Disney Says, You WILL Watch the Ads 456
smooth wombat writes "ABC and ESPN, both owned by Disney, have struck a deal with cable operator Cox Communications to offer hit shows and football games on demand, but with the condition that Cox disable the fast-forward feature that allows viewers to skip ads. This is the first agreement of its kind. It only applies to Cox's video-on-demand service and will not affect viewers using DVRs to fast-forward through ads. The companies will also test technology that will place ads in shows based on ZIP Codes and geographic area, and 'freshen' the ads with new ones every few days."
Well, then (Score:5, Insightful)
hehe: try to parse this sentence from TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry what is being "given" to viewers here?
-An alternative to convenience (i.e. annoyance)
-"without allowing them to avoid" (i.e. "while forcing them...")
Maybe I'm old-school, but usually giving things to one's customers is, um, phrased positively like e.g.
"giving viewers quality programming *without wresting control of their devices from them
Re:hehe: try to parse this sentence from TFA (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps the future is this: as consumers all gain the ability to circumvent ads and the value of advertising on cable declines, that the charges for cable service increase by at least double, since cable providers wouldn't be able to get any money from advertisers. (Ideally, this would be accompanied by a decrease in the cost of other goods, but I suspect that advertisers would simply keep the same marketing budgets and look elsewhere.)
One wonder what things like ratings would mean in a truly post-advertising world. Why spend millions more on a show just because it gets better ratings, if ad revenues don't exist? Would all cable become like the Discovery channel? Or will pay-per-view become universal?
Re:hehe: try to parse this sentence from TFA (Score:5, Funny)
Some dude: "Captain Nestle! The sensors are picking up unusual tachyon emissions on that uncharted planet, planet Ford Escape 8! Shall I set a course with our EA Sports warp drive?"
Captain: "Make it so irresistable, like boating. For more information on boating, call 1-888-555-2104"
[The USS Enterprise car rentals, shaped like a giant bottle of cool, refreshing 7-up, travels to the planet Ford Escape 8]
Some dude:"Captain Nestle! Sensors by Calvin Klein are detecting enormous quantities of awesome! Ford Escape 8 is the best ever!"
Captain:"This is great! Quickly! Call headquarters and buy stock in this planet using the money in my ING bank account, where I [pause] Save [pause] my money"
It would be entertaining, but only if it wasn't serious.
Re: (Score:3)
I've yet to subscribe to Sky - Freeview seems to have most of the decent programming these days that I want to watch in my little spare time (maybe I don't know what I'm missing). How do people find time to watch any more than say 30 minutes, 60 at a push, of
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Even more reason to build a MythTV box..
Even more reason not to watch TV at all.
I probably haven't watched TV in at least three months.
TV? Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I _do_ happen to watch TV (somewhere else), all I can think is how lame it is.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:TV? Why? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:TV? Why? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Well, then (Score:4, Informative)
comcast detroit is ready to switch to all digital cable. your fancy QAM A180 tuner card will not get many channels and your high end NTSC tuner card will get nothing.
thiat is where it is going for CableTV. It SUCKS for Mythtv right now as NTSC is going away and Cable is hell bent on putting unsanctioned PVR's out.
Your only choice is a Tivo Series 3 with 2 cablecard tuners or wait for the Vista-blessed-edition-MCE with cablecard capability.
The cablecard makers have vowed that it will NEVER work with linux or regular unblessed MCE pC's.
Re:Well, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Somewhere in China, a night-shift manager in an electronics factory that supplies PCI cablecard adapters to the USA, just thought of a new business opportunity.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the same thing with Cable modems. As long as they are Docsis compatible, the low-wage tech on the other end of the line has NO CLUE that your Motorola SB5102 that you are calling in to provision is actually from cablemodemhack.com and has the blackcat mod chip on it.
(not that I endorse uncapping your modem, or doing anything blatantly illegal, of course.)
Fuck it - don't watch cable! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Well, then (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Well, then (Score:4, Funny)
Usenet is dead, no one uses it, don't waste your time, piecing together uuencoded files and that whole 7bit-8bit thing is overrated and way confusing. Let it rest and stay away from it and please never mention it again....
Re:Well, then (Score:4, Insightful)
Or... (Score:3, Interesting)
Then you'll have to manually select and run all the on demand shows individually so the MythTV box can record them.
