

[Guppy06]

"I'm sorry, if I allready paid for the machine, and on top of that, I'm paying a monthly fee for the service, I do *not* find it acceptable to have the service push ads at me."

You're paying for the cable/satellite service to begin with, aren't you? It's the latest business model: work both ends. The channels get paid both by the advertisers and the cable providers, just as the phone companies get paid by both the telemarketers and the folks who get caller ID. This isn't exactly new to TiVo, nor is it likely something to be new for you.

Re:No, Tivo. No.

[Schnapple]

Simple answer:

IGNORE THE ADS

This isn't like pop up/under advertising where it's actually interfering with your ability to use Tivo. This isn't like unskippable ads at the beginning of a DVD. This is something in the upper-right corner saying "click thumbs-up for more...". This is the very definition of non-intrusive - they're putting a small ad on top of a commercial. A commercial you're skipping anyway. Here's the thing - the ad also displays if you're just watching commercials (like if the show is "caught up" and you're watching it in real time) so it's not punishing those who skip commercials. Tivo has some database of what time/channel you're watching and they put the ad up then. It's not perfect yet, as per those who have had the things pop up when a normal show plays.

Re:NON-Tivo DVR

[MalaclypseTheYounger]

I use Adelphia's provided Scientific Atlanta 8000HD, and I am wondering the same thing.

But I am also wondering if a poorly-performing company like Adelphia will start to think the same thing, that they can also follow TiVo's footsteps and start splashing commercials on my screen while I fast forward, etc.

And as a sheep consumer, I will probably bend over and take it, because now that I've had it, I cannot live without my DVR.

How did Tivo fail so horribly like this?

[sgant]

They say they're barely keeping afloat, yet how can they have screwed up so badly like this? I mean, they have a monthly fee you have to pay for the service right? That's income generated on a monthly basis...and new subscribers etc etc. And let's face it, the equipment can't be all that expensive (for them).

What I want is to walk into a store and pick up a digital recorder that records on a HD that I don't have the idiotic monthly fee. Just give me a recording device that..you know...comes on at 8pm, records an hour, then goes off at 9pm. It can still have the pause-while-recording feature and the skipping of the commercials and everything...but WHY be tied to a monthly fee bullshit?

Is there such a thing out there without me having to build a MythTV box?

Re:How did Tivo fail so horribly like this?

[photon317]

I would bet that less than 10 percent of all rebates ever given on any consumer product you buy in a retail store are ever redeemed. That's the beauty of rebates. It makes the price look lower, which helps convince you to buy it, even though you're not gonna bother sending in that rebate that made the price look lower.

ReplayTV

[waynegoode]

I have never understood why TiVO is the PVR that gets all the press. I have two PVRs from ReplayTV that I really like. I don't have ads popping up and I can jump (not just fast-forward) past commercials. ReplayTV did try a pause ad for a while a couple of years back, but cancelled it after users complained. The only ads they have now are an occasional (about 2/yr) ad for a ReplayTV sale or contest.

In other news, the sky is falling..

[raitchison]

What a bunch of whiners, most of which don't even own a TiVo nor have used it for any significant length of time.

I'm a mostly happy TiVo Subscriber, while it's a far from perfect product from a far from perfect company it is IMO the best product out there overall. Of all the commercially available DVRs out there the only one that comes close is ReplayTV. Sure a MythTV or other DIY PVR offers better control (that I would like) but is not viable for 95% of American consumers (probably a conservative estimate).

TiVo has , and will continue to make compromises in the services they provide that while detrimental to the users have kept TiVo operational (if not profitable). ReplayTV tried to give the consumer everything and it put them into bankruptcy TWICE.

Admittedly I've yet to see these new ads on my TiVo but as long as they don't interfere with my ability to fast forward (which it doesn't sound like they do) than my core functionality is not impacted and I'm still a happy customer. I think the number of people who find the idea of commercials patently offensive (as is the general theme from non TiVo owning people rushing to decry this) is small compared to the number who won't care what's on the screen while they FF as long as they can get back to the O.C. in 10 seconds.

