Summary
As much as 20% of the audience for television's most popular shows are skipping the commercial content. This high number is of great concern to the marketing group. This group is questioning the effectiveness of TV advertising. With the advent of digital video recorders, estimated to be in 20% of households, the practice of skipping commercials is on the rise.
Analysis
In the digital age, we as a collective group are watching primetime shows using DVR playback but skipping the commercials.
Even people who watch a show during it's original broadcast are not watching ads (call it channel surfing).
Granted ad skipping does not hurt revenue it signals to the executives that the model is indeed changing.
I myself have noticed more advertising during programming (read: the bottom part of the screen) and this will be clearly the wave of the future.
Why not offer longer programs (instead of 22/44 minute program (for a 30/60 minute hour) with ads taking up part of the screen. Everybody wins in the long run with less channel surfing, more content along with revenue generation.
Granted, the drawback is that advertisements could run the entire length of the program however we can always tune to cable programs/networks who would not employ this practice (i.e. call this ratings).
The future is always an interesting place!