Or you could simply start your "on demand" show feeding into your DVR, go to the bathroom, make a snack, let the dog out, and then start watching your show and then skip past the commercials with the time buffer that has built up. (You will have to live with the stigma of knowing that you could have seen you show 5 minutes earlier...)
I wonder how many years it will be before we are required to have our eyelids mechanically clamped open with our heads aimed at the screen, to enable the 'premium' content f
Re:Well, then (Score:5, Informative)
I'd say that traditionally you would have been correct. But I just built my second mythtv for the house (Dual core, Ubuntu 7.04, Mythtv 0.20). It took me less than a day, and most of that was just messing with stuff I didn't need to mess with. Last time, a year ago, it took about a week.
The Ubunut7.04 recognizes the PVR-150 out out the box and has a full mythtv package in the repo's. It was a case of one click. No more IVTV rubbish and just follow the instructions to get your remote control working. All not that hard even for a noob like me.
Haven't seen any TV ads for a couple of weeks now.... Unlike Cox cable users....
Re:Well, then (Score:4, Interesting)
It's through the roof in my house. The wife gets all of her British shows off of UKNova, podcasts, etc etc etc and they download right to the shared directory. Boom.
She just bought a used XBox to use as a frontend in the bedroom.
So given how solid MythTV is and has been for some time now, your argument is both wrong and sadly out of date.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Well, then (Score:4, Informative)
She likes to sit and flick through the movie listings. She loves the fact that it records every episode of Scrubs.
Extremely high WAF.
Conflict resolution? Three tuners, and a small instruction to wifey to use "find one" instead of "record this". Change the background image? Why the hell would she want to do that?
Seriously, if the moaning about downtime when I'm upgrading it is anything to go by, it's by far the most adored piece of technology in the house, bar none.
Re:Well, then (Score:5, Interesting)
I said "so to not be a pirate I have to use Windows?" His answer: "Yep, If you use free software you must be pirating something."
Re:Well, then (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Well, then (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
"if its free, that means they can get into your computer, you know all those hackers are bad" "if its free, it cant be any good" "why do they give it away then"
I've run across this, too (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, this is a bit off-topic, but I just had to chime in and say that I've run across this attitude towards open source software, too.
A coworker of mine bought a cheap computer a couple of years ago. He commented on how he didn't want to spend a lot of money of Microsoft Office for it, and was thinking about getting one of the second-tier office suites. I told him, "Just download OpenOffice."
He had no idea what I was talking about, and thought I was referring him to some seedy warez site. I explained what FOSS was and told him about some of the more popular FOSS applications out there, but he just couldn't bring himself to believe me. He was absolutely, positively convinced that you end up "paying" for free software in one way or another; that even if OpenOffice didn't charge you to download and install their software, that there was some kind of hidden catch where it had to be adware or spyware or something. I even showed him the copy of OpenOffice I have installed alongside Microsoft Office on my work machine. He seemed really impressed, but I think he still ended up buying a copy of StarOffice or Corel WordPerfect Office because he just couldn't believe that it was free.
Needless to say, I don't think he's going to be a Linux convert anytime soon.
It almost made me wish that OpenOffice.org would set up a web site, something like OpenOffice.com, that has the exact same software, but charges you a $50 or so fee to download. Unfortunately, regardless of the best of intentions, some people just don't get it. At least then, I could point these people to the site where you can get the "real" copy.
Re:Well, then (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, man... that is *so* inaccurate. Windows users have very little useful software that is free. Most software is commercial or shareware. Windows users seek to fill the gaping functionality holes with commercial software and get nickeled and dimed (more like $20 and $50) to death. That, I believe, is a major factor for *Application* piracy.
Linux users on the other hand, explore all their well integrated, easy to centrally install, free options and find tools that work great, or pretty well, or at least do some of what they need for free.
Running MythTV, I have more than enough content that I'm paying for to watch on TV - I have no interest in looking for bittorents of video content.
Likewise, using streaming audio, I have more than enough access to audio content to keep me busy for the rest of my life.
Well then (Score:3, Insightful)
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Sounds good to me (Score:4, Interesting)
Customer says (Score:5, Insightful)
Content is neither bread nor air. I don't need it to survive.
Re:Customer says (Score:5, Insightful)
The average American ranks cable (or satellite) TV and cell phone service up there with food and water. It will be a lonely boycott.
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Granted, over here we have a few people, too, who just couldn't imagine a life without a cell (how fast things change, 15 years ago nobody had one and behold, we did live and not worse than we do now).
