ABC Looks Beyond Upfront To DVR, Commercial Ratings Issues.
ABC has held discussions on the use of technology that would disable the fast-forward button on DVRs, according to ABC President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw, with the primary goal to allow TV commercials to run as intended.
“I would love it if the MSOs, during the deployment of the new DVRs they’re putting out there, would disable the fast-forward [button],” Shaw said.
While MSOs risk losing some of their DVR customers if fast-forwarding were blocked, Shaw said the cable operators–who are beefing up their own local ad sales operations–”are in the same business we’re in.” “They’ve got to sell ads too,” he said. “So if everybody’s skipping everybody’s ads, that’s not a long-term business model for them either.”
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.
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Every once in a while (well quite a lot actually) the president bigwig guys say something so preposterous so out of touch with this reality your jaw just drops and you wonder if you just heard what you thought you heard.
“Nobody’s going to care if they can’t fast forward”?!! You wanna be in my house Mike Shaw when I shell out a couple hundred bucks for a DVR get it home and discover I can’t FF through commercials!
Lolloll…I hear that……they’ll have to remake the remote so that hopefully we”ll all forget about it. But it does beg the question why get a DVR in the first place if all it is is a fancy recorder no more no less?
what confuses me is how does anyone know when you are not watching commercials? if they aired didnt the company get what they paid for? i bet you anything that the companies that pay for the comercials are whining just like the RIAA that they arent getting things to happen exactly as they want things to happen
Hey…I never have bought a dvr and I sure as hell won’t now. Especially since I can download the dvd rip with BT and play it on a big lcd/tv.
why even buy a dvr when you can spend your money on a computer/lcd-tv setup?
We have a PVR for our satellite I am pretty sure my dad would shoot someone if they axed the fast forward feature.
I totally agree with Signa! I can understand if the DVR was able to auto detect the commercials and not record them like auto pauase the recordings until the show starts again but they don’t happen! So what do they really have to complain about now? It’s our choice rather we want to watch stupid commercials or not! I’ve noticed that alot of stations tend to run commercials at the same time. It’s like when your watching something and a commercial comes on you might turn to another channel just to find that thats channel is also at commercial! I know I don’t need to watch commercials that say things like “Mom Do you Douche”?
I hope this goes to congress! This NEEDS to have a public debate. After all this can affect millions of people that would be FORCED to have commercials when they have paid a price already to their provider for shows. People will not stand for this kind of treatment nor should they be forced to.
If that guy does not think there will be a backlash that could cost the DVR industry millions of dollars then he needs to get his head examined! I hope lawsuits start comming out of the woodwork if tis goes through. Then people can at least have their say in court!
What’s next disable the ability to change channels on TV when a commercial is airing? They would if they could. The media industry is trying to erase fair use rights and completely control the way you view media. Its up to those of us who understand what is going on to speak out. The content producers are trying to put a straight-jacket on consumer electronics with DRM and ideas such as this (eliminating fast-forward).
There actually has been talks of preventing you from changing channels I_feel_free Quite frankly the whole multimedia industry needs to die and be recreated. The old farts that are running it now are so out of touch and have far too much lobying power.