ABC Says People Wouldn't Mind If TiVos Can No Longer Fast Forward
from the did-Jamie-Kellner-get-a-job-there? dept
It was about four years ago that Turner Broadcasting's chief, Jamie Kellner, made his famous statement about people who channel surf during commercials or who go to the bathroom are "stealing" television. He was eventually ousted from Turner, but it sounds like his spirit lives on at ABC. Slashdot points out that ABC TV execs have been talking about ways to ban people from using their DVRs to skip commercials. Of course, if they did so, they'd probably have to license the patent from Philips. What's amazing is that ABC execs actually think this is a reasonable strategy. In fact, ABC's head of ad sales actually claimed that consumers don't really care about the commercial skip feature:
"I'm not so sure that the whole issue really is one of commercial avoidance. It really is a matter of convenience--so you don't miss your favorite show. And quite frankly, we're just training a new generation of viewers to skip commercials because they can. I'm not sure that the driving reason to get a DVR in the first place is just to skip commercials. I don't fundamentally believe that. People can understand in order to have convenience and on-demand (options), that you can't skip commercials."Apparently, he wasn't paying attention to the backlash Philips got just for patenting this idea (even with no intention of making a product). How many times does it need to be said that pissing off your users is the worst way to build a business these days -- especially in an age where there are many, many, many more choices for someone's time and attention?
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people that have never had the TV experience with the ability to skip or ffw commercials, don't know any better, but once you have that ability, you would never give it up.
i use Sage TV as my PVR and I don't even have to ffw, it has a plug-in that identifies commercial segments and automatically skips over them during playback. even if i watch something "real time" i start watching 20-30 minutes late, so i can skip commercials and end up at the end of the show at the same time...
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what the f...
what demented reality do these execs live in?
Am I the only person that remembers that most VCRs had (have) a commercial skip button that essentially does the same thing, only lo-fi? That wasn't attacked by the network hoo-dee-doos was it?
Hey, ABC (and other network wanna be's); stop wasting my time and start doing product placements. I barely watch your network anyway, so what do you have to lose?
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Yeah, I already have an AIW card, looks like my PC will be recording more shows soon.
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Re: what the f...
At least in the lo-fi ffw on your VCR you still see the commercials and the subliminal messages hidden within. It doesn't matter how fast it goes, they still get their brainwashing message in. Buy me, buy me, buy me...and so on and so forth.
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On principal, I don't mind commercials
that much. Someone has to pay for the programming, and if commercials can simply be skipped, it will be you and me footing the bill, not the advertisers. 4000% hike in your cable bill anyone?
Having said that, advertisers really need to improve their standards. I’ve seen funny, entertaining commercials. They can be done. But most just leave me fast forwarding through them, as they are hideous. When you have a live, captive audience, maybe you can get away with it. Now, you simply can’t.
And regardless how good the commercial is, if you show it 10 times in an hour long show, people are going to hate it by the end.
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I've been using a DVR in one form or another for over 5 years now and there is absolutely no way I would put up with not being able to skip commericals. If they did manage to force the tech on us then I would either get the show via BT or simply not watch it. Period.
The main issue though is how many commercials they inundate us with now. A 60 minute show now has 40 minutes of content and 20 minutes of commercials. It's ridiculous. If it was something more reasonable like 5 minutes of commercials in a 60 minute show then I would maybe not bother with skipping them. But there's no freakin way I'm spending 1/3 of my time watching commercials.
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As someone else said, I "time shift" by waiting 20 minutes before sitting and watching the show.
My wife and I HATE watching "live" TV - if we have to watch commercials now, we'd rather not watch the show at all.
Move to a different model - one that's not 50 years old ... look at The Apprentice - the whole show is about corporate sponsorship - how much do those corporations pay to have the Apprentice teams do this or that for them.
Here's an idea - sell TV shows the same way you sell pay per view movies. I'll pay a couple bucks to watch Lost. I don't give $.02 about the other 22 prime time ABC shows.
Good shows = $$.
ps. Take away my fast forward, I forget to watch your network at all.
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Ford to eliminate the trunk.
The reasoning goes, that people primarily only use their cars to go from one place to another. Mostly, they don't use the trunk. So Ford is considering eliminating it, certain that consumers won't mind.
