TiVo to Measure Ad-Skipping 261
jaredmauch writes "USA Today is reporting that TiVo will measure how many users skip ads of roughly 20k random users. This follows Nielsen Ratings service providing individual commercial ratings. Overall this is expected to reduce the cost of advertisements on television and perhaps make them more on-topic? I'd consider providing feedback (thumbs-up/down) to ads if it'd make those that are no longer relevant to me go away." I'm kinda surprised they don't have this data already. I mean, weren't they able to track the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction a few years ago?
counting how many skip ads (Score:5, Funny)
Re:counting how many skip ads (Score:3, Funny)
Correct, the Doublemint twins are one of the only reasons ads are worth watching.
Re:counting how many skip ads (Score:2, Funny)
Cardigans (Score:2)
Re:Cardigans (Score:2)
Re:counting how many skip ads (Score:2)
Re:counting how many skip ads (Score:3, Funny)
Re:counting how many skip ads (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:counting how many skip ads (Score:2)
Re:counting how many skip ads (Score:2)
64K is your number.
If each user skips 3.3 commercials we'll have a stack overflow and can hack the system and ROOOOL THE WURRRRLLLLDDD!
Re:counting how many skip ads (Score:2, Informative)
Whats the Motive? (Score:5, Interesting)
"During the initial rollout, TiVo will not provide personal, demographic data on the sample group."
And after this, where is this data going to go?
"Rogers declined to project how much revenue the new division might generate, although he says, "It's an important part of the overall model."
Oh I see. If they can proove that one ad is watched more than another (given demographics) commercial prices will go up/down?
A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it. (Score:5, Insightful)
For now, TiVo will not be able to tell advertisers anything about the demographics of the audience it measures. The privacy policy of the service allows it to gather data about viewing habits, but not any personal information. Mr. Juenger [TiVo VP of Audience Research] said TiVo hoped to find a way to change that by the end of the year.
The current TiVo Privacy Policy [tivo.com] says repeatedly that all the data collected is anonymous. I guess that will have to change.
In the end it's all about money. TiVo needs to make more money. They're trying to do more with the watching data they already collect. And they want to collect more data to make it more valuable.
Re:A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not necessarily. Sure "White males aged 18-25" is a demographic, but so is "Regular viewers of Battlestar Galactica." Arguably, the latter is a more useful demographic to TV advertisers, and it doesn't require revealing personal information.
Of course, I have no doubts that TiVo and the scummy advertisers will look at it that way. They'll want to know age, gender, and how often you floss too, just because they're advertisers.
Re:A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, gender/age/race demographics are used to sell just about everything else. Women aren't interested in the Gillette Mach X razor, and men aren't interested in "secret: strong enough fo
Re:A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it. (Score:2)
Re:A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A: Profit!!! TiVo wants/needs more of it. (Score:3, Interesting)
When you live in a household with three people, 1 Male, 2 Females, of various ages and interests, agregating based on the house MIGHT make sense. Agregating based on the show watched DEFINATELY makes sense.
If my wife watches All My Children and decides to FF through the commercials, it means they are meaningless to
Ad profiling (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Whats the Motive? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Whats the Motive? (Score:2)
First they make your age and gender available to advertisers (as part of a large group - not very objectionable), but then they include race... then they narrow it down to markets. 25 year olds in NY city. Then the next thing is that the advertisers want direct marketing and Tivo gives them your name and address so they can call you (if you're not on the do-not-call list, but at least they'll start adding you to surveys to which DNC doesn't apply) or send you junk mail/email.
If they push
Re:Whats the Motive? (Score:2)
That will lead to the content providers going after the distributors (cable/satellite) to make up for the shortfall. The distributors will then pass that through to your monthly bill. The alternative there is for the networks to realize that their shows aren't really worth paying actors $100,000+ per episode, a
Unless Tivo already know the results (Score:2)
What about the times that you are watching live tv.
I half wonder if tivo have statistics that show them not doing much damage
This won't take very long (Score:5, Insightful)
Who in the *hell* wants to waste their time sitting in front of commercials, anyway? We put up with it from the early days of TV because once you bought the box, it was a 'free' service. Only now many (most?) of us pay, sometimes rather significant amounts of money, in order to bring a signal and service package into our homes. Why *anyone* should feel entitled to my eyes and attention in order to try and sell me on their crappy products really escapes me.
Re:This won't take very long (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This won't take very long (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the end result will be polarized... either companies will make ads that are entertaining/amusing to watch, or TiVo will start offering premium fees for advertizers so they can make their commercial un-skippable.
