Via Outside The Beltway, comes this interesting article from Advertising Age about the impact that TiVo and similar time-shifting technologies are having on the television industry:
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Nielsen Media Research CEO Susan Whiting spearheaded the latest industry get-together on the great commercial-ratings debate yesterday and revealed data that underscored just why broadcast networks are so eager to shift away from program ratings to a new currency, one based on advertising ratings.
The measurement giant showed that in sample homes with digital video recorders, 40% of broadcast viewing occurs using those time-shifting devices. Broadcast networks figure that roughly half of those watching shows in playback are seeing commercials, and the netowrks are upset they are not compensated for those viewers. Networks backed down on demands to be paid for viewers watching in playback mode during the broadcast TV “upfront” ad-selling market this year, but are gearing up to argue the case when the 2007 upfront wheels around in May.
One estimate suggests that if the networks lose that fight again, and continue to be paid only on the basis of live viewing, lost revenue could be as much as $600 million next year compared with an estimated $300 million in 2006.
Time shifting has existed since the days of the VCR, of course, but has become more prevalent now that digital video recorders are becoming more commonplace. The ability to not only watch a program on a day and time other than when it’s broadcast, but to easily fast-forward through the commercials that provide the revenue that broadcast networks depend on will be revolutionary.
December 11th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Notice that pretty much none of the commercially-available DVR’s will auto-skip commercials. They’ve got too much pressure from the broadcasters. The only one I’ve used that automatically skipped commercials was the one I built myself from an old PC.
Of course, that made it harder to hold conversations with people… “Did you hear about that new from ?” Uhhh… Nope. Never heard of it
December 11th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Ahh, Wordpress stripped my tags… It should probably be “that new [insert product] from [insert manufacturer]“