From Variety:
"Lost" is one of the most digitally recorded scripted TV series on the air, with about a third of the viewing time-delayed. That presents an economic puzzle for ABC working in an advertising environment that buys commercial time according to a live-plus-three-day calculation.
Advertisers are leery of buying time on shows that are heavily DVR'd, says Deana Myers, SNL Kagan senior analyst.
I tend to agree with the headline, but not necessarily with Deana Myers comment, at least as it pertains to Lost. Why? Because while Lost is heavily DVRd and gets more of a boost over its live plus same day DVR numbers with adults 18-49 when a full week's worth of DVR viewing is factored in, even on a LIVE or LIVE+SD basis, it's still one of the most popular shows among adults 18-49 (ignore last week, it was a clips show).
While I have little doubt that Lost's advertising revenue is impacted by DVR viewing, I have a lot of doubt that advertisers would shy away from the show just because of its DVR viewership. But, there are other shows that have high DVR viewing that don't have nearly as good number with live viewing or DVR viewing as LOST does, and I can see advertisers shying away from those more.
I think the real message here, quite independent of Lost though, is that more DVR viewers isn't necessarily a good thing for anything other than network press releases.
Both advertisers and networks will have to get with the program, realize that DVRs are here to stay and deal with it. Maybe they need to star looking at a process that will allow advertisers to insert banners into DVRs while we fast forward through the commercials. I’m sure Google would happy to add that their takeover of all things advertising.
I wonder if the people who make DVRs can place a “banner” on top of everything recorded for which they sell ad space.
For instance, on some “captive portals” at wireless hotspots, you can place a banner on top of every Web page. It’s not actually ON the Web page itself, it’s on top of the Web page on your monitor, placed there by software in the wireless portal. Then you sell the space for ads to local advertisers, kick back some of the money to the hotspot so they can advertise “free WiFi” to increase traffic to their restaurant or whatever.
I can see the DVR people working up something like that, as well as sites like Hulu or even the cable channels. The idea is to present an ad you can’t ignore because it’s always there and you can’t get rid of it. As long as it doesn’t totally wreck the viewing experience, which is not easy, it could work.
At one point, back when it was a paid browser, Opera had a free ad banner version that put an ad up in the corner of the screen. But some smart programmer came up with a plugin that would overlay the ad with some other image. You really can’t do this sort of thing in software, it has to be done in the section of the software the user can’t get at or in “hardware”. I put “hardware” in quotes because most network “hardware” today is really an appliance running Linux or some proprietary software.
The only other option is truly embedded advertising in the show, like the Chuck Subway bit. For another hypothetical example, when John and Derek are loading their Dodge Ram with weapons on TSCC, they actually talk about the Dodge Ram having all this space for gear. It’s ridiculous, but eventually, as long as broadcast media relies on advertising to finance itself, that’s where they’re going.
@Jimmy:
They are working on this already: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/media/23adco.html?ref=technology
Thing is, I don’t know if it’ll do much good, as the article doesn’t specify if the advertising goes to both TiVo/Generic DVR company and the networks, or just to the DVR company.
More importantly, though, is whether people will accept this new intrusion. After all, people pay monthly for TiVo service, so why should they get advertising from TiVo on top of it? I think it’ll end up being another form of advertising that people will tolerably ignore, if pay attention to at all.
Ah, Lost is going into its last season next year anyway, so the show itself won’t be affected by this, but I guess this will play into future serial mystery/drama series that ABC will pursue to replace Lost.
Or maybe the greedy industry would settle for a little less, in the knowledge it would still be more than most people get.
Richard Steven Hack says:
“The idea is to present an ad you can’t ignore because it’s always there and you can’t get rid of it.”
Duly noted.