Also, people here are notorious for complaining and trying to weasel out of paying for stuff. I trust in the miserliness of my people!
Re:Customer says (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither is it "content" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well said.
The problem is they've already won the battle and set the terms of the discussion. The other metaphor is that of the "consumer". If we're all consumers, we don't have natural expressions of anything. You wouldn't suggest that we're "individuals", would you?
Re:Neither is it "content" (Score:5, Insightful)
By your logic Emily Dickinson's poems do not exist, since she had no expectation of being paid for them and even wanted them destroyed upon her death.
Re:Neither is it "content" (Score:4, Interesting)
However, there would be no Battletar Galactica or The Office or 300 without paying. And in the case of The Office, the program is ad supported. There is a causal relationship between creative works - real or intellectaul - and most of the times that relationship is financial.
Here's a thought - Dickenson's poems might not have exited had a publisher not been able to profit by publishing/printing them. This was before the internet.
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Speaking as an ex-English person living in the US, it's 100% forced. And it is a Tax, it is collected by the government and given to the BBC (which is only accountable to the government). If you want a TV+DVD com
Re:Customer says (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Customer says (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Customer says (Score:4, Funny)
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People accept paying for content. They know that kind of venue. You go out and "buy" a DVD (yeah, yeah, you don't buy the content... and so on). You pay for it, you watch it.
People accept ads paying for their content. They know that well too. You sit down and watch without buying it first, so you accept the ads.
People do NOT accept both. When you pay to watch something, you expect that you paid for it and thus are now entitled to watch the con
DVRs are saved by Tivo (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:DVRs are saved by Tivo (Score:5, Insightful)
If you had not noticed, Tivo signed a deal with Comcast to help develop and supply Tivo branded devices as Comcast DVRs, instantly making Comcast their biggest customer. Tivo is a partner to the big Cable companies now, not a competitor (which might be why we're seeing this stuff happening now). The writing was on the wall long before the deal was done as Tivo repeatedly refused to implement features that benefited their customers, but were opposed to the interests of the cable companies (skip ahead without an easter egg, commercial skip, export to DVD/VCD at a reasonable price, export to laptop in mpeg format, etc., etc.)
The way cable companies make money is by getting you to watch as many commercials as possible. This means getting you to spend more time watching ads and more time watching reruns with ads. The consumer buying a DVR wants to watch as few commercials and reruns as possible. These two goals are directly in conflict, which is why no one in their right mind should expect a good experience buying from a DVR manufacturer that is also their cable company or partnered with their cable company. They will give you the minimum features needed to keep you from going elsewhere, rather than the best feature set. The cable companies were smart to pay of Tivo, while they were still the only big player in the space. It redirects all the momentum in the space to ground, and gives them time to buy legislation to make sure only cable co. approved DVRs will work with "new improved" TV services. This space is ready for a revolution and a couple of new players, if only they can get by the cable company's monopoly leverage where they provide DVRs at under cost, while overcharging everyone for service to subsidize it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Silly Jedi!
Why would the Sith kill the DVR if they can turn it to the dark side. The DVR is strong in content delivery. Together, they could rule the galaxy.
huh (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
This past weekend a girl (I'm serious now...stick with me) wanted to watch some movie or another off the thing so we put it own. I was astounded to find an unskippable commercial....for the movie we were about to watch.
I'm not initiate in all the many angles marketers have devised to get into my brain but I can't figure that one out. I'm about to watch the movie and if it doesn't indoctrinate me into whatever cultural franchis
Re:huh (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope they're careful (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if it will be possible to reinstate the fast-forward button by running the on-demand movie through a DVR.
Re: (Score:2)
So it's ok. Remember that. It's ok.
Good... (Score:2, Funny)
Not necessarily good (Score:5, Insightful)
So far, commercials aren't even seen as a nuisance by many. They are an often welcome interruption for various personal needs, from bathroom to fridge. When you overdo it, people get annoyed.
And don't underestimate the negative effect of force. If you outright force people to watch an ad, they will connect no good feelings with it. So far, what makes people accept ads is that they enjoy the program around them and that they're in a generally good mood when they watch an ad. When they now pick up the remote and can't FF, they're pissed. And if this isn't carefully watched, the general mood when it comes to ads will be a very negative one. Not only on the "conscious" level, where people complain about ads, but also on the subconscious level.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And what's next? Prevent people from changing channels while a commercial is on? Colluding with other networks to ensure all commercials are run at the same time?
