Television is the 800-pound gorilla in the high-tech future. Its relationship to the Internet has been extremely uncomfortable to both production houses and advertisers.
Now Grant Robertson reports in today’s GlobeandMail.com that not only does the TiVo personal video recorder monitor who watches what (TiVo gathers data from 20,000 randomly selected machines feeds it anonymously to its headquarters), but it also tracks how many people fast-forward through the ads.
Another thing Grant Robertson reported is a mysterious phenomenon in which an ad created by Canadian toy maker Spin Master Ltd. turned out to be impossible to race through with the fast-forward button.
TV networks must be buzzing this morning over that news.
First, the TiVo viewership collection is a process that might just be better than Nielsen Ratings does it — it can be shipped directly from the TiVo box to the cable company, which could give the cable company a new kind of leverage with content providers (“Your show isn’t working here”). They could, in short, know even sooner than the TiVo people what precisely their own customers are watching on their specific coverage area. And in marketing, precision is all important.
TiVo’s method of collecting viewing statistics is also curious — TiVo will allow you to withdraw from the survey, but you have to ask for that first. That’s called a negative option, something many people hate. In 1995, Canadian cable companies dropped the negative-option way they were adding specialty channels after a consumer revolt against the practice in which subscribers had little control over what they were offered and what they were charged unless they opted out.
Next, it won’t be long until someone figures out what it is that makes some ads skip-proof, and the technology will be used by everyone. This would remove a major stumbling block in the advertising game. If we all go back to advertising-supported viewing, advertisers would be more comfortable paying the rates they’re asked, and production studios could be ensured of better financing.
Moreover, a technology that makes ads skip-proof suggests that perhaps other technology could be similarly embedded into the signal stream to foil video piracy.
This is the kind of stuff that shakes an industry. And it will affect your viewing habits too.
