Friday
Catching up
The spread of personal video recorders means that an increasing amount of television programes are time-shifted when they're watched: that is, they're recorded and watched later, not during the broadcast.
I know that we watch a great deal of our television this way, especially late-night movies that we record. One of the great advantages of this is that you can quickly skip past adverts. We're now pretty slick at ramping up the speed and dropping it back at just the right moment so that we whizz through commercial breaks in mere seconds.
Advertisers know this, however, and they want their ad-time back. Here in the UK, one network is planning "PVR-resistant" ads. These will be long shots of single frames, so that even if you're skimming through at high speed you'll get a clear image of the product or phone number or website that the ad is promoting.
I hate ads as much as anybody. It is hard to fault networks and advertisers trying to regain our attention, though, since they are paying for the shows. Maybe I'll just watch more non-commercial BBC channels.
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I know that we watch a great deal of our television this way, especially late-night movies that we record. One of the great advantages of this is that you can quickly skip past adverts. We're now pretty slick at ramping up the speed and dropping it back at just the right moment so that we whizz through commercial breaks in mere seconds.
Advertisers know this, however, and they want their ad-time back. Here in the UK, one network is planning "PVR-resistant" ads. These will be long shots of single frames, so that even if you're skimming through at high speed you'll get a clear image of the product or phone number or website that the ad is promoting.
I hate ads as much as anybody. It is hard to fault networks and advertisers trying to regain our attention, though, since they are paying for the shows. Maybe I'll just watch more non-commercial BBC channels.
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