Last night I got home around 7:30 and caught up on some reading. Around 9:30 I could no longer ignore the rumblings of my midsection. Yes, I know you aren’t supposed to eat that late, but the rhythms of my work-school infused urbanite lifestyle have no time to wisely heed the advice of moms or dieticians. So, I’m hungry and it’s 9:30 and I know the Daily Show comes on at 10. I like to laugh at Jon Stewart laughing at politicians whilst eating reheated pizza, but I want to do so by my own schedule. So, I curse the hegemony of network television. Damn your false timelines Comedy Central!
I know I can’t fast-forward to the programming of my choosing, although I should be able to because it’s prerecorded, but the next best thing is probably services like TiVo and On Demand that let you record the shows you want to watch and then blissfully skip past the ads. Forgoing ads is the consumer’s dream come true. This technology has been out for a while now, and people still rave about it; it’s explicitly designed to enhance the viewing experience by conforming to our schedules and cutting out superfluous commercials. Super! Or course, I imagine that networks and ad agencies don’t particularly appreciate consumers fast-fowarding past billions of dollars, but who cares about what they want.
So, even though I have to wait the extra half hour to eat and catch the Daily Show, I come to the conclusion that TiVo and On Demand are great for consumers thank you very much.
Today I read this article from the San Francisco Chronicle, (tip from the excellent What’s New Media blog) discussing TiVo’s new data service called StopWatch. This service tracks which programs folks are watching and which ads they are skipping. TiVo execs promise (cross my heart, hope to die) that all data samples are randomized and thus made anonymous, but beyond the privacy issue lurks the question of what this data will be used for in the long run. Will TiVo sell it to Big Advertising?
The implications are that ad companies could (and will if they are “smart”) presumably use information such as this to evolve their business practices in troubling ways. This new information might lead to uber-refined market research into which ads are less likely to be skipped by certain viewers of certain shows, but just as probable, it could help prove what audiences have always known – we hate ads. We detest them and will always skip them if we can. The truth is that for every clever commercial that gets rave reviews at the water cooler, there are countless others that just waste our time. Yet they still play on and on and on.
What follows then is that the traditional ad model begins to break down (further than it already has) and the rampant culture of product placement gains new steam. I had a discussion with a friend the other day about The Office on NBC, which relentlessly plugs everything from shredders to iPods to Staples (yes, the entire store). I don’t really watch the show (I liked the British version with Ricky Gervais), but I think such blatant merchandising would be both awkward and irritating. Can we really stomach such new heights of sales-pitch entertainment? I’m afraid to answer.
TiVo, let us skip the ads on the down low. Just smile and tell Leo Burnett we are still watching, or risk compromising what little integrity content has left.
Hi Matt,
Makes me think of the pop-up ads the networks are using at the bottom of the screen DURING the shows now, as well as their ever larger logo in the corner. Thanks for the link to voice comment on cutting of CPB funding.
Comment by Richard Doherty — March 8, 2007 @ 4:47 pm
Exactly. A good example of this is how MTV2 puts graphics over their programming that are really just long horizontal bars placed directly in the middle of the screen. Masters of subtlety!
Comment by crain — March 10, 2007 @ 3:53 pm