This is ridiculous, of course, and illustrates that ABC's "Ram it down consumers' throats" actions will only work if the other networks push it, too. If the other networks do not do this, ABC's ratings will plunge. If they do, we will be stuck. It's fine to say "I won't watch," but the vast majority of weak sheeple will watch. And so will you, probably.
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I hate commercials...
but sometimes I'll stop fastforwarding and watch one if it looks good. However, if I am watching a football game, I will pause it for about 20 minutes or so so I can skip through the commercials and halftime. When something you want to watch takes 3 hours to air, and 40 minutes of that is bull$hit - then I find it fundamental to own a DVR to save 40 minutes of your life here on earth. ABC can suck my a$$...
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It's particularly laughable coming from ABC...
Here in the UK we get ABC1, and of the "free" channels available it is absolutely the worst, bar none, for commercials. And, most irritatingly, more than half the commercial time is spent plugging their own programmes!
Not "specials", you understand, but just several ad breaks in a half hour comedy spot to remind you that comedy show is on every day - in fact, you're watching it now! (Or at least you would be if the d*mn commercial would end...)
So, as far as they are concerned, skipping over reminders that the show you're watching is likely to be on tomorrow too is "stealing television". Boo hoo.
Their most infamous moment was a couple of weeks ago when they managed to slip two ad breaks into "Commander in Chief" *before* the titles!
Thank G*d for my PVR.
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The more commercials you skip, the nearer comes the day when the programming you want to watch will be pay-per-view. Yeah sure, information wants to be free. But quality shows and movies need to be paid. Buttheads who produce crap will give away crap, and the good stuff will be paid for by the hour.
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is this guy on drugs?
The reason I own a dvr is to fast forward through commercials.
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" Shaw also threw cold water on the idea that neutering the fast-forward option would result in a consumer backlash. He suggested that consumers prefer DVRs for their ability to facilitate on-demand viewing and not ad-zapping--and consumers might warm to the idea that anytime viewing brings with it a tradeoff in the form of unavoidable commercial viewing."
This statement would be true IF the DVR didn't have a fast forward button already, and/or if the DVR was given to the viewers for free. Otherwise, it is not so much a trade-off as it is "We're going to take this away from you and you don't get anything out of it"
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Take away my fast forward, I forget to watch your network at all.
Well said, Coward!
I agree that the "main" reason people buy DVRs is not for the ability to skip commercials, but once you have it, it's difficult to give up. I even had to have it on radio, that's one reason I got Sirius: it also rewinds and fast-forwards.
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Maybe this is an issue that needs the attention of the "Think of the children!" crowd. I know that I use the fast forward button to zip through commercials that feature violence. I don't watch violent programs and I don't allow my daughter to either, but programs for them to pop up during the shows I watch. I use fast fast forward to zip though them, without drawing her attention to them. I became more vigilant after I was watching with my husband and my daugher and he neglected to fast forward and someone was violently murdered in some commercial for a mystery show and I really upset my two year old. The program, which I had seen before did not have anything that I did not want her to see, but the commercials were quite another matter.
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Purpose of TV
The purpose of TV is not to entertain you. It is to deliver the commercials. That is the business model. Once the ability to deliver the message is lost, then the business model fails. If you don't want commercials, then you must accept a new model. If the commercials won't pay for the content, then you will. Like HBO, extended cable, etc. So if you don't want to be bothered with adverts, call ABC and tell them you would like to pay an extra $50 a month for commercial free TV. Doesn't sound reasonable, though, does it? Of course, you could just turn off the TV and read a book. Those will cost $5 - 25 each, but they are usually without a lot of commercials. Then again, the "free" library is already included in your $2500 a year tax bill.
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"I'm not sure that the driving reason to get a DVR in the first place is just to skip commercials."
Dear ABC:
The two main reasons I have a recording device is that life is too short for your damned commercials (back when I bought my VCR, I chose a model that would mark and skip commercials automatically, and if I can ever find a DVR that does that, I will buy it), and I like being able to time-shift so that I can watch the very few obscure things that I'm actually interested in. I can easily live without your service -- in fact, my satellite service went out of order sometime back, and I didn't notice for a week. When I discovered that I wasn't getting any signal, I called tech support, and then went back to my reading.
And when I can't skip commercials, I won't bother watching at all.
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commercials on TV
Isn't it frightening when Marketing and Sales people try and start shaping desires rathern then trying to satisfy existing desires?