Complain to Tivo...not Slashdot

[TexTex]

If you're one of the users who has pop-ups coming during regular programming, call up Tivo. Complain. Play the dumb card and talk to as many people as possible. Start asking for stuff like a new Tivo because yours is obviously broken (since...the pop-ups aren't supposed to be doing this, right?) or credit for your monthly service. It's an 800 charge to Tivo and their customer support time wasted.

Now, who knows what's going to happen...but if enough people complain, they might think again about how and when they place these pop-ups. If you're a user paying a monthly fee for their service and don't like something, it's worth your time to let Tivo actually know about it rather than just the slashdot crowd.

Re:Yeah, its disguisting

[Ioldanach]

They're assuming (rightly so I'd think) that most of the people watching that show are women.

Good Eats is, as far as I'm concerned, hands down the best cooking show on TV. Basically cooking for geeks, and I can think of no reason why demographics would target it to females in particular. Its a great show for either gender.

But demographics aside, why would an ad pop up during the actual content of the show? That's just absurd!

Re:Why does this not seem right? Everywhere...

[garett_spencley]

Yup, I'm currently boycotting movie theaters because of this.

I remember in the late 80's or early 90's it was either the first or second 'new' Batman movie with Michael Keaton. They had an advertisement for Coke at the beginning. It was even themed for the movie and people were OUTRAGED. For the next 10 years or so there were no more attempts that I remember to do non-movie commercials before movies.

Man how times have changed.. and fast.

But, unfortunately, I don't think our wallets are very loud in these cases. Movie theaters, television, music etc. is all teenager domain.. and I don't see teenagers boycotting any form of entertainment any time soon. Even advertisements are 'cool' for teenagers these days. As long as teenagers are buying up movie tickets and chugging down ad after ad without complaining then it's here to stay :(

Re:Well, that seals it.

[jayhawk88]

Yeah, because your cable company is a pillar of virtuous marketing techniques and would NEVER try something like this.

I know this is the straw on the camel for you and you have other reasons for switching, but trust me, you'll be seeing these again inside of 6 months.

Re:Sign up now for "How to kill your product 101"

[TexTex]

Trends like these are all over the place in advertising. There's an initial horrid reaction of the disgust and intolerance. And then, people just move on and get used to it. You become numb to the advertising...

Remember when previews were the first thing on a movie screen? Now...I watch advertising for local companies the entire time before the projector even starts. And then, I get about 5 minutes of movie-sized commercials before the previews. This is for a movie I've already paid $10 to go see.

Video games have become saturated with product placement and music singles. Games used to use generic descriptions and canned music.

Entire television shows are dedicated to selling products. The real-life business opportunities for The Apprentice candidates are paid advertising bought buy those companies. A few million bucks and your product gets a 30-minute show based around having people promote and sell your brand. It's reality TV mixed with an infomercial, but people flock to season after season of it.

Does anyone even notice the corner ads in the entire Comcast menu guide anymore? Any time you change the channel or browse the listings, you're hit with an ad.

It's all stuff we've learned to ignore. Tivo seems to be no exception to the trends and over time, we'll block that out as well. A vicious cycle...but one which will continue unless companies aren't interested in making more money than they did last year.

Nice.

[Monokeros]

Slashdot posts an article about TiVo adding pop-ups : Connections to www.mythtv.org start timing out.

I wish TiVo execs knew to make the correlation.

Re:Saw one last night

[heavy snowfall]

Well, that's ok, the ad worked anyway. Next time you go to the movie theatre, rental place or best buy, and you see the movies cover/logo you will probably recognize it, and maybe pick up the box. That's how ads work.

They don't (usually) aim for getting you to jump out of your sofa and run screaming to the store to buy the product...

Re:Well, that seals it.