Really, you can ram it down our throats, and we can backlash.
Cover my TV with ads, I'll switch to an on-demand service like Apple-TV instead of cable.
TV can push, but we consumers can push back too.
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Ludicrous (Score:3, Insightful)
Pay Per Ad (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm guessing they are talking about 'free' on-demand.
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While you are paying Cox to play you the show / event at a time of your choosing, the media company is losing money in that you are not seeing the ads shown at the original time- the money goes right to Cox's bank account.
Now, if Cox said, we're going to offer two levels- level 1 will cost $1 (made up price) and will be ad sponsored (where the money is split one way), and level 2 will cost $5, but will not have ads (of which some larger percentage will go to the media company), I
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess the general public is not paying enough for their service to be ad-free. I would like to know, for once, how much money each cable subscriber would have to pay for their TV service if it paid for all the advertisement that would normally be there?
I had free television for years with fewer advertisements than what you see today. Cable television gets monthly subscriptions from all viewers (with rates that seem to double every five years), more advertising money than over-the-air ever dreamed of, and kick-backs from all the home shopping channels that they won't let you remove because it subsidizes the cost of your television service.
I can promise you that any number claimed to be adequate to eliminate advertising would be a die roll with a bunch o
Next they will eliminate the third-party DVRs (Score:2)
The big killer will be in a few years when cable providers have everyone on digital cable and include DRM in the cable boxes that prevent you from using third-party DVRs. Just as they don't want you putting a V
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My hope is that we can have some legislation in place that in the event a cable company decides to stop offering their analogue service, that they are forced to send the signal unencrypted, so that all that is necessary to watch the digital tv is a digital tuner. For most this still means a set-top box, but it will also open the door for "Digital Cable Ready" TV's. HD becomes the new digital with the encrypted feed.
Earth to Disney... (Score:2, Insightful)
20 minutes into the future... (Score:5, Funny)
Janie Crane: "Edison... an off switch!"
Metrocop: "She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal!"
- from Max Headroom, Episode 1.6, Blanks [maxheadroom.com]
Stuff like this (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether the ads are there or not (Score:2)
Doesn't change a thing (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
DING! DING! DING! As I have said in many previous posts, this is exactly what I do now. I'll get off my fat ass (figuratively speaking) and put the dishes away or wash dirty dishes, play with my cat, put clothes away, etc. Anything for those two minutes commercials are on.
I even wrote a short piece [earthlink.net] on how bad things have gotten.
I'm just about ready to drop Comcast due to:
A) rising prices but no additional cha
You know... (Score:4, Interesting)
Besides, I have a feeling that with the popularity of DVD sets being what it is, cable TV will likely start to dwindle and the box sets will be released at the beginning of each season. This way people can choose what shows they absolutely want to watch with no commercials, and which ones aren't really that important.
Kinda free-market at work there.
Then again, I haven't watched TV in several years so I don't know, maybe I missed something vital here...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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And frankly, I wouldn't mind advertising if they followed a few rules
1. I'm not 3 years old, I can do basic arithmetic and think for myself. Stop trying t
Re:You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh?
Let me be more clear...
TV (over the airwaves) is financed through ads and sponsors. What about Cable TV, which I pay for? Why do I have to watch ads on those channels? And moreover, this article is about on-demand pay-per-view... why have ads in that? It isn't about financing it, it is about making more money. Unless they are going to lower the price because now the ads will assist in financing it. I think not.
If magazines are financed through ads (which is clear from their HUGE percentage of the magazine content) then why do I have to buy them?
Newspapers - same as magazines.
Radio - OK, here is the one area where you don't pay for it, so you endure the advertisements (or just change the station).
Why open source is critical (Score:2)
skip VOD (Score:4, Interesting)
Eye Staples (Score:5, Funny)
No I won't (Score:2)
First break, make a sandwich. Second break, get a drink and/or take a leak. Third break, take a dump.
maybe they should cure the disease and not the... (Score:2)
Most of the time don't bother flipping the channel or muting during ads - I don't want to miss the few seconds of my show that come on right after the ads. I know a lot of people who are the same way. However, and the same time, there are advertisements that are so annoying, I just have to switch the channel.
Maybe they should consider the problem, not the ads, but the companies that make the horrible ads - and rather than preventing people from switching (coutner productive for all parties), an
And (Score:2)
There's a line they cross... (Score:2)
I can extend this easily enough to cable companies, sat TV providers and such for channels that aren't premium channels for much the same reason. The cost of producing the content is higher than the small fraction of subscription costs they get back.