Although there are more and more channels and more and more ads, tv quality has been declining - in part to entice viewers to watch more ads. I think they can only save themselfs by reversing the trend - show less ads and charge more for each ad and keep content independent from advertisement (i.e. no one-laugh sit coms).
Ok, I know that is not going to happen, so four years ago I gave up on TV and started watching just DVDs. The picture quality is much better (we got a projector hooked up to an AIW card 1024x768 on 7'x5' screen), 5.1 sound, no ads and best of all I get to watch what I want.
Oh, and with less remote control convenience by hunting down those dvds I actually get to spend much less time in front of the screen, which is great.
News, info and sports are all on the internet much better then on TV nowadays and I save the money for cable, too.
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Its not Stealing When...
Its not stealing when I pay $75 a month to my cable provider. I understand that the TV execs feel they are providing us with some sort of pro bono service and the commercials are just a way to recoup their costs, but if you look at it from our end, we are paying big $$ to watch this crap. Damn! We ARE sheeple, aren't we?
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Forget ABC
I love having my dvr!!! For the season finals I will always start watching it 20-30 min after it starts. For some of the 30 min programs I watch, almost half is in commericals. Plus why do I want to watch in each commerical block a ad for some kind of drug and then in sometimes the same commerical block an ad for anti-drug partnership of America saying don't do drugs. Heck sometimes you can see the very same 20 second ad in the same commerical block. As other people have said, by me using the dvr I have gained back a LOT of time that was spent watching ads.
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New Business Model Please!
I think that TV needs to come up with more creative ways to insert their commercials for us to see, or a new model to drive revenue for shows watched. Having stop sets for commercials dates back to a time before I was born. There is a new generation of people, we have come up with creative ways to skip commercials because they are plain and simply annoying. The way that it seems that stations get paid is thru advertising revenue and how many people watch tv. To this date, there is no for sure way to calculate how many people are actually watching shows. If Jamie Kellner has convinced his execs that we don't need fast forward for our DVRs and such, then they are thinking totally backwards! They need to come up with a new model for their business, a better way to drive money in and not annoy people, thats just my 2 cents.....
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Re: Purpose of TV
Then again, the "free" library is already included in your $2500 a year tax bill.
I don't know where you're from, but I'm moving there. It's cheap! I pay $5600/year. :-)
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Brainwashing only works if you aren't aware of the attempt or the method is so sophisticated that logical mental defense exercises don't work. Product placement within the media content is so much more effective anyway. The images either flash by so quickly that your conscious mind is barely aware that it was even there in the first place, or the product becomes ever present, such as a coke can or a certain type of car or computer and embeds into impressionable minds.
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screw abc
i stopped watching tv years ago (and listening to the radio) specifically because of commercials, and the fact that most shows werent of a quality that was rewarding enough to sit through commercials...and im not talking about that version of dont watch tv that is usually "i dont watch tv, did you see friends last night?" i mean, no cable from the wall to my tv, no antenna, nada. tv/dvdplayer/netflix.
then last year i moved in with a girlfriend who insisted on having tv, so we got direct tv with a tivo. i do watch a bit more tv now, but ONLY because i can skip commercials easily. (and we're talking mostly discovery channel and the family guy because it rules)
on the very rare occasion that a show comes on right when im home and willing to watch it, i'll specifically put it on pause, then find something to do for 10-15 minutes just so i can still skip commercials throughout the episode.
i know that i am not alone in this...you take away fast forward and i'll be happy to get my tv in dvd episodes again.
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TIVO and ABC
What idiots. I would pay twice what I paid for my TIVO to never see a commercial again.
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I don't want to be "sold" anything. If I want it... I will get it.. If I haven't heard about it.. chances are I wasn't LOOKING for it...
This is all about money and product exposure.
I personally don't even watch tv because for the most part it is all one big "plug" for something or other.
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This head of sales needs his head read. Of course he's WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! But of course he's also paid to spout that kind of bullshit. People will believe anything if you pay them enough to do so...
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what are they gonna do, make me hold my piss till the end of the show before i can go? how the hell do you patent stopping someone from taking a leak? these guys are friggin geniuses
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hmmm, maybe a new wave of patent trolls?
i dont know the patent system that well, but perhaps we could start trolling it in order to make patents on potentially crippling tech in order to keep people from making it.
