Digital Video Recorders Give Advertisers Pause

[John Corn]

Digital successors to the VCR that eliminate the frustration of recording television programs have crossed a popularity threshold, raising alarm among advertisers and TV executives who see the devices as a threat to the economics of commercial television.

Digital video recorders, or DVR's, make it so easy to program and play back shows — they do away with videotapes by storing 30 hours or more on a hard disk — that their owners often choose to watch what is on the machine rather than what is on TV. Ignoring the networks' painstakingly planned schedules, they watch prime-time programs late at night and late-night programs before dinner, often oblivious to the channel on which it originally appeared.

They also see fewer than half the commercials they used to, compressing hourlong shows into 40 minutes as they fast-forward through the advertisements that the television industry has long depended on to pay for its programming and profits.

One in five people who own a DVR like TiVo or ReplayTV say they never watch any commercials, according to a recent survey from Memphis-based NextResearch.

Cick Here For Full Story (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/23/technology/23VIDE.html?ei=5002&en=f8a95ab35d37ad8b&ex=1029902400&partner=INTUIT&pagewanted=print&position=top)

[Karl Foster]

What is different between this and fast forwarding with a VCR? This is an insane argument. How can the make sure you watch commercials?

They (advertisers) need evolve with the available technology, not try to twart it.

[AllieVi]

We may be seeing the solution for the advertisers on TNN; use a portion of the screen to show commercials continuously. As of now the band is just used for program information, but it's a tempting application.

[lee635]

Yeah, especially as HDTV rolls out. They are not gonna let us have that much real estate for movies and shows, etc. I could see "sidebars" on wide screen sets and ads running on each side of the tv. Or ads running like the crawl lines on bloomberg or CNN.

Or they can scrunch the screen up and put ads in at any time during a show like when they run election results.

Or have more storylines with ads embedded -- that wacky friends cast can't decide between an oldsmobile or a nissan, and they have to travel back and forth to the dealers several times with comical results and a silly subplot about how they eat the dealers out of donuts every time but the dealers just laugh about it and aren't pissed off at all to find half eaten jelly donuts smeared under the seats of several demos. And there's a cameo appearance by an actual dealer who won some contest. He was the guy in the showroom checking out another car.

The possibilities are endless. (:))

[Mark Holtz]

Something like this.....

http://www.deepspacefranchise.net/topgun2.jpg

[Ryan]

"Ten minutes!?! This things going to be over in TWO minutes."

Is that right?

[MarkA]

I think that they should show movies on TV without ad breaks, in their original widescreen aspect ratio, and use the matting bars to display ads:) Hey, it wouldn't be nearly as bad as pan-and-scan.

[RJS1111111]

Then all we'll need is someone to sell "matting bar blanking" technology, and we're all set! :rolleyes:

Your TV screen will eventually look like many websites...CNN's already does. I have found that as technology "improves", my desire to watch any of it lessens. I've been enjoying the music and movies of independent, low budget artists more than what the "entertainment industry" is providing. Unfortunately low budget means low technical quality.

Maybe I'm not gonna need HDTV after all.