Keep Your Hands Off My Fast Forward Button

In April I posted at RealTechNews about a development by Philips Electronics ... a device that would prevent viewers from changing the channel or skipping forward if a commercial was on. That was bad enough, as the handwriting was on the wall ... but Mike Shaw, ABC president of advertising sales, has gone public with what he wants: "I would love it if the MSOs, during the deployment of the new DVRs they're putting out there, would disable the fast-forward [button]."

MSO means multi-system operator, which translates to an operator of multiple cable systems, such as Comcast. Shaw went on to say,

"People can understand in order to have convenience and on-demand (options), that you can't skip commercials." Source: MediaDailyNews

Eh?

When's the last time I watched live TV? Hmmm ... so long that I can't remember. Usually, if I want to watch something that's on, I'll wait until I'm sure enough time has passed so I can skip the commercials. Yes, it's a lot easier than the VCR, but even with a VCR I wasn't watching commercials. It's just that now, I rarely watch live TV.

Shaw went on to say that the purchase of a DVR was not driven solely for the ability to skip commercials. And he's right. The convenience is much of it. But that doesn't mean I want to watch commercials. Heck, maybe they need a device to make sure I can't get up and go to the kitchen during a commercial, too.

Of course, there are also the new 5-second ads, that try to take advantage of the Tivo's feature that backs up slightly when you're doing fast-forwarding (to prevent overshoot). That does nothing for those people who have hacked their Tivos to do a 30-second skip, though.

I'm going to watch the World Cup tomorrow, and that'll be live. And the commercials will be on, but I'll probably surf the web or something during them. Listen, I still watch commercials, sort of. As I skip them, if I see one I really like, I actually back it up and look at it. To me, the idea is not to force the viewer to watch, but to create commercials that are clever enough to make you want to watch.