Posted on 04/20/2006 6:26:51 AM PDT by Xenophobic Alien
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- In this era of easy ad skipping with TiVo-like video recorders, could television viewers one day be forced to watch commercials with a system that prevents channel switching?
Yes, according to Royal Philips Electronics. A patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said researchers of the Netherland-based consumer electronics company have created a technology that could let broadcasters freeze a channel during a commercial, so viewers wouldn't be able to avoid it.
The pending patent, published on March 30, said the feature would be implemented on a program-by-program basis. Devices that could carry the technology would be a television or a set-top-box.
Philips acknowledged, however, that the anti-channel changing technology might not sit well with consumers and suggested in its patent filing that consumers be allowed to avoid the feature if they paid broadcasters a fee.
On Wednesday, company officials issued a statement that noted the technology also enables the opposite: allowing viewers to watch television without advertising. The intention was never to force viewers to watch ads against their will, the company said of the technology.
"We developed a system where the viewer can choose, at the beginning of a movie, to either watch the movie without ads, or watch the movie with ads," the company stated. "It is up to the viewer to take this decision, and up to the broadcaster to offer the various services."
The company also said it had no plans to use the technology in any of its products.
Philips wanted to provide the technology and seek the patent only as part of the broader developments within the industry, Philips spokesman Andre Manning said.
They probably had an appraisal done and found out it wasn't worth it.
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Okay, so you're saying that you know better than all the multibillion dollar corporations who believe it benefits them to pay for television advertising? It's just a waste of money? Wow, you think they'd have figured that out sometime over the last 60 or so years.
Okay, fine. So its a waste of money that does advertisers them no good, and they could care less if people TiVO or otherwise avoid the commercials for which they are paying hundreds of millions of dollars.
But if that's the case, I assume that your post will clue them in on that, and they'll stop buying ads. And when that happens, how are the networks that produce shows financed largely through ads going to make up those revenues?
Not true. The cable companies need only change their signal to require a new converter that contains the required hardward/software. You can keep using your old tv's and settop boxes, but they won't be able to unscramble the modified signal.
I was worried that I would hate her, but I find her fairly inoffensive. However, I've missed most of the Monks this year for some reason. I cannot figure out their season.
susie
Where was this utopian land where cable TV was born without commercials?
Cable TV (originally Community Antenna TV) was, as the name implies, a system for allowing communities to share access to a good antenna. The original system was put together by a TV salesman, to boost sales. He lived in a valley community where you couldn't receive the signals from the nearest TV stations. But by placing an antenna on the hills outside town, and putting in boosters, he could bring the signal into town.
He was picking up the local network broadcasts, commercials and all, and delivering them to his customers, for a fee to cover the equipment.
That's the genesis of cable TV. Not a promise of "pay for TV and we'll have no commercials." It was "pay for TV and get a clear signal." Later it was "pay for TV and get more channels that are not available over the air at all."
Only a small portion, later on in the industry's development, was pay channels like HBO. And they are still available without commercials.
But regular cable programming has always included commercials.
SD
Nope, that's not what I'm saying at all... but thanks for playing.
Now look, folks have been ignoring, flipping, and leaving the room when commercials have been on since day one.. the small % of american's with TIVO skipping the commercials is not hurting their sales... These are the same folks who were flipping, or leaving the room to begin with. Its comical that they wan't to use this as an excuse.
Its the same mentality that the moviemakers are using... heaven forbid its their product is crap as to why they are making less money, no.. its folks pirating their stuff.
Television advertising by big players is about building BRAND INDENTITY and Loyalty, not selling stuff. When was the last time you saw an ad for McDonalds that even talked about what was in their food? Other than when they launch a new product, its all just about "feeling good" and "brand building".
A 15, 30 or 60 second commercial designed to sell a product is the ultimate in shotgun approach... Think about it. GM buys a ad for their car, now how many folks are actually even in the market for a car? Let alone how many are looking for a car with the features that this particular model is being pitched for? Its microscopic in terms of the percentage of viewers...
TIVO no more negatively impacts broadcast advertisers exposure than going to the fridge on a commercial break... in fact its much less.
The facts are simple, marketers want folks to watch commercials.. and most folks completely ignore them, flip the channeld uring them or leave the room to pee. Yet somehow TIVO is a threat? Be serious. Anyone TIVOing past a commericial isn't interested in the product or service anyway.. its a non starter. A marketer who knows what they are doing isn't worried about the millions of folks who ignore their ads, they are just interested in the handful that are interested in it... and they know that TV is shotgun marketing.
Its not targeted marketing.. sure you can advertise on a show that has similar demographics as your target audience, but its not truly targeted marketing, it can't be.. the very nature of the medium ensures that.
There are a few fundamentals about marketing, 1) The more you tell, the more you sell... 15-60 second commercials don't tell you a whole lot... 2) The more targeted your marketing efforts, (properly targeted) the better your results will be.
Advertisers aren't about to abandon TV, but for TV to argue TIVO is killing them is comical. Forcing advertisors to buy ads on stations no one watches just so they can get their ad on the channel they want has done far more to harm the credibility of the industry than anything TIVO or other DVR's have done.
This is how home built PVRs are able to use digital services now....
What percentage of consumers have home built PVR's? Yes, a techno-geek will be able to figure a way around this. But the vast majority won't, just as they haven't figured out how to record a copy protected DVD or VCR tape.
I haven't looked into this much but a couple years ago did stumble across a website that had some animation video of a woman dancing or singing or something. It came from a record disc transcribed I think in 1922.
Even earlier I had stumbled on a book written (and signed) by Jenkins in the 1920s. He even included the plans so that readers could build their own receivers and report back what signals they had seen. The closing chapter was a study on the motion of a flag flapping in the wind, which gave him his answer for the film projector problem.
Doesn't the DCMA make it criminal to circumvent digital copy guards? Won't those prohibitions even extend to attempts to copy that material a hundred and fifty years from now when it has finally lapsed into the public domain?
Where have you been?? They don't put toobs in boobs any more.
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