We've all seen DVDs that don't allow you to skip the previews in front of the main menu. Some actually let you fast-forward, but not skip over them. And granted, it's self-advertizing for the studio, but it's shameless enough that I'd fully expect that forced TV commercials will appear at some point in the near future.
Re:This won't take very long (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't capitalism in essence, really, "you are entitled to the world as long as you can pull it off"
Re:This won't take very long (Score:2)
Re:This won't take very long (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This won't take very long (Score:2)
Don't the advertisements pay just for the programming? Last I checked, our subscription pays for the cable service and as incentive for cable companies to make new channels available. What TiVo's data will essentially do is allow advertisers to have more say in how much a program's advertising time is worth (and ultimately, how long that show will last).
Re:This won't take very long (Score:2)
Re:This won't take very long (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This won't take very long (Score:4, Interesting)
You pay $50 a month for "basic" cable and they still dump ads on you. They make you pay for stuff that is nothing but ads (QVC, MTV).
I have even heard ads on XM recently on the music channels. Sat radio was founded on a no-ad policy, but they are sneaking in.
This is why projects like mythtv are important. Open source PVR technology. Problem is, next generation HDMI / Blue Ray / HD DVD won't let you save DRM material to your HD (AFAIK). You will get the broadcast HD unencrypted, but the cable will not be recordable.
I am sure the pirates will think of something, but I want to be able to skip commercials if possible.
Re:This won't take very long (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This won't take very long (Score:2, Insightful)
I disagree. When I had a Tivo, there were ads we liked and ones we didn't. The masterful Tivo roommates (Ken and Benjamin) would stop the full speed fast forward to watch the most brilliant or interesting ones, and then go back to skipping through the annoying ones. I mean, if you look at Apple.com's movie trailer site, or Sportcenter's site, there is an interest in watching commercials. Just not ones for Bernie & Phil bickering about dinette sets.
I think this a good idea for Tivo. If a good show had
Re:This won't take very long (Score:2)
Re:This won't take very long (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This won't take very long (Score:4, Funny)
"Hello, Fred Pilfner. Are you bothered by your excessive back hair? Based on her Yahoo! searches, your wife is! Try our new product
Happy now?
Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh boy. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, I came across that tidbit a while ago and thought it relevant and interesting...
Good (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:2)
When I see a clever ad on tv (rarely), I actually enjoy watching it. And I don't mind watching it again, even if it's of a product I'd never buy. I miss the times when adds were actually informative about what they were selling, instead of selling "happiness", like almost all ads do now (maybe that time never existed and I'm imagining it). I just don't fall on that crap. I know advertisement
Re:Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:2)
I don't know what's worse. At least if they sell you something that didn't work, you have the chances to return it and get your money back (sometimes).
And I think I made a mistake on my post. I think the word "imagining" doesn't exist and it should be "imaginating". I'm not a natural english speaker. But I prefer correcting myself before some spelling-grammar-nazi comes
Re:Good (Score:2)
You had it right the first time. Imagining is a word, imaginating is not.
Re:Good (Score:2)
Ads aren't informative? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Ads aren't informative? (Score:2)
Re:Don't leave us hanging... (Score:2)
They do. (Score:5, Insightful)
They do. The difference here is that they intend to sell it to one or more third parties.
-Adam
Sell it, or... (Score:2)
Re:They do. (Score:2)
Blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Blatantly obvious to even the most casual obser (Score:2)
Re:Blatantly obvious to even the most casual obser (Score:2)
I own a TiVo and I skip commericals all the time. Though every once and a while a commerical will catch my eye and I'll watch it. In fact that last commerical that I liked was a VW rabbit commerical. I watched it, backed it up and called my wife into the room to see it. If TiVo can report on that kind of watching then maybe they'l have some data worth selling. In genreal, I skip commericials because the same one will be in the be shown again in the next commerical break. I feel the advertisers are fighting
Re:Blatantly obvious to even the most casual obser (Score:2)
With ad spots so expensive, I have to wonder why they don't go back to live advertising from the early days of television. Keep the material original.
How will they even DO this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How will they even DO this? (Score:5, Informative)
from
http://www.spywareinfo.com/newsletter/archives/ju
California based TiVo, the company that makes digital TV recorders, has announced that it will begin selling the data that it collects about the viewing habits of its more than 700,000 users. TiVo lets users record TV shows and play them back at different times, skip commercials, and even train their TiVo to suggest programming more likely to interest them.