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Re: Purpose of TV
"So if you don't want to be bothered with adverts, call ABC and tell them you would like to pay an extra $50 a month for commercial free TV."
$50/mth for ABC??? Yeah, right. Evangeline Lilly in a weekly lesbian orgy wouldn't be enough to justify that price tag.
But to your point though, I'd be perfectly happy to see commercially sponsored TV gone forever and only have paid content. I have no problem paying for HBO (and it costs a lot less than $50/mth, BTW) because I think the quality warrants the cost. Better yet, give me a pay-per-episode option too. Channels with a lot of good content will get my monthly fee. Others that have mostly crap with one or two good shows I'll just pay for those episodes.
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Re: hmmm, maybe a new wave of patent trolls?
quote from John:
i dont know the patent system that well, but perhaps we could start trolling it in order to make patents on potentially crippling tech in order to keep people from making it.
^ That is genius!! I don't really know the patent system either, but its a good start! We can be Rich!
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No worries
Okay -- the only reason TV exists is for advertising, you just have to realize that. It wouldn't seem that way to youth who have never known life-before-cable, but its true. If you think you are entitled to TV without ads, get in the welfare line now, since you think you are entitled to things without paying for them.
The rest of us will ALWAYS have a FF button, because we are willing to pay for them, even when someone is trying to elimiate it.
And listen to the warnings well, because you just might create a world where advertisers get desperate -- who really wants to watch "The McDonald's Dodgers vs. The Burger King Yankees" -- not that baseball isn't boring enough.
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Wasn't Cable TV supposed to be the answer to commercials in the beginning? I paid a premium to get 20 extra channels that did nothing but show me movies or specials or genre X of shows.
Then commercials crept in.
Then it was extra premiums like HBO. I still see commercials, but mostly about HBO information. Believe me, i know when the Sopranos were on, I did not need to be reminded every 20 minutes.
This is a small reason why I love soccer. Uninterrupted TV. 45 minutes and extra time of soccer and nothing but. Maybe there's a slogan in a corner showing this 45 minutes provided commercial-free by Adidas, or Budweiser, or Kia and that works and I'll drive to the store in my KIA Optima and walk to the counter in my Adidas sneakers and buy...well milk. I don't care for beer at all. Those frogs were funny though.
So this makes it seem to me that TV is affordable without product invations. Discreet, clever, rare drop ins about a product work. And these companies can spend less on advertising, which make the products cheaper...or horde a little more profit from that department instead.
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Re: Purpose of TV
I agree that the business model of TV is to deliver the commericals, but why do they have to be rammed down my throat every 5 minutes. It seems the only TV model that has commercials every 5 minutes is the "be-a-good-consumer" US TV model. When I visit my family in Germany I don't have to put up with a delay in my show. And don't tell me there haven't been some clever ads from Europe. They seem to get passed around quite a bit in email. How many times have you seen that whiny kid in the French condom ad?
Speaking of Philips /Norelco I personally have found their http://shaveanywhere.com campaign hilarious! I have never seen a Shave Anywhere commercial on TV, (mostly because I have stopped watching regular TV...the only thing we watch these days is HBO and I still have to pay for those incompetent-every-other-show-is-a-"reality"-show that come in basic cable) and I don't even know if they have one.
I agree with Mike, "...advertisers need to improve their standards." Execs shouldn't be dictating the technology.
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Right! And no one will mind riding bicycles everyw
Whoever at ABC made this statement has simply lost thier mind. Making such a comment is like saying that people would not mind going back to walking or riding bicycles instead of riding in automobiles. Or perhaps more fittingly listening to cassette tapes instead of CDs. Right!
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tivo
Are you serious? The only reason I like it so much IS to skip commercials. If you want me to watch that b.s. then the advertising company's should be paying me to watch it not the cable or satellite provider. I hate watching them with a passion.
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Pop ups
I have noticed that more and more shows are having pop ups come up during a show, advertising something or other. They have now taken the end of a show that show the credits and shoved it over to just one half of your screen and throw advertising at you that way. Maybe ABC will start showing commericals during the show, popping in and out or scrolling along the bottom.
I watched the Daytona nascar race last week and timed how much of the race I was able to see. They showed 35% of the race and the other 25% was commericals.
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Who goes out and buys something because they saw it on TV?
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Pop ups
For the nascar race I met to say 35 minutes of an hour was the race and 25 minutes of an hour was commericals.
