Locking in Viewers to Watch the Commercials

Instead of cramming commercials down the throats of time-shifting viewers, sponsors and networks alike are missing a unique opportunity. Creating on-demand opportunities that don't allow viewers to zap commercials only creates animosity.

The new millenium has brought new technologies and with this we have new viewing audiences who no longer consume via the traditional broadcast television methods which inevitably means the broadcasters and the content owners alike have to find a new way to fund traditional television programming. The advertising revenues have been diminishing from the traditional major players for sometime in most...

- Viewers have already tasted the commercial free world of television entertainment. The proverbial genie is out of the bottle and you can't put it back in. - There are many viewing alternatives to broadcast television networks, and the viewing public is becoming increasingly more sophisticated at finding and leveraging these alternatives (Bittorrent, etc.) - The European model promotes an advertising...

ABC is taking away exclusive first run rights from its Affiliates... This programming is being handed over to the local cable company and effectively bypassing local broadcasters.   Who needs Affiliates when the local cable company will do..?

Usually when what you hear from consumers in focus groups sounds too good to be true...it is.  In a totally selfish, non-consumer-centric initiative, ABC and Cox have somehow convinced themselves that consumers will go against the grain of what they inherently want - and I suspect the results will be forgettable.  Consumers have DVRs because they don't want to view commercials in the traditional...

The article points to a business model that does not create value, and hence appears to not be sustainable.

Time/place shifting with web based downloads can retain advertising with available software that streams the ads over a portion of the bottom of the programming [such as thunderstorm warnings on broadcast tv].  Clciks on the ads can still be captured by the advertiser, as long as the viewer still has an active access to the web. Other methods are available to imbed advertising on web based media...

Advertisers and broadcasters must continually adapt to time-shifting, place-shifting and alternative content distribution technologies and offerings such as the DVR.

It's important because despite what the major networks and companies are saying about people willing to listen to commercials on a DVR, I don't believe it.  I think they chose their marketing company and we had no say in it.  I think it will fail and fail miserably and advertisers and networks will understand they were wrong about this issue, as they have been about other issues.  If...