As the TiVo box connects to company servers to download programming information, it also uploads data about what users have watched and how they watched it. They can tell who watched which shows. They can tell which commercials were skipped. They can tell at what point someone got bored and start flipping channels. All of this information would be a gold mine to advertising agencies, and TiVo is about to cash in.
As horrifying as all that sounds to people who prefer to keep their private life private, this is not as big a deal as it sounds. Unless you specifically opt into more detailed statistics gathering, all of the information is anonymous and will not used to identify your specific viewing habits.
If you watch an old rerun of Highlander, all TiVo knows is that someone in your zip code watched it, not that you, specifically, watched it. You can even opt out of that much, if you like, by calling TiVo at 1-877-367-8486 and requesting that they opt you out of all statistical information gathering.
What TiVo is doing is basically the same thing that early advertising spyware programs did. They log how you use the service and then send that information back to the company in order to make the advertisements presented to you more relevant and interesting. The difference between TiVo and the advertising spyware companies is that TiVo is honest and up front about it. TiVo does not simply steal the information by installing trojan-like data mining programs the way Aureate, Conducent, and others did.
On the other hand, I would still be nervous about TiVo collecting the information even if it were anonymous. As I understand it, your viewing information is not stored along with your account's personally identifiable information only because they choose not to do so once they have it. We have only their word that they would never cross reference viewing habits with their users' account numbers.
For that matter, who's to say that if TiVo were ever bought out, the new owner wouldn't just dive right into the data and start putting both sets of information together. That is exactly what DoubleClick tried to do when it bought marketing firm Abacus Direct.
With the information gathered offline about consumers contained in Abacus Direct's database, DoubleClick could have identified anonymous web surfers. It was only after several class action lawsuits were filed and a few states opened investigations that DoubleClick backed down from their plans.
I don't own a TiVo myself, but if I did, probably I would call that number and opt out entirely. Again, the telephone number to opt out of all TiVo statistical information gathering is 1-877-367-8486.
http://www.spywareinfo.com/newsletter/archives/ju
"I'd consider providing feedback (thumbs-up/down)" (Score:4, Interesting)
Surely, if they helped TiVO become mainstream and omnipresent, they'd be able to target their advertisement dollars better, but until they do, they're only going to know about a bunch of geeks think about their ads, not necessarily the least useful cross-section of their viewers, but probably the least forgiving.
So why do they [the advertisers] fight TiVO every chance they get?
Re:"I'd consider providing feedback (thumbs-up/dow (Score:2)
Re:"I'd consider providing feedback (thumbs-up/dow (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, they're historically sucessful. It's kind of hard to call someone stupid and have them believe it if they've enjoyed success in the past. After all, the only option at that point would be that they were
Current Tracking (Score:2)
Actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
It's easy to observe in the big stuff (national ads for massive brands, Coke or Ford or McDonalds) but much harder (and no less important, to the advertisers) for smaller things: grape juice and plumbers and ti
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
I think they're much more interested in what you do watch
I know. But it would be neat if we *could* moderate the ads.
They know perfectly well you're going to hit "no" on essentially every ad except the occasional breast-filled beer commercial.
Not really. I'd still bomb them as dumb. I have the Internet and cheap local whores for my fleshy thrills. I'd probably favor the funny ads. I'd also bomb stuff like car ads that try to depict driving their car as a transcendent experience. I also like straight
If they use it intelligently, I don't mind (Score:5, Insightful)
I watch everything via TiVo, and my wife still channel surfs conventionally but uses it a lot. Do we skip over, say, 95% of all commercials as a result? Yes. Do we wait to watch things that are on now to build up a commercial-eating buffer? Yes.
And yet... when my co-workers talk about a commercial, I have either still seen it, or it's on a channel/timeslot I don't watch. And there are commercials that we actually go back to watch. Admittedly, most of those are "Next on Stargate!"-type commercials, but there are exceptions. There's the "your dreams are waiting for you" ad campaign going on which we think is kind of funny, and we sort of hope they turn it into a series, for instance.
I know ad execs just see us skipping commercials, but I think the total effectiveness is about the same as ever, and for the commercials we actually go back to see, greater than ever. (Even though I'm not in the market for the sleep product.) If they use this information intelligently, I wouldn't mind it so much; it'd actually have a positive effect.
Of course, that is one damn big if, no?
(Oh, and de-anonymize the stats and I'll build a MythTV box. Right now it's not worth it to me, but it would be then. The recent usability test that it did well on turned my head; I've been assuming it would be the usual Open Source interface disaster.)