[lightspawn]

My gf has been egging me to get rid of the TIVO and go with the cable company offering for a while now. She wants the ability to watch one show while recording another, and the ability to use the DVR with Hi-Def programming.

TiVo invested a huge amount in usability design and testing. Cable boxes are rushed to market so the cable companies can say they have them too, but when you figure out how slow and unintuitive the interface is you'll be sorry.

Just thinking about the stupid Cox Cable DVR makes my skin crawl, so I won't bother you with specifics.

I hate ads - when I lived in the (SF) bay area and my only option was a company that displayed a random banner ad for at least three seconds whenever you changed the channel I decided to just do without TV altogether. But what TiVo's doing doesn't really hurt you - they're just showing you stuff when you FF through commercials anyway. It's not like they're blocking the actual show (if they've made a mistake like that once it won't happen again). So who cares? The real content is still there.

P.S. I don't know how much hi-defness is actually retained when you save hi-def content. anyone?

Re:Makes me glad I went with the Home Theater PC

[whyde]

Not all of your hours are billable hours. Find something you like to do, and don't pretend you're losing money by spending time doing it.

The above argument is when people who stopped at ECO101 try to make opportunity cost statements about living life. When I die, I'm sure I won't be wishing I'd spent more time billing people for the various uses of my hours, but instead wishing I'd had more fun with those hours in general.

I have a HTPC. I enjoyed setting it up, and it requires almost no maintenance. From my point of view it is now an "appliance," and I derive great satisfaction from knowing that I've got a mostly commercial-free TV viewing experience that lets me optimize how I spend my time in front of the boob tube.

What price would I put on that?

They killed their product long ago

[ad0gg]

By using MY hardware to download ads and MY hardware to spy on my tv watching activities. This has been going for years, yet everyone sat back and didn't care. I guess the pop up ads are what the broke the camels back. I'm glad I left tivo a while years ago after i found out that Tivo was using my own PURCHASED hardware to spy on me.

Re:Why does this not seem right? Everywhere...

[LordEd]

Boycotting the theatre is the wrong idea. You boycott the products being advertised. Anytime I see a product in theatre, I write an e-mail to that company (c.c.ed to the theatre's company) and state that I will no longer (or will decide against) purchasing their product because I find it offensive to pay $____ for a movie and have to watch their ads.

Occasionally, I wouldn't see the ad at the next show (but it was probably coincidence).

There haven't been that many good movies out lately anyway.

The whole problem with ads.

[SmallFurryCreature]

There just are to many of them. Now this is not a problem except when there are to many for to long. Compare it with drinking. If you binge drink once every decenium then it will be bad for your system but nothing terrible will happen. Neither will anything happen if you take a glass of table wine every day. But 10 glasses each day will kill you.

Same with ads. I come from the netherlands and am so old that I remember when tv only had ads between programs and not even that on sundays and other christian holidays. Of course we only had 1 dutch channel, yes I am really really old, but german tv had only the occasional ad block in the afternoon (although it was bloody long) and belgian tv has maybe 1 ad per day. BBC of course has none.

But now we got commercial tv and the ads are in the program and last for far to long. It is so bad that with my memory I forget wich program I was watching. Meaning I zap to another channel and don't return OR as is happening more and more just don't watch tv but watch bittorrent instead.

I didn't mind the ads in the olden days. 1-2 minutes between programs. That was acceptable. But 5+ minutes every 15 minutes is to much.

Why should the tv channels care? Well because I went from watching a couple of ads to watching 0 ads.

Same really with the net. It took me quit a while to start with adblockers because the occasional ad I could live with. But they kept forcing more and more ads onto me until I reached breaking point and installed an adblocker. Now I don't see any ads. Including the one for this page. Though shit that slashdot loses income, my breaking point has been reached. Now even 1 ad getting to the adblocker has me instantly adding the url to the block list. To many ads means that I now don't want to see a single one.

This move by tivo seems the ultimate arrogance and ignorance by the ad pushers. The entire idea behind tivo is to skip ads and yet you are aiming your ads at these people? THEY DON'T WANT YOUR ADS. The only thing this can possibly achieve is that either people move away from tivo OR put an embargo on your product.

If ad pushers want to get people to watch their ads they should realize that they need to reduce the amount of ads we see. Companies wanting to advertise. 1 ad in a movie is watched. your 1 ad between 5 minutes of other ads is not watched. TV companies. 1 ad per movie might just fetch you a far higher price AND get more viewers then the other channels.

Then again we are talking about the tv industry. Brains are not exactly their strong point. Currently young males are no longer watching tv so much as before. Strangely this happened at the exact same time as reality tv became a staple diet of every channel. TV bosses reaction. MORE REALITY TV.

From that same logic it is not hard to see how the reaction people zapping away from ads is to show more ads or how you buy ad time on a device designed to skip ads. Maybe Heineken should sponsor AA meetings.

Re:Advertisers pay for the original transmission.

[Physics Dude]

I can clearly see how refusing to even accept the ads that help pay for what you're watching could be construed as theft.

Ted Turner, is that you?

Seriously though, that is one of the most pathetic things I've read in a while. Either you have some extermely twisted concept of "theft", or you've been brainwashed into thinking you're somehow "obligated" to the media producers above and beyond any agreements or contracts you have with them.

Don't get me wrong... you have the right to waste your time however you see fit, but to feel that there is any legal, ethical, or moral obligation for one to watch ads is absurd. Have you actually SEEN what modern advertizing is like? Advertizing accounts for almost a THIRD of primetime airtime. Most ads are psychologically manipulative, intellectually assaulting and demeaning! Have a little self respect for heaven's sake!

I'd rather go entirely without TV than be obliged to watch ads, and I along with many others would gladly PAY for content without ads if necessary. Most modern ads are targeted toward sheeple that don't have an original thought to their name. If you fall into that category I'm sorry for you.

If enough people rejected mindless and inane advertizing, you might end up with ad-free channels and seperate advertizing channels where the ads were good enough that people WANTED to watch them (ala cleo awards).

Re:Advertisers pay for the original transmission.

[GeckoX]

Does it really look like I'm trying to support the advertising model? Sheesh.

All I am saying, _yet_ again, is that if you agree to a service which includes an advertising model, then you have agreed to at least accept those advertisements. (The only ones that would argue that you should be forced to actually view them would be the end ad agency, but noone agrees with that stance) Once you've received those ads, feel free to do what you will. Including delete them. HOWEVER, the TIVO cannot automatically do that as that would be EXACTLY the same as agreeing to pay for content that is subsidized by advertising, and then refusing to even accept the ads.

Personally, if you haven't figured this out yet, I'd rather pay for no-ad content thanks. Unfortunately no one other than the DVD manufacturers wants to provide that content that way.

Can TiVo please create a new feature?

[wealthychef]

This is ridiculous. I don't think it's outrageous to try to create ad revenue, but TiVo has been feature-frozen for years, essentially. No new innovation, same terrible interface for typing out words painfully through the infamous "ouija board screen," same awfully slow sorting algorithms, same ancient hardware, RAM limitations, lack of customizability....

And the "innovation" they come up with in 2005 is to find a way to spam us? Thanks, TiVo.

Re:Sign up now for "How to kill your product 101"

[Nasarius]

If people were to stop buying the products when advertised, and let them know thats the reason why you stopped, eventually you'll see adertisements go down.

Interesting. I do something similar, but only for ads that annoy/insult me. Do you have a system for keeping track of this, or just a very good memory?

Re:Advertisers pay for the original transmission.

[nospmiS remoH]

Unfortunately no one other than the DVD manufacturers wants to provide that content that way.

Um, have you seen some of the Disney DVDs? Those and some other DVDs put you through 15 minutes of previews/ads before getting to the menu. Most of those won't let you skip them either.