I love my DVR. It's gotten to the point where I don't know how I lived without it. Miss that last line because your roommate was talking? No problem, just rewind! I never have to worry about missing some of my favorite shows because I can just set them to be recorded on DVR. But probably one of the best features is that you don't have to worry about watching those annoying commercials anymore. Although this is great for us, it presents a bit of a problem for commercials and ad companies. How can they get people watch the ads when DVRs and TiVo allow viewers to fast forward through them?
I've heard rumors about various attempts to solve this problem, one of them being some sort of way of not allowing viewers to fast forward through those pesky ads, which to me seems ridiculous. I know plenty of people who can't wait to start watching a show so they watch it in real time and sit through the commercials. Additionally, there are also plenty of people who don't own DVR or TiVo. Even for those of us who do and pay for the subscriptions, there isn't a way to necessarily skip the commercials altogether (at least no way that I know of); you still see them as you fast forward. So why should we be forced to sit through commercials when we pay for the subscriptions and ads reach us through various other media?
Wei Man Tang @ Wed, 03/01/2006 - 2:07pm
Though the public might not favor it television companies would definitely agree to finding a solution eventually, otherwise the drop in ad effectiveness will force a drop in how much they charge for commercials.
As for them forcing you not to fast forward perhaps it's possible to see it this way: you paid to record it, not to skip the ads (that's the original idea of DVR and TiVO anyway). But as with many things taking away an advantage that one used to have will not yield a quiet response, especially early on. Perhaps eventually the idea will happen, and then we'll see how the companies will respond to the public backlash that follows.