Re:If they use it intelligently, I don't mind (Score:2)
I think you're reading what you expect to see into them. One of the effects of America's advertising saturation is that there's nobody who harbors any delusions that we have some sort of obligation to submit to all of them, except the ad executives which hardly speak for the rest of us.
I was going to say you should ask somebody else, but honestly, I don't know anyone who feels they ha
I don't like it (Score:3, Insightful)
Algerath
Will make internet ads look good (Score:3, Insightful)
ReplayTV (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is, you actually do miss out when you don't see *any* commercials. Things like announcements of new series you might like, or two hour specials of a show you already watch. Not to mention I'd have no idea how to use HeadOn.
Re:ReplayTV (Score:4, Funny)
Let's break this down.... (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Ad agencies know how much less the ads are worth now and demand networks lower prices because they're delivering less.
3. Networks pull the leashes on their well paid congressional delegation to fix this with legislation.
3. If legislation doesn't work then they pay Tivo to disable skipping the commercial, or have a special code which drops the viewer out of fast forward at the beginning of each commercial block.
Is there any outcome of this that would be considered good? They're actually making MS Media Center look good. And driving me more and more towards building my own MythTV box.
Re:Let's break this down.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe we'll find out that the commercial skip rate isn't near as high as everybody imagines. "People still sit and watch the Office as soon as it's on TV." Or something like that.
There is the potential for this to bring good news. I have a feeling the big-wigs think TiVo kills commercials entirely. If reality tells a different story, it should be logged.
Re:Let's break this down.... (Score:2)
There are certain programs I watch, but if I were forced to watch the ads, I would not watch them at all. I probably skip 95% of the ads during a program, but I do go back to watch a few of them. Also note that while fast forwarding (with TiVo), I am actually watching all of the ads, but at high speed.
Advertisers and hardware companies should be aware of the potential unintended consequences of forcing people to watch advertising. My observation is that they would lose the marginal viewer who is sort of i
No good will come from this (Score:2)
Re:No good will come from this (Score:2)
Measuring repeated ads? (Score:2)
hopeful (Score:4, Insightful)
There should be some sort of button labeled "I'm a 20-something male living alone, switch to inappropriate-for-family commercials now." on every remote.
Re:hopeful (Score:2, Funny)
Re:hopeful (Score:2)
Advert free service... (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheers,
Re:Advert free service... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Advert free service... (Score:2)
Whats really going on (Score:5, Informative)
And here is this month's TV bill (Score:5, Funny)
According to our PVR statistics, this month you skipped 4.6 hours of televised advertising. This falls well above the nuisance threshold of 0.5 hours, and deprives our advertising customers of significant value. Accordingly, we feel compelled to refund $14.53 to them for your share of unviewed advertising. We are passing this cost along to you, along with handling, billing, and maintenance fees for a total of $17.00, which will be included in your next cable/satellite bill.
Thank you very much,
Your TV distribution executive
Built Ford Enough! (Score:2)
Will this tell them Taylor Hicks' 15 minutes are up?
"individual" (Score:2)
Now there is another salvo in the arms race for our attention... companies rating how compliant we are to listening to their messaging. Individualized trackable ads. hmmmm. If you are a good boy and sit quietly and listen to the ads, maybe we'll give you a nice discount on the service we got you to think you need.
One sided discussion (Score:2)
Lost in the discussion are the responsibility of the two other providers in the content merry go round: The content producer and the advertiser. If the content providers are more reasonable about the type and quantity of ads they include, people might be less inclined to skip commercials. A single 30 second spot isn't worth reaching for the remote, but four minutes is more than enough to justify the reach. And if commercials were a bit more entertaining, AND NOT LIKE THOSE HORRIBLE OXY-CLEAN COMMERCIALS
As usual, most advertisers don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
It's funny that the bulk of people are always behind the curve. Media conglomerates have gone so far as to try to get PVRs legislated out of existence so people can't conveniently skip commercials. Now, they're trying to figure out which commercials get skipped, and hopefully it will lead to the truth: people do not watch commercials that are not interesting unless they are intoxicated. Well, or if they've already been lulled into a passive, receptive alpha state by their 60Hz idiot box. Hopefully we'll get away from 60Hz someday (even a lot of LCDs refresh at 60Hz, although I sincerely doubt it can have the same result as the TV; primary output is at a higher frequency than that.)
If they read the figures correctly, I am sure that it will tell them that if commercials are entertaining and engaging, and minimally patronizing and annoying, then people will be more likely to watch them. Hopefully they will respond accordingly.
