PurePVR

BroadcastingCable.com is carrying a story which reports that ABC has backed off when it comes to restructuring its advertising model. ABC had hoped that it would be able to make deals with advertisers wherein the advertisers would be charged not only based on viewers who watch the show live, but also for viewers who use a PVR / DVR device to watch the show within 7 days. Eventually ABC had to fold due to the pressure from the advertising industry. But who is right here?

To me it only makes sense that advertisers should pay for viewers regardless of how they watch the show. Viewers are viewers, plain and simple. The biggest argument coming from the advertisers however is that users who “TiVo” a show are less likely to watch the advertisements. OK, that may be the case, but how about all the people who watch TV live and then get a drink or go to the washroom during commercials? The fact that commercials aren’t watched isn’t a problem restricted to PVRs / DVRs, it’s a problem with the advertising industry as a whole.

Commercials are getting boring – at least that seems to be the general consensus. How often have you watched a commercial, you may ever recognize as something you have seen before, but you can’t remember what the commercial is for? I know it happens to me quite often. How do you get around this? You make commercials that I want to see.

Traditionally beer breweries have excelled at making catchy commercials. In fact I have stopped fast forwarding recorded shows on my MCE box to watch some commercials before because they are funny / interesting or I wanted to show someone else.

Some advertisers are also accepting the new PVR / DVR phenomenon as it grows. For example, Coke & Sprite have ‘DVR Ready’ commercials, KFC had a ‘TiVo Proof’ commercial which contained a special discount code and GE recently launched their ‘1 second theatre’. I personally applaud these companies for trying to innovate the industry instead of sitting back and complaining about change.

To bring this full circle (and to a close), it would seem that the only way to get more advertisers to accept PVRs / DVRs is make them realize that ignoring or skipping commercials is nothing new, it’s just getting easier now and they will have to work harder to keep our attention.

Technorati Tags: PVR, DVR, TiVo, Advertising, MCE