ABC Announces Life Support for the Ad: Fast-Forward-Disabled Video-on-Demand

Ads are dying. The TiVo and other DVRs have made the death of the standard commercial inevitable, given enough time. In fact, over a year and a half ago, I wrote that Mike Shaw, ABC president of advertising sales said, "I would love it if the MSOs (basically, a company like Comcast), during the deployment of the new DVRs they're putting out there, would disable the fast-forward [button]."

ABC's figured out how to do that, while keeping affiliates happy, and masking it as a win for consumers.

Monday ABC announced a service that will allow consumers to get free Video-on-Demand (VOD) but only of ABC network shows, and with fast-forwarding disabled. So, you'll have to watch ads, although ABC has said "the number of commercials in the VOD episodes is still being determined, but will be less than the number featured during a live broadcast." The press release said:

Under the new agreement, ABC will provide network programs through a local advertising- supported video-on-demand service in both owned and non-owned station markets to cable, DBS, telco and land-line operators who agree to disable the "fast-forwarding" capability.

To make affiliates - who have undoubtedly not forgotten how ABC made a deal with Apple and iTunes without asking their permission - happy, "each broadcast affiliate will have the opportunity to insert one locally-sold, 30-second commercial spot within each half-hour of programming in those markets where ABC VOD is available."

Why does ABC think consumers will go for this? Well, for the past several months, ABC and Cox Communications have been participating in a free VOD trial in Orange County, CA, using this same system. According to the press release:

Initial research conducted by Knowledge Networks/Statistical Research in Cox's Orange County service area regarding this trial shows users of fast-forwarding disabled VOD overwhelmingly(93%) find the advertising acceptable in exchange for gaining free access to their favorite shows.

So my only problem with this is that these are just network shows. If I want to watch them "on demand," I just record them on my DVR and watch them "on demand." Ah, yes, there is the possibility that since it's a network show, and only shown once, there might be a conflict - more than two shows I need to record at once. Yes, that is a possibility, and happens very infrequently, since except for network programming everything else I watch is shown multiple times a day / week / month. So why would I want to suffer through commercials?

ABC, specifically Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC television group, believes this is the solution to the TiVo, saying,

"You don’t need TiVo if you have fast-forward-disabled video on demand. It gives you the same opportunity to catch up to your favorite shows."

Sure, maybe if it was VOD for every channel, every show. But we're talking ABC shows only. And I like being able to watch a 30 minute show in 22 minutes. I like being able to back up if I miss something, then fast-forward again to get to the right place.

But then we have to hear from Ray Cole, president of Citadel Communications, who said,

"As network and affiliates, we both have an interest in slowing down the explosive growth of DVRs. This is about combating DVRs. As we developed this at every stage, there was an agreement that however we put this together, disabling the fast-forward function was key."

Whoa, now that's a lot more blatant. So it's all about stopping the DVR? Remind you of anything? To me, it reminds me of how hard record labels tried with DRM, ending up with schemes that produced such bad PR they eventually gave up on it (more or less). ABC needs to move out of the ad-supported past and into the