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Re: Ford to eliminate the trunk.
You too I suppose. We're all sheeple in one way or another - none of us can escape being part of the entire society.
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You know what I do? I use the MUTE button. I go make a sandwich.
They need to make money somehow. If products start to undercut their main source for revenue we will see WORSE TV. That sucks considering the level it's currently at anyway.
Use the MUTE button... the MUTE button...
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Re:
You do whether you like it or not. It's called the power of suggestion and chances are you purchase most of your day-to-day things as a direct result of advertisements many of which you probably saw on TV.
Marketing and advertising works - learn about it; it's pretty interesting.
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Tivo: Long Live the Skip Button!
About the only time I ever watch live tv anymore is when I'm at someone else's house and have no choice in the matter. If tv execs want me to watch commercials they should make them entertaining and RELEVANT to the program I'm watching. Even better, they should sell product placement. If a character drinking Coke can be worked into the storyline and have it make SENSE I don't mind it at all. I watch tv for the shows and if I can save 15 minutes in a 1-hour show by skipping commercials, I'll do it in a heartbeat.
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Re: On principal, I don't mind commercials
1) People with Cable and Satellite already pay for their TV programming.
2) TiVo customers pay still more.
3) No matter what they may think or say to the contrary, Network execs cannot MAKE you watch their ads.
Look what happened when theaters started advertising before the movie... people started deliberately turning up late to avoid them.
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Re: New Business Model Please!
I would have to agree. And i'm not sure if anyone has mentioned or seen the new sprite advertisments, but they have implemented the use of the DVR by placing subliminal messages in, and stating even to use your DVR to view the "full" commercial. Pretty dope if you ask me. so that would be one good model to follow. but then again... i'm not in advertising
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who are they kidding?
I've had a DVR for so long now that I almost never watch something "live." Being able to skip commercials is not why I got a DVR, but I wouldn't buy a DVR without that feature. Most of the time, it's second nature to me now.
As someone said earlier, I will start the recording and then start watching 20 minutes later so that I can skip commercials.
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Like I said...
I'd prefer to keep it the way it is. What would happen if you eliminate TV commercials?
"hey, I really like that Pepsi edition Toyota your driving"
"yeah, but I really wanted the Nike package, I just couldn't afford it. Hey, do you want to go to the game tonight? Big Mac Shaq and the Miami House of Pancakes Heat are playing the Detroit Pizza Hut Pistons -- you get in free if you buy a copy of Star Wars Seven, the Return of the Mc Rib.
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Skip Commercials Button
Personally, I get pissed that I do not have a skip commercials button on my TIVO. The three seconds it takes to skip through them is such a hassel. How about someone invent something that records the shows without the commercials all together.
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Then I will stop watching TV
This statement is so ridiculous it is almost funny. Are ABC execs listening to what people want? Maybe they should start conducting surveys before assuming what people really want... I barely watched TV at all before I got my TiVo (and when I did, I left the room during the commercial break). The amount of commercials was unbearable and I preferred to watch DVDs or go the movies. Now that I can play the show when I want AND skip the annoying commercials, I have started to watch TV again. TiVo is obvisouly a life-changing new service, and maybe as TV viewing changes, the business model for TV should also change. I currently pay $50 per month to my cable company. Why can't we imagine a system where it gives me access to X hours of recordable TV per month, and if I want more I can either buy on demand or watch without forwarding? Actually, not only was the amount of commercials unbearable, but its content was even worse. Commercial breaks are filled with advertising for large SUVs, diapers, cialis and other products I am absolutely not interested in. If TV networks focused on better targetting, that would understand that I just bought a car and don't have kids and have other needs right now. Creating and "pushing" inefficient "mass market" commercials is over. I was one of the first to use pop blockers, but I always read targeted AdWords. It is time to reinvent advertising, not stop progress...
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FYI
The network execs apparantly don't completely understand the supply and demand concept controlling prices.
There is a surplus of the entertainment supply with all the amature generated content these days. Then, because of the exposure of each single piece of entertainment (1 numa numa song can be accessed by the entire world) the market has become saturated. So simply, entertainment has a less assumed price tag; so to the consumer, they are not getting the same value for their dollar as they used to, and by natural instinct they look for the best value for themselves. The record, network, and motion picture associations are blind to this saturations and naturally are looking for anything possible to blame for their falling stocks/value (because it wouldn't be a good idea to admit to your stock holders that they are investing in a dying industry). This also points to the fact that a new business model isn't the solution, a new business is. A new business model can't beat technology that's 20-50 years ahead of the product a company is trying to sell.
