Broadcast Industry Wades In On Dish Network's Hopper

gollum123 writes "As with past technological threats, network executives are closing ranks against a Dish Network device that undermines the broadcast business model. The disruptive technology at hand is an ad-eraser, embedded in new digital video recorders sold by Charles W. Ergen's Dish Network, one of the nation's top distributors of TV programming. Turn it on, and all the ads recorded on most prime-time network shows are automatically skipped, no channel-flipping or fast-forwarding necessary. Some reviewers have already called the feature, called the Auto Hop, a dream come true for consumers. But for broadcasters and advertisers, it is an attack on an entrenched television business model, and it must be strangled, lest it spread elsewhere."

Comments

Shades of Adnix and Preachnix

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the future.

Years before, he had invented a module that, when a television commercial appeared, automatically muted the sound. It wasn't at first a context recognition device. Instead, it simply monitored the amplitude of the carrier wave. TV advertisers had taken to running their ads louder and with less audio clutter than the programs that were their nominal vehicles. News of Hadden's module spread by word of mouth. People reported a sense of relief, the lifting of a great burden, even a feeling of joy at being freed from the advertising barrage for the six to eight hours out of every day that the average American spent in front of the television set. Before there could be any coordinated response from the television advertising industry, Adnix had become wildly popular. It forced advertisers and networks into new choices of carrier wave strategy, each of which Hadden countered with a new invention. Sometimes he invented circuits to defeat strategies that the agencies and the networks had not yet hit upon. He would say that he was saving them the trouble of making inventions, at great cost to their shareholders, which were at any rate doomed to failure. As his sales volume increased, he kept cutting prices. It was a kind of electronic warfare. And he was winning.

... He suspected that the takeover was only a pretext, that his real offense had been to attack advertising and video evangelism. Adnix and Preachnix were the essence of capitalist entrepreneurship, he argued repeatedly. The point of capitalism was supposed to be providing people with alternatives.

"Well, the absence of advertising is an alternative, I told them. There are huge advertising budgets only when there's no difference between the products. If the products really were different, people would buy the one that's better. Advertising teaches people not to trust their judgment. Advertising teaches people to be stupid. A strong country needs smart people. So Adnix is patriotic. The manufacturers can use some of their advertising budgets to improve their products. The consumer will benefit. Magazines and newspapers and direct mail business will boom, and that'll ease the pain in the ad agencies. I don't see what the problem is."

- Carl Sagan, Contact, 1985.

Wish you could have been here to see it, Dr. Sagan.

Inside View

[Brad1138]

I was at last weeks Dish retailer conference when this was announced. Dish is well aware of the controversy they are creating. Every one with a DVR already skips over commercials, this is just making it easier. The Commercials are not removed, someone at Dish actually has to go in and manually ad triggers at the start and stop of every commercial in every show. That takes a bit of time which is part of the reason you can't auto skip (auto hop) commercials until the next day.

It will be interesting to see what happens next, but as was stated previously, I think the current advertising structure is dying.

Re:This the same DISH that drops channels all the

[Brad1138]

This the same DISH that drops channels all the time will they end dropping one of the big 4? over this?

I have to call you on this. When Dish (or DirecTV or Comcast-it has happen to all of them) "drops a channel" it isn't because they are trying to screw the customer. It is because the channel is trying to raise what it charges Dish for rebroadcast rights. Dish is saying no, trying to keep your rates down. If it ends in a stalemate, then the channel comes down. Everyone blames Dish/DTV/comcast, They know they will loose customers over this but it is the right thing to do. This does happen to dish more then the others, because they more aggressively try to keep rates down.

As for the locals ("the big 4"), they are supposed to be free tv, but they are trying to charge like they are a cable channel. They are really the most greedy.

Re:Don't do that.

[englishknnigits]

Except it is excess carbs instead of fat that actually causes CHD, we should send them wonder bread and corn flakes! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090625133215.htm