Google Patent Proposes $2 Fee To Skip Commercials

theodp writes "A day after Google debuted its new Google TV website, the USPTO issued U.S. Patent No. 7,806,329 to the search giant for its Targeted Video Advertising invention. Among other things, the patent proposes having viewers take 5-10 minutes to 'fill out a consumer survey and perhaps to provide additional information such as a mailing address survey before starting the program' to avoid having to watch 10 minutes of commercials. 'As another alternative,' the patent continues, 'the broadcaster may offer the users an option to pay $2 (such as through a micro-payment system, such as GBuy) to exchange for skipping all commercials.' More from the patent: 'The system may allow a user to skip all of the promotions that they want to skip, but may also require the user to fully watch at least four promotions before the program will continue. Likewise, the system may require the user to follow activities that generate a certain amount of advertising revenue or advertising points (e.g., that may correspond directly or indirectly to advertising revenues) before the program will continue.'"

Comments

Greed

[iONiUM]

To me, at this point, commercials are greed. We already pay subscription (cable or otherwise), and most movies/TV shows use product placement among other things to supplement the cost. What really gets me is that now movies have 10 minutes of commercials before them. Did I really just pay $10 to watch 10 minutes of commercials before the 15 minutes of movie trailers? It's odd that only a few years ago, the movie/theatre business made a nice profit without having these commercials, yet now they cannot live without them.

I hope in time commercial-less media is the norm.

Re:Greed

[uniquename72]

I managed a movie theater for a few years in the '90s. It cost about $60 to show a movie -- primarily in utilities and employee costs. Tickets were $5 a piece for an adult, but most of that went to the studios. So if 12 people came to a movie and all bought something at the concession stand (which made about $5 on average per person), we broke even. Of course, since most of the shows had about 125 people in them, it was a money-making machine. The vast majority of our money came from selling overpriced popcorn and soda.

Today, the theaters themselves are the ones who get paid off of pre-movie advertising -- that's on top of vast mark-ups on concession items. Meanwhile, ticket costs have tripled in the last 15 years, and movie studios are making record profits -- particularly given that there are additional revenue streams like product placement, DVD sales/rental, fees from TV, etc.

So no, ticket costs without showing ads would certainly not be more that $10. In fact, pre-movie ads are almost entirely unrelated to ticket prices.

Re:Greed

[IndustrialComplex]

The whole commercial thing goes back a long way. Television used to be free, over the air. Consumers were promised that paying for cable would keep the content commercial-free.

No we weren't. This is looking at the past with rose tinted lenses. A few channels may have been SOLD as commercial free, but that's not why we bought it.

My TV had 13 buttons on it, I could program them and tune them to 13 radio frequencies. What cable offered was 32 channels, all without snow/noise and I wouldn't have to maintain an aerial on top of my house. I was USED to commercials on most of those stations I received (not 13, I think I could receive about 3 on a good day) But I was sold on the fact that I wouldn't have to bother with an antenna, it would always be clear, and I'd get a lot more. Prism and HBO were big selling points.

(As an aside, boy I miss that TV. After it was 13 or so years old, My little sister once tried to get the cartoon characters out and tossed a rock at it. Slight crack in the center we got used to. 13 years after THAT it finally gave up the ghost in a rather ghostlike fashion by shooting blue plasma out the back)

But back on topic, I don't ever remember being sold on no commercials except on channels like HBO.

Well, there goes my "Fast Forward" button

[elrous0]

The fast forward button on my DVR was one of the last bits of freedom I had, to skip some guy screaming at me about some car/cereal/appliance that I just *HAVE* to buy. I guess Google TV will forgo "Fast Forward" for a "Pay Us Money Not To Have To Watch These Annoying Commercials" button. Ain't technological progress grand?