I have been using DVR for a couple of years and truly believe that it has completely altered my TV viewing habits. With the exception of the SuperBowl and a few rare instances such as this, I never watch TV commercials. On Thursday's class it was mentioned that advertisers are struggling to target audiences with DVR service. This is due to the fact that customers with DVR service fast-forward through commercials. In a recent NYTimes article Rupert Murdoch's network is showing 30 commercials with a static image to try to thwart DVR owners from fast-forwarding through Fox's commercials. This was also mentioned in our last class. The article continues to explore that DVR users could "dodge as much as $8 billion of the $74 billion in television ads shown this year" - a staggering amount that will only incentivize other creative mechanisms to reach this audience.
How about disabling the fast-forward button? Think I'm kidding? ABC's President of Advertising Sales, Mike Shaw has suggested we disable the fast forward button all together!
Of course, apart from commercials, DVR has changed my life in other ways. I now turn on the TV, watch a recorded show, turn off, and do other things. Channel-surfing is a thing of the past. RCN recently thwarted my efforts in this arena when they brutally erased every show on my DVR during an upgrade of their DVR programming last week. Having blindly thrown out all RCN flyers that I received in the mail (part of my campaign to ignore as much advertising as possible), I was completely unaware and lost an entire season of a show that I was sure I would someday watch. Last night, coming home from a long day and wanting to watch a little mindless TV, I found myself in the distasteful position of needing to surf through programming to find something to watch!
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