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TIVO
HE HAS NO BRAIN !!
I SKIP ALL DUMB COMMERCIALS
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How is this different than the old days?
How is fast forwarding through commercials any different than simply waiting until the commercial to use the bathroom or get something from the refrigerator? The end result is the same, no one watches the crappy commercials either way.
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What advertisers did in response to the VCR was to start working at writing and designing commercials so that the basic message would still come through visually when the commercial was scan-forwarded by the viewer- call it writing for the Benny Hill mode.
AFAIAC, they can do whatever they damned well please with DVRs- I won't see the zarking commercials anyway because I haven't had a TV for over six years now and have no intention of ever buying another one.
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!!!!!
Plain and simple with the crap they put on TV in all the stupid reality shows and other crap thrown on there.....I fast forward just to watch the commercials because 99% of the TV shows on the big 5 Suck and ABC sucks the worst.....why can't my cable provider let me pick my channels i want to watch and just charge me for the channels? why because I would only pay for maybe 10 channels!!!! My TV is only good for 2 things now watching movies I rent or for my Gaming system....you know screw TV period I'm going to go play a game now
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MythTV has a commercial Skip that works
I've been using MythTV for over 2 years with no upgrade and it skips commercials automatically if you want or one block at a time if you prefer. It works great and I dread watching TV reatime when if its slightly timeshifted I can skipp all the commercials. If they force me to watch commercials somehow, I will reduce my viewing of network TV from 3 hrs a week to 0. No big deal! BTW, Ihaven't fiddled with the MythTV since I finished it over two years ago. It just works and works well.
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I haven't heard a great alternative?
I've heard a lot of people say how they don't want to watch the crappy commercials, but aside from the people saying "make better commercials", what other new "business models" do you people have?
BTW, the make better commercials option is a chicken and egg scenario. If I was a corporation I'd be loathed to shell out for better writers/CGI/whatever to make a better commercial without a guarantee on return. The only way you can guarantee on return is to make it so that folks can't bypass your message as easily as most TIVO like systems provide. Get the problem here?
In the end, I keep reading techDirt, waiting to hear about this "new business model" that is beneficial for the corporation and the consumer. The dogma seems to be "corporations need to change how they do things completely, when it comes to ads, and maybe consumers will watch the ads". I'd love to be the marketing guy trying to sell that to the board of directors of any major corporation.
To me, seems like too many people want music or TV or whatever entertainment without paying for it. I know there are those who say "I pay for artists I want to hear or I don't mind ads" but it seems the vast majority of posters are perfectly content to go to bittorrent or morpheus or whatever and not even bother paying for their entertainment fix. The only reason that really bothers me is because although the quality of suych stuff is already barely fit for human consumption, it's going to get worse because corporations aren't going to suddenly go "let's change everything so that people will stop filesharing and ad skipping", their going to go "let's put even less money into our products so that we can make the profit margins better".
As for me, I shell out for cable TV because I too hate ads and think it's worth it to pay to not have them (or at least not as many thrown in with the fact that even basic cable seems to have more compelling programming than broadcast). I still get CD's at the store of artists I hear on the radio that tickle my fancy or I hear good word of mouth about (not as many as it used to be). That way, I never have to lie to myself and say "Im only using bittorrent to get this movie because the quality is so crappy it aint worth buying" or "Ill download all the artists songs for free, and if I like them, I'll go pay to get another copy of them at the store(yeah right)". Most of all though, I find myself reading a lot more books and online articles nowadays because its cheaper and they haven't figured out how to have streaming ads in a book (yet!).
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TV and marketing
I watch MAYBE one or two hours of tv a week. MAYBE. Probably closer to one or two hours a month. So, tell me how that kind of marketing works on me?
If I watched enough tv to justify buying a PVR...I would. AND I WOULD SKIP COMMERCIALS.
Especially those stupid drug commercials where they say, "Ask your doctor about 'XYZ'" and they don't even tell you what it's for. Or if they do tell you, the list of side affect are not what you want to be hearing while you are eating dinner. And the side affects are usually worse than what you are trying to fix. GEEZ.
