Comcast and TiVo want to insert new ads into old TV shows
posted Apr 6th 2005 4:34AM
Now that they're BFF Comcast and TiVo are reportedly working together on a new type of advertising system that will be able to insert new, updated commercials into TV shows that were recorded days or even weeks ago, which means that episode of The Apprentice you're watching from last month could run promos for this week's Saturday Night Live instead of the one from three weeks ago. Not sure if this counts as one of those "advanced advertising capabilities" they were hinting at yesterday, but they're also talking using viewing patterns to specifically target ads at people (TiVo already knows a little something about making recommendations based on the types of shows you watch). Supposedly all this will please two of TiVo's old nemeses, the advertisers and the television networks, because they'll be able to increase the chances of someone watching an ad rather than fast-forwarding through it, but there's no technical reason why TiVo couldn't play hardball and replace one company's ads on Desperate Housewives (or whatever) with those of a competitor. (If it's technically possible to do one type of ad replacement then it's technically possible to do the other.) Not that they'll do it, of course; TiVo has a pretty good track record of doing their damnedest not to piss off the networks (remember it was ReplayTV that got sued, not them).
Maybe I don't understand it, but you pay fot TiVi and then they force you to watch ads. Then you can just watch TV, or not????
I like how Tivo is compelled to create the open-source equivalent of their tech by annoying their customers to death with stupidity.
No one is forcing you to watch ads. You can still fast forward or skip over the ads. All this means is that, in future, when watching an old recorded show, if you chose to watch the ad, you might see the current, up to date version of that ad, rather than the old version that was originally recorded. Same thing for other things besides paid ads - promos for new shows, that sort of thing.
People need to chill out and get a grip. These are ways to make ads more relevant to viewers, not attempts to force anyone to watch ads. The TV industry is starting to "get" TiVo, and realize that you simply can't keep increasing the number of ads and expect people to watch them. With the PVR, whether they like it or not, advertisers have to find ways to entice the viewer to watch the ad, rather than merely saturating the airwaves with more and more ads that only annoy the viewer.
I expect that in future, these "updateable" ads will be taylored to the viewer; thus if you chose to watch, you will get a different version of the ad depending on your interests. Actual time spent watching ads will continue to decrease rapidly, but time spent watching targeted ads, for things we are actually interested in, will probably go up slowly.
As long as the viewer still has the ability to skip or fast forward over the ads - and this ability is simply not going to go away, no matter what the Chicken Littles claim - things will continue to change in the way advertising is done.
What if I want the old ads? You know I can't get enough of Hootie the cowboy singing about his tendercrips bacon cheddar ranch....
If you like the old ads you should burn the show to DVD. Then no one can mess with it. Any recording that I want to keep indefinitely I burn to DVD. Frees up space on the TiVo drives.
Oh ho ho, I didn't expect the events to unfold in this fashion, but I most certainly called this phenomena months ago. I always assumed the cable companies would kill off Tivo and the other DVR companies, implement their broadcast flag so that homebrew PVRs were illegal, then kill of their own DVR offerings and shunt everyone to using On Demand before they would implement the dynamic commercials.
Help them screw you! Sign up for a DVR from your cable company today!
I understand that the ads may be more targeted to the specific viewer, but it would seem to me that this would potentially piss off the networks who paid for the original ads to be shown.
I don't claim to understand how the current method of ad payment works, but if you were an advertisor you could, concieveably, be paying for your ad spot twice right? Or, worse yet, your competitor or anyone else could pay to have his ad placed over your spot.
I'm assuming that since TiVo and Comcast would control what ads get inserted that they wouldn't allow competitor's ads to be placed over yours. They'll probably even give first refusal rights to whoever had the original ad.
Wow, the more I think about this, it's sounding like a really great deal for TiVo and Comcast at the expense of the product advertisers. They could potentially get paid double for each TV ad spot with the benefit of more targeted ads for the advertisers.
Perhaps a win-win for all.
Bradman
Chill, people. Coming up with new streams of revenue like this will eventually allow TiVo to ditch their "subscriptions" making them even more competitive in selling stand-alone units over people renting cable set-top boxes. That is the plan, after all.
The idea of recording the show is to be able to watch and skip the commercials. Anyone who sits through the commercials of a recorded show probably has a VCR blinking "12:00". I think TiVO should spend the time to make it as user friendly as Microsoft's UltimateTV. How about a 30 second advance button. DUH!!
In order to be able to update/replace commercials, this implies that the recorded show has some hidden information which 'knows' where the commercials are. If so, then sooner or later someone will figure out how to hack the Tivo to make simply skip the commercials.
Do commercials even work anymore? I think a lot of companies should consider that traditional forms of advertising are lost on people who have been exposed to the internet for a while. Thanks to years of banner ads and pop ups, I've learned to ignore all sales pitches.
Does anyone here utilize advertising for entertainment/informative purposes? Also, if the entertainment value/product information in advertising were increased, would it change anyone's apparent hatred of commercialization?