DISQUS

Peter · 10 months ago

Anyone who has a PVR timeshifts - the benefits are so obvious. But it gets worse for those in TV media. I timeshift life TV now. If you start an one hour show 10-15 mins later than the scheduled start time then every add break gets fast forwarded and by the time the show finishes you are 'live' again. Live TV without the ads. good for me - bad for those in TV media

Stephen Kelly · 10 months ago

I do the same thing Peter. Start a TV show - go and do 15 mins of work and then Fast Forward thru the commercials - it makes watching TV a much better experience.

alan jones · 10 months ago

PVR manufacturers need ad-supported free-to-air TV as much as networks do, so I'm sure they'll work something out as the PVR market plateaus and there's less of a gold rush to try and claim a bigger slice of the PVR market than your competitors.

My guess is three changes to come:

(1) Dumbed-down PVRs for free-to-air that work like Foxtel's IQ and 7's version of TiVo - you can skip some of the ads, some of the time;

(2) More time slots where the dominant revenue source is SMS sweepstake/quiz or 'home shopping auction' programming spliced in where the ads would be (program production costs/quality would need to fall and interactive audience increase); and

(3) More ads being funny to discourage the audience from skipping - look to the amount of comedic ads on US TV, where ad breaks have always been longer and more frequent and ad-skipping has been mainstream for almost a decade. Pretty ads aren't watched repeatedly, shock ads aren't watched repeatedly, and annoy ads certainly aren't watched repeatedly. But good comedy will be watched again and again, and we'll even rewind and call in other household members to watch it with us.

...so: a world with dumbed-down PVRs for everybody, where all programming outside of peak is gambling/shopping, and where all peak ads are trying their best to be Superbowl-quality funny. And that's just for the masses. The middle and upper classes will be buying their TV by episode or by series from their AppleTV/Netflix STB and only ever having to watch paid placement advertising ever again.

Tiphereth Gloria · 10 months ago

Interesting points, I am hoping for more of number (3) and least of number (1).
Home shopping type ads are so common now in US, check out the E! Channel here for the Steam Buddy - the Snuggie can't be far behind.
Funny/entertaining/great creative ads winning in this scenario is a good thing, a la Superbowl spots.
And I will be definitely buying TV by episode and series whenever available.