ABC wants MSOs (Cable companies) to disable fast forwarding on DVRs to prevent people from skipping ads. According ot MediaPost ABC and other networks have held discussions about the idea. Mike Shaw ABC President for Advertising sales came up with the genius idea and is hoping a deal will be reached soon before DVR use, currently estimated at 10%, grows more!
The suits are hoping there won’t be much backlash because “consumers prefer DVRs for their ability to facilitate on-demand viewing and not ad-zapping”.
They should also think about a way to disable channel changing when commercial breaks come on and straping viewers in their seats to prevent them from going to the bathroom because after all isn’t this why we use ad breaks for?!
Media Post
ABC Looks Beyond Upfront To DVR, Commercial Ratings Issues
hahaha… thats crazy. there WILL be backlash. people want on demand viewing but they also want to skip the commercials while on demand viewing.
on a totally different subject, i’m here in london right now and i watched skynews yesterday. wow… i dont like it at all. and their anchor shot is so weird. they put lots of headroom so they can show the skynews logo but i think it looks horrible!
Dean is right. Networks are out of their collective minds if they think the public will tolerate that nonsense. Just goes to show how out of touch they are.
Don’t toss your VCRs just yet.