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Commercials aren't so bad
Sometimes I'll notice that we're watching a movie on commercial television that we also have on DVD. Not like I actually sit quietly watching them.
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I can't believe I'm reading this!
Isn't this sort of thing getting silly? ABC and other media exects have gotta come to thier senses and stop acting like little kids. If people don't want to see the ads then they won't watch them. If ABC start being dictators-they will lose viewers. I don't buy into the notion that people don't care about using fast forward or skip buttons.
I do it all the time! What are they going to do? Sue me? Forget it.
ABC and other Media bosses: Get a life!
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Someone should remind these F|_|cks...
That the airwaves belong to the PEOPLE, and that we ALLOW the television stations to use them through licensing.
--Or at least that was the way it was intended. They were allowed to accept commercial sponsorship to cover the expensive costs of production, but the commercial to programming ratio is getting a little too lean lately.
Bill Hicks: "The Supreme Court says pornography is anything without artistic merit that causes sexual thoughts. No artistic merit, causes sexual thoughts. Hmmm . . . sounds like every commercial on TV doesn't it?"
Money Grubbing Swine.
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Re: Skip Commercials Button
This would be a great idea-but you would need something that can tell the difference between a commercial and a TV program. I'm not saying it's not possible-after all Thomas edison invented the light bulb even when people were telling him he couldn't do it.
I'm waiting for someone to come up with the idea-I'm not smart enough.
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dream on, dream on
Good luck, ABC. I recently decided not to upgrade my DVR from Dish Network for the primary reason that new DVRs don't have the 30-second skip button. Sure, I could still fast forward with a new model, but no way I'm ever going "backwards" like that. I'm hooked on no-commercial tv. So when ABC gets its way and there's no other choice but to watch commercials, I'm going to do PVR on my computer no matter how dang complicated it is. Or I'm going to pay $2 for Lost episodes on my video iPod, no matter how small and crummy the quality is. Fact of life: consumers will do almost anything to avoid bad, repetitive commercials. For the super bowl, we'll put up with them. But that's more because we don't want to be out of the loop the next morning in the office than because we find them worth our time. Ugh, this is such a pathetic (and scary) story.
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just buy shows on DVD
Or I forgot the best option, really. Just don't pay for tv service at all. Buy the DVD box sets for each season of a show you want to see. I could buy 12 box sets each year for the price I'm currently paying for 60 channels.
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ABC skips skipping commercials
So, ABC wants to stick it to the consumer, huh? They put more and more ads in, requiring the actors to act less and less, then continue to pay the less acting actors more and more money. I'm thinking the entertainment could take a slight cut in pay and still come out smelling pretty dang good!
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Its obvious by all the comments here that everyone hates commercials. I dont know a soul who likes them. Since we all hate them and everyone finds ways to avoid them I would like to see a study that shows if commercials are even effective at enticing anyone to buy anything. Personally I dont think they even make anyone buy something. I never bought something because of a commercial I saw. In fact most of the time I refuse to buy a product BECAUSE of the ad. They always have some annoying person looking like an idiot or screaming. And daytime is the worst. Every commercial is for a lawyer, old people drugs, or schools. I would never hire a lawyer from TV anyway. Good lawyers dont need commercials. I never saw a Johnny Cochran commercial.
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DVR skipping commercials
ABC's head of ad sales - the guy is WAY out of touch with reality or simply a good case of disillusions of grandour. Seventy-five percent why I have a DVR is to watch a one hour show in forty minutes. I'm plain tired of commercial after commercial after commercial. If I didn't have a DVR I would simply switch channels - which I do when not watching a show on the DVR.
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Who watces ABC?
There's no point in a DVR or TiVo if it can't skip commercials. If they're going to force consumers to watch commercials with a dvr, they might as well pirate. Or ninja... if that's how you roll.
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ABC ANAL BASS-TARDS
SCREW COMM. i HAVENT SEEN A TRULY FUNNY AD IN 8 YRS
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What kind of idiot does not realize that people DON'T like to watch TV Commercials. DVRs are ONLY being bought to skip them. Period!
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Re: Bob is out to lunch
"Personally I dont think they even make anyone buy something. I never bought something because of a commercial I saw. In fact most of the time I refuse to buy a product BECAUSE of the ad."
So sorry to inform you, but the big advertisers have information on EXACTLY how effective their commercials are, then they pay the networks or other media EXACTLY what their commercials are worth to them. These numbers are going down - just check the recent Upfronts.
