ABC Wants DVR Fast Forwarding Disabled

Anonymous CE Worker writes "The television network ABC is looking to develop technology that would disable the fast-forward button on DVRs, and allow commercials to run as intended on their channel." From the article: "Some research executives — even at networks with sales departments that acted differently — had argued before the upfront that ads viewed in fast-forward mode generated value for advertisers, since consumers were at least partly exposed to their messages. But Shaw said ABC was only interested in finding a way to receive compensation for un-skipped ads."

Comments

Re:Indeed

[loose electron]

They won't have to prop open your eyes, they have a more subtle way to get it done.

A little history first --
This is the reason that many years ago, the networks worked together (sort of) to carefully time their advertising so that it all runs at once. You flip the channel, and all the other channels have their adverts running in time-sync.

Cable channels made that a bit tougher to do, but for the most part everyone remains in-sync for ads.

The more modern way of doing it --
Lets not forget the gobs and gobs of "embedded advertising" that is out there. That Hummer on CSI-Miami is an embedded ad. Those Coca-Cola glasses on American Idol are another example. Anyplace that you can see a product name or brand name identity in a TV show is a paid advertisement.

Sticking with the CSI example, the camera they used to take pictures with used to have no name on it. The show got popular, and all of a sudden it became a Nikon camera.