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TiVo to Measure Ad-Skipping
jaredmauch writes "USA Today is reporting that TiVo will measure how many users skip ads of roughly 20k random users. This follows Nielsen Ratings service providing individual commercial ratings. Overall this is expected to reduce the cost of advertisements on television and perhaps make them more on-topic? I'd consider providing feedback (thumbs-up/down) to ads if it'd make those that are no longer relevant to me go away." I'm kinda surprised they don't have this data already. I mean, weren't they able to track the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction a few years ago?
Many people skip commercials on Tivo, it is one of the selling points. Now they are going to track the who, what, and when people ff skip the commercials?
"During the initial rollout, TiVo will not provide personal, demographic data on the sample group."
And after this, where is this data going to go?
"Rogers declined to project how much revenue the new division might generate, although he says, "It's an important part of the overall model."
Oh I see. If they can proove that one ad is watched more than another (given demographics) commercial prices will go up/down?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
I guess I'm confused about how the TiVo units work, but I don't understand how they even plan to measure who is fast-forwarding/skipping commercials? How will they track this? Does the TiVo actually phone home with your logs of what you record/skip/rewind from the DVR? How would they filter between skipping commercials, and skipping crappy programming? Wouldn't it all look the same to TiVo?
VOTE!
Why are advertisers interested in paying for ads that people aren't interested in?
Surely, if they helped TiVO become mainstream and omnipresent, they'd be able to target their advertisement dollars better, but until they do, they're only going to know about a bunch of geeks think about their ads, not necessarily the least useful cross-section of their viewers, but probably the least forgiving.
So why do they [the advertisers] fight TiVO every chance they get?
The idea of hitting the thumb up/down buttons during commercials is a good one. I'd watch commercials just to thumb-down-bomb the annoying ones. A moderation system for commercials. I like. With feedback to the advertisers, the "you got a Dell" dude would never have gotten famous enough for me to hear reports about his dumbass drug habits. That idea alone makes this Good For Humanity.
I think commerical placement will become more valuable. A commerical at the beginning of a block is going to have better odds of being watched. Example: If a commerical break begins with a movie trailer, I'll usually watch the trailer before pressing the skip button.
If the govt becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites man to become his own law, it invites anarchy
Difference is that /. ads tend to be somewhat relevant (I'm looking at a Dice ad right now vs watching comercials to sell me birth control when I'm watching Battlestar Galactica). Also as a sidenote many here use adblocking software. I use it, but /. adverts aren't intruseive enough to make me want to set /. specific rules.
I've had a ReplayTV for a few years now. It's gotten to the point where I can't stand to watch live TV... not just because of commercials, but because you can't skip past the suck that's sometimes even in good shows (a bad interview on the Daily Show, for example).
The problem is, you actually do miss out when you don't see *any* commercials. Things like announcements of new series you might like, or two hour specials of a show you already watch. Not to mention I'd have no idea how to use HeadOn.
1. Tivo tracks how many ads get skipped and by who
2. Ad agencies know how much less the ads are worth now and demand networks lower prices because they're delivering less.
3. Networks pull the leashes on their well paid congressional delegation to fix this with legislation.
3. If legislation doesn't work then they pay Tivo to disable skipping the commercial, or have a special code which drops the viewer out of fast forward at the beginning of each commercial block.
Is there any outcome of this that would be considered good? They're actually making MS Media Center look good. And driving me more and more towards building my own MythTV box.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
The current TiVo Privacy Policy says repeatedly that all the data collected is anonymous. I guess that will have to change.
Not necessarily. Sure "White males aged 18-25" is a demographic, but so is "Regular viewers of Battlestar Galactica." Arguably, the latter is a more useful demographic to TV advertisers, and it doesn't require revealing personal information.
Of course, I have no doubts that TiVo and the scummy advertisers will look at it that way. They'll want to know age, gender, and how often you floss too, just because they're advertisers.
I would be happy to provide feedback to advertizers on which ads I skip, in exchange for not preventing me from skipping them. If they want me to view the ad, then they need to write better and not repeat the ad 10 times during one show.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
You pay $50 a month for "basic" cable and they still dump ads on you. They make you pay for stuff that is nothing but ads (QVC, MTV).
I have even heard ads on XM recently on the music channels. Sat radio was founded on a no-ad policy, but they are sneaking in.
This is why projects like mythtv are important. Open source PVR technology. Problem is, next generation HDMI / Blue Ray / HD DVD won't let you save DRM material to your HD (AFAIK). You will get the broadcast HD unencrypted, but the cable will not be recordable.
I am sure the pirates will think of something, but I want to be able to skip commercials if possible.
That is exactly why I have built a PC to record my TV Shows. It saves them as MPG and DiVx files. I can fast forward whatever I want and can tell CBS and everyone else to stick it. Best of all, NO viewing or tracking data is sent to ANYONE! If TiVo want's to sell Viewing data, they should make the service for the boxes FREE! ATI provides FREE TV Guide listings and software with ALL their TV Tuner products, and have done so sense the FIRST All-In-Wonder card! I hate duble dippers! "We will charge our customers to get tv listings, AND we will charge the TV Stations for the viewer data we collect from our boxes. Mwahahahahahah!"