Flawed from top to bottom. (Score:2)
Tivo is great and this should help make ads better. Advertisers c
Skipping (Score:2)
But if I TiVo it, there's at least a chance I'll see some of the ads.
Missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine you're trying to decide between two ad agencies. One shows you some statistics from these type of surveys, indicating indirectly that their ads are failry succesful. The other shows you hard numbers indicating that their ads are watched through to the end twice as often as their competitor's. That's a pretty compelling argument.
Ad agencies can also use this data to determine which of their campaigns, art directors, or copywriters are more succesful. It's like going from profiling your app using a stopwatch to using a real profiling tool that gives you millisecond timings for individual functions. Your data are much more granular and much more direct, allowing you to really optimize your approach.
Honestly, as long as they keep the personal information out of this, I see it as a good thing. There are certain commercials that I'm sure everyone hates, and the faster those can be identified by ad agencies and their clients, the faster they get off the air and away from my eyeballs.
Hey Hollywood, count this! (Score:5, Insightful)
I quit watching cable TV and going to movie theaters since 2000.
You want to know why?
TOO MUCH ADVERTISING!
I am sick of more time delegated to ads and less to programs. I am sick of product placement in shows and movies. I am sick of banner ads consuming the margins of my TV. I am sick of "infomercials". I am sick of movie/show commercials disguised as "interviews". I am sick of sitting through twenty minutes of ads in a theater waiting for the movie I paid $10 to see. I am sick of paying $$$ for cable TV with more and more ads and less content as the valuable channels are pushed into upper tiers to draw more green from my wallet.
I am not alone and this is the group that the TiVo survey will miss. I don't sub to TiVo because it offers nothing of value to me. I threw my cable TV and movies out of my house and I discovered a real world out there that reflects nothing like what Hollywood wants me to see.
Get off the ad revenue bandwagon that floats your boat, and you will stop losing customers. It's that simple.
Tivo and Advertisements... (Score:4, Interesting)
I was just reading an article about advertisers getting all bent out of shape because folks are skipping ads like crazy on their TiVo/DVR. Well, duh! They're skipping the commercials because they've gotten so annoyingly predominant -- it's nearly to the point where it feels that you're watching more commercials than scheduled program.
And you may be wondering what this is really about. Well, I just wanted to publish what I thought of as the next logical step in the DVR revolution. Advertisers will like it, and it wouldn't be that hard for the DVR people to code it up:
Abstract:
A method of delivering advertisements to a viewer of DVR-recorded media while the viewer is fast-forwarding or fast-rewinding through advertisements or the main video program.
Claim:
1) a system for temporarily reducing the viewing size of video playback during a fast-forward or fast-rewind viewing of a pre-recorded or cached video program or advertisement
2) a method of receiving encoded information within an advertisement, or main video program
3) a method of decoding the received information into:
3a) textual information, to be displayed to the viewer,
3b) linkage information, to be displayed as a shortcut, or hyperlink, in order to view more information,
3c) or, additional information such as (but not limited to) short musical phrases or small graphical icons
4) a system for overlaying text and graphics as received into the screen space vacated by claim 1.
Technical:
Advertisers and television execs are increasingly frustrated by the ability of a viewer to skip over their ads, reducing the take rate for said services. This patent would allow an advertiser to make sure that their message was still being seen by a "tivo-ised" audience, by simultaneously reducing the screen real-estate available to video playback during fast-forward, or fast-reverse; then displaying textual and graphical information into the newly-created blank space.
This would allow targeted advertisements within a broadcast program to appear while a user is fast-forwarding or fast-rewinding through the program (as they might in order to catch-up to where they had left off in a previous viewing). This would also allow an alternate method of viewing the intra-program advertisements during the so-called "ad-skip" fast-forward.
Well, I tried to draft it up like a patent. And now it's published. Really, it's the next logical step, and hopefully advertisers will come flocking to my door wanting to use my invention. And I'll be rich! Muahahah!
Chan Up/Down (Score:2)
Re:Poor Man's TiVo (Score:2)
Re:How are they going to pull this off? (Score:2)
I recorded "Swimming Pool" last week and I guess Tivo now knows that I only recorded it just to look at Ludivine Sagnier a lot. Many times.
Re:Fine (Score:3, Insightful)
How can children learn to pay attention to what's important with the constant barrage of shifting images and colors shouting at them from the n00b-tube?
Kids these days need some kind of a mandatory curricular training to teach them to concentrate. Perhaps a summer camp of sorts?