What most of the posters here seem to fail to understand, is that the networks and the advertisers are EXACTLY as smart as you guys are, and they use the very same computers that you do, without the smartass attitude or anywhere near the same level of ignorance of the real world or credulousness.
By the way, to all of you who claim to only watch a few hours of TV per month: what makes you think that anyone on Earth wants to hear your opinion of television? In the TV world, you really do not count.
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When I got my first TIVO in 99 (when they came on the market) The commercials were about 12 min. long for a hour show. Now there 20 min. and the wonder why we skip them.
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you pay for cable or television services....
how is not watching commercials stealing? If anything, seeing commericals for non-free tv is robbing you of your money by showing you commercials
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Vive le Tivolution!
The real problem here is that I watch TV because I'm bored, and i remain bored because I'm watching TV.
When I got my Tivo, I thought I'd have more time to do other things because I could skip the commercials. In reality, I've found that there is so little quality programming that I care to record, that I hardly use it. So to me, the real solution is get rid of commercials forever by turning off the cable service, using my TV only to watch rented movies (with commercials, aargh!) and spend more of my time reading books, being more physically active and spending quality time with family and friends.
What now ABC? You gonna insert product placement in my books to keep me in reach of your advertisers? F. You!
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ABC's head of ad sales actually claimed that consu
he's a fucking idiot
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Wait, I thought the only reason to get a Tivo was to skip commercials without wasting VCR tapes. Skipping commercials is time shifting, is it not?
What's next, we can't skip the end of a crappy show and move on to the next.
FYI, ABC, it's my TV!
HBO and CNN are only a click away. Soprano's > Supernanny, CNN/HeadlineNews > Nightline.
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Distopian visions of the future in Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 depict TV sets that won't turn off and citizens that are obliged to watch. I am an Englishman, but surely it goes against pretty much everything America stands for to remove the right of the citizen to make a choice? Isn't that the whole point in the land of the free?
I realise that networks need to make money, but surely there is a less vapid alternative, especially when the current system is so clearly hated by a lot of people (if you take this comments list as an indication...).
So here's a plea to the country whose media models are being copied around the world: please leave my Internet alone and please leave my freedom to choose what I can watch alone. Thanks!
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I have it I will just patent a TV that blocks ABC
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DVD Commercial Skipping
This just goes to show you that some of these IROCS (Idiots Right out of College) have nothing but some book learning and no real world experience or common sense. Skipping commercials is not only convient but I see the same ones over and over when watching non-recorded programs anyway. The fast forward benefit for those programs I do record is a huge bonus to watching programs. I can watch commercials anytime...
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I'm going to laugh if Yahoo comes along and says that using the Adblock plugin on Firefox is stealing access to your email. PS. If they were right out of college, they would have watched TV enough to know better.
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tv
99% of tv is garbage, if there WERE such a thing as viewer discretion, most of the shows on tv wouldn't be, and there would be NO commercials peddling useless crap that none of us need.
our tv just broke, the great part? no tv! the bad part? we have a warranty so it will get fixed.........
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ABC is Right
You can distort what they said in a slanted article, but the basic statement that ABC made is that people don't primarily buy DVRs for the ability to fast forward and skip commercials. They buy it to timeshift.
This is true. The ability to skip commercials is an added benefit, but it's not the *reason* that people buy DVRs.
True statement.
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Without the fast-forward button how will I skip some of the mundane programming ABC and the other networks put out? I use it for a lot more than skipping commercials.
I don't find myself skipping through HBO programming, but then I pay for it.
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Re: Re: Bob is out to lunch
No, the advertisers pay the networks based on ratings, not based on "what their commericals are worth to them." The reason that the networks aren't able to bill the same high numbers as in the past is because ratings are dropping across the board because people aren't watching as much television as they used to, and netork television is losing share to cable.
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Re: Skip Commercials Button
Personally, I get pissed that I do not have a skip commercials button on my TIVO. The three seconds it takes to skip through them is such a hassel. How about someone invent something that records the shows without the commercials all together.
Actually, TiVo does have a 30 second skip. You just have to know how to enter a code on the remote. Google it and you'll almost certainly find the information.
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Effective Marketing
You do whether you like it or not. It's called the power of suggestion and chances are you purchase most of your day-to-day things as a direct