If they revise the privacy policy to allow for that, I'm cancelling service. I refuse to be spied on -- TiVo was all about ME controlling my own TV experience. Now it looks as if TiVo will control what I watch.
well i for one find adverts on TV a joke..I do not watch Television as a rule, all the mindless crap that passes as entertainment, broken up every 7- 10 minutes with another fool who can't operate a regular device so will need the w0wser modle that does it all for him..and I certainly get a lil sick of a woman asking me if I am dry enough (they make it sound like women have an leaking abcess instead of a vagina..(bleh) as well.. NOT being a hypocondriac, I do not run to my doctor and ask him if i need this or that latest drug, (99% of the advertised drugs have side effects worse than the symptoms they are supposed to relieve),besides if the Drug Companies spent as much on research as they did on advertising..well you get the idea and i digress).
The problem with collecting descrete data (versus anonymous viewer data), is that the more exact you get, the more chance you have of truly blowing it (since anyone could be watching a given TV).
... ... at least until they put a camera on the TV ... and that will be the end of anyone wanting one.
When you live in a household with three people, 1 Male, 2 Females, of various ages and interests, agregating based on the house MIGHT make sense. Agregating based on the show watched DEFINATELY makes sense.
If my wife watches All My Children and decides to FF through the commercials, it means they are meaningless to her. If I watch Eureka (on Sci-Fi), and decide to watch the Station ID spots because they are new and interesting, and that gets me to watch a commericial or two (because I'm in a good mood and the commericals mesh), the system can draw inferences about the ads for the show, but now about who is watching what
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Yeah, i read the article earlier and posted this on my blog. But whatever.
I was just reading an article about advertisers getting all bent out of shape because folks are skipping ads like crazy on their TiVo/DVR. Well, duh! They're skipping the commercials because they've gotten so annoyingly predominant -- it's nearly to the point where it feels that you're watching more commercials than scheduled program.
And you may be wondering what this is really about. Well, I just wanted to publish what I thought of as the next logical step in the DVR revolution. Advertisers will like it, and it wouldn't be that hard for the DVR people to code it up:
Abstract:
A method of delivering advertisements to a viewer of DVR-recorded media while the viewer is fast-forwarding or fast-rewinding through advertisements or the main video program.
Claim:
1) a system for temporarily reducing the viewing size of video playback during a fast-forward or fast-rewind viewing of a pre-recorded or cached video program or advertisement
2) a method of receiving encoded information within an advertisement, or main video program
3) a method of decoding the received information into:
3a) textual information, to be displayed to the viewer,
3b) linkage information, to be displayed as a shortcut, or hyperlink, in order to view more information,
3c) or, additional information such as (but not limited to) short musical phrases or small graphical icons
4) a system for overlaying text and graphics as received into the screen space vacated by claim 1.
Technical:
Advertisers and television execs are increasingly frustrated by the ability of a viewer to skip over their ads, reducing the take rate for said services. This patent would allow an advertiser to make sure that their message was still being seen by a "tivo-ised" audience, by simultaneously reducing the screen real-estate available to video playback during fast-forward, or fast-reverse; then displaying textual and graphical information into the newly-created blank space.
This would allow targeted advertisements within a broadcast program to appear while a user is fast-forwarding or fast-rewinding through the program (as they might in order to catch-up to where they had left off in a previous viewing). This would also allow an alternate method of viewing the intra-program advertisements during the so-called "ad-skip" fast-forward.
Well, I tried to draft it up like a patent. And now it's published. Really, it's the next logical step, and hopefully advertisers will come flocking to my door wanting to use my invention. And I'll be rich! Muahahah!
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
TiVO already has a partnership with Nielsen (don't not ask me how I know, I am not allowed to say) that tracks specific TiVo user accounts (with their informed consent). Basically, Nielsen is uisng TiVo as a new PeopleMeter to track TV watching habits. The consent agreement is for a one year term.
There was a survey and study a few years ago on ad retention of TIVO users. People remembered the products at about the same rate as those who didn't have TIVO. And these are people who fast forward, like I do. Sounds crazy? A couple of reasons.
1. You have to actively pay attention when you fast forward to hit the show. This means mentally clicking off the product you are fast forwarding. Seperating show from commercial means actively engaging in the 2 seconds that 30 second commercial is whizzing by. So many are visiually dirven, that you get their jist, even if it is just the tag for the product.
2. Most people---and I did it in the pre-DVR days---spent the commercial breaks flipping around to other channels or checking out the guide, that's the price of our ADD culture. Some friends of mine who don't have a DVR literally mute or turn off the TV for two minutes when the break hits. TIVO users aren't flippers.
3. People with DVR's aren't really watching less TV per week, but they are watching more programs because they are skipping ads. This means more exposure and repetition of ads, therefore those crafty lil ads get seen more, not less.
The smart advertiser would make ads that embrace the fast forward TIVOs---more and longer graphics and tags. Hell, I keep waiting for the ad that is so slowed down it looks at normal speed at two arrows. The audio could even make fun of it and TIVO users.
People think they are beating the ad-driven system with TIVO. They're not, really, but we do have more time to watch more programs.
The reason why advertisements are "chauvinistic, alcohol-swilling" and resort to scantily-clad women is that the power demographic is 18-34 male. Psychology studies have shown that when you hit age 35, you lock in on the brands you use for different "Stuff". It's up to the advertisers to get their brands in front of that market, which has also been proven to be more susceptible to those type of ads.
:)
Anyway, I came across that tidbit a while ago and thought it relevant and interesting...
I'm not sure what the secret to success is, but the secret to failure lies in trying to please everyone -Bill Cosby
Hmmm, it might have interesting results. Maybe you could allow profiled ads so that ads for things you like (electronics, perhaps funny ads) could be shown, while skipping the annoying McDonalds or tampax ads. Better yet, let people share "ad-lists" wherein you can rate the ads and then share them with people of similar mind... some commercials are actually pretty damn funny, enough so that people collect them and send them off to friends online.