Colin McKay – a.k.a. the Canuckflack – is at it again with a pithy and relevant post about TiVo’s new ad search capability which is expected to break this Spring.
This is big news, folks. According to news sources, the new feature will allow users:
“…to receive advertisements based on their interests, after creating their user profile on the TiVo set-top box. The technology is aimed at giving advertisers a more targeted and interested pool of potential buyers while attempting to steer users away from skipping all ads that flicker across their television tube.”
This is an interesting turn, especially given the announcement a couple of weeks ago by the major networks concerning the penetration of DVR’s like TiVo and the resulting increase in audience viewership. The ploy from the networks was clearly an attempt to justify higher ratings (Nielson also announced they would start counting TiVo and other recording devices in their ratings numbers) and, subsequently, higher rates.
The major concerns expressed by advertisers and agencies, of course, were questions about the number of DVR users (specifically) who skipped commercial messages entirely or, at the very least, zipped through them in fast forward. Network officials offered a lame excuse about people actually stopping and watching those commercials that interested them – but the answer wasn’t fully accepted.
Now, with this announcement, TiVo’s intentions appear to be clear. TiVo now has a route to circumvent the programmers altogether. By providing this technology to advertisers, TiVo will allow viewers to watch only the content that interests them (television shows, movies, informational videos or advertisements) and will work directly with the marketers to pay for it.
Of course advertisers who are starting to get conditioned to granular metrics via the web are going to love this and push for it in other media channels as well. Why not pay a higher cost per thousand impressions if you know everyone who sees your commercial actually wanted to see it? It’s a beautiful thing.
There’s just one problem.
No one appears to be thinking about how all that entertainment content gets paid for. By cutting out the broadcaster, TiVo may be cutting the throat of the horse it road in on. If ad revenues dry up for broadcasters as DVR penetration increases (and it will increase), there won’t be money to produce or promote new shows and, more importantly, there won’t be money available to broadcast the content for TiVo to edit and re-purpose.
This one will be interesting to watch develop.
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