But premium con
Not going to work (Score:5, Insightful)
The harder they try to control viewing habits, the harder people will work to thwart whatever system is put in place.
Sometimes when I'm watching something on TIVO I'll forget I can zip through the commercials. I'm more prone to forget and watch the commercials if there are fewer of them and they're interesting. The really obnoxious ones will spur me to either mute the TV if it's live, FF on TIVO and go to great lengths to find an alternative if some company like Disney tries to make me watch. Not happening.
I love the way advertisers treat viewing like a one-way street. You watch what we give you. Well, screw you, Disney. The local ads are the worst. There are several that get me diving for the mute button. Where if they were more informative and less obnoxious, it might make reaching for the remote more of an effort and I might not bother.
But broadcasters thinking they can squeeze 20 minutes of commercials into 60 minutes of broadcast and advertisers thinking we'll calmly sit through whatever annoying crap they throw up there...yes, I'm looking at you, Oxyclean guy...they can kiss my butt.
Re:Not going to work (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that's the funny thing, too. Since getting my DVR from my cable company, I've noticed that there are times when I actually stop fast forwarding, rewound, and watched an ad. Do you know why? Either the ad got my attention with something that was going on, or it was an ad for a product I might actually want.
I think that bears repeating: "an ad for a product I might actually want." For the good of our cultural/socialogical sanity, the various groups in the advertising industry should be trying to find ways to deliver ads people are willing to watch without a fight, shielding consumers from ads that will only annoy the crap out of people. That was the whole idea of ads on television, after all-- to make the ads worth watching. Ads today are so fricken annoying, though, that it's usually not worth watching them anymore.
And I'm not suggesting that the advertising industry damage themselves by showing restraint out of purely altruistic motivations. On the contrary, if they don't scale back and find ways to avoid annoying the crap out of people, we might just keep getting more inventive at blocking all ads all the time.
Take the web as an example: A lot of people have become so annoyed with horrible pop-ups, pop-unders, complicated flash junk, etc., and the result is that we've developed extensions and plug-ins that block pretty much all advertising everywhere. If advertisers showed a little more restraint, ad-blocking might not be so common.
Compulsory Viewing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just go outside! Enjoy the fresh air once in a while. I watch no TV (though there's one downstairs). Disney is probably doing people a favour.
Oh well... I'm not exactly spoilt for choice... (Score:3, Insightful)
the more unpleasant they make it, the more people will go to the p2p sites instead... what you want to watch, basically when you want to watch it... and none of the crappy adverts or stupid digital restrictions on how you can watch it...
So glad I gave up on TV years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
Disney, and any other oppressive media company out there, can blow me if they think they are getting a single dime outta me.
This is fine by me... (Score:3, Interesting)
For shows that I purchase, however, I want them ad-free. If I purchase a show, that means I am subsidizing it (at least, a very very small portion of it), and don't want to deal with ads as a bonus to purchasing it. I would also be willing to waive my right to re-distribute the material, but not willing to waive my right to create copies of the material for my own backup & archival purposes.
I think that's a fair arrangement. In fact, I'd be willing to have my representative sign legislation to this effect.
There are other ways to ignore the ads... (Score:4, Informative)
9. Fix a snack
8. Let the dog out
7. Check your email
6. Get a drink
5. Go to the bathroom
4. Stare into space
3. Read an article
2. Smooch
1. Mute the sound
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Short-term memory problems? (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't the whole point of ads to sell me what I want? There is a ton of stuff out there I'd love to have if I knew about it--and refinancing through Ditech or having a hard penis using Cialis aren't it!
--
This message brought to you by the Mortgage Experts at Ditech and by the Erectile Dysfunction experts who make Cialis.
Oh, the irony (Score:3, Funny)
Some say that pirates steal and should be feared and hated
I say we're victims of bad press it's all exaggerated
and also
We'd never stab you in the back, we'd never lie or cheat
We're just about the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet
Re:Am I still allowed to go to the bathroom? (Score:4, Insightful)
The former head of TBS is willing to put up with bathroom breaks, but thinks part of your contract is that you have to watch the commercials [2600.com]:
(Did you sign a contract where one of the terms is that you have to watch the ads? I rather suspect not, Mr. Kellner's belief to the contrary nonwithstanding....)