TiVo Causes Increase in Product Placement

ndansmith writes "Wired has got an article on how TiVo and other 'ad-skipping technologies' have caused an upsurge in product placements on network television shows. The 84% increase in product placements on TV over the last year has drawn protests from both the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild. An example from the article: 'In a recent episode of the NBC series Medium, writers had to work the movie Memoirs of a Geisha into the dialogue three times because of a deal the network made with Sony earlier in the season. They even had the characters go on a date to an early screening of the movie and bump into friends who had just viewed Geisha to tell them how good it was.' Readers may also remember a controversial Cisco Systems product placement on Fox's 24."

Comments

Re:It seems kind of pathetic to do that.

[wyldeone]

You don't seem to have a very good grasp on how this system works. The money that you pay each month to the cable company goes to the cable company in return for offering the service—not to the stations. The stations, meanwhile, make (nearly) all their money on advertising. Thus the amount of ads has nothing to do with your cable bill.

Re:Blurred

[Igottapoop]

In the U.S. they've been doing that for years. The producers have to blur them for two reasons.

1. The companies buying commercial time (at a later date) may not like having a competitor getting free air time during the show.

2. The companies that didn't pay for the product placement can actually sue the show if they don't like how their product is being used/displayed during the show and/or what show their product is being shown on.

Re:In show ads? Whatever.

[Ben Jackson]

Since TiVo doesn't auto-skip, I watch the whole commercial break, albiet at quadruple speed.

While playing something, hit select - play - select - 3 - 0 - select on the remote to enable 30 second skip. Now that button opposite the 8 second rewind skips 30 seconds instantly. It's much easier (and requires almost no concentration, unlike 60x ffw) to skip commercials that way. You can just mash it 4 or 5 times right into the break (ok, 4 or 500 if you're on a Turner network) and if you land in a commercial, hit it again. Fine tune with some 8s-back.

As a bonus, you know whenever your Tivo upgrades because you have to turn it on again.

Don't forget: YOU'RE the product, not the ads!

[potus98]

Television's primary product for sale is not the junk featured in ads, it's YOUR eyeballs. Where do networks get their primary source of revenue? From selling your eyeballs upstream to corporations. The TV shows are just crummy hooks to get your eyeballs for a little while. Is there some level of art, acting, or writing involved? Sure, a little. But the VAST majority of TV programming is happy, blinky stuff to keep you hooked for just a few more minutes.

I admit that I like plugging in for a little brain-nap myself, but don't forget there ARE other forms of entertainment. I mean, let's not elevate the so-called art of television to some level that we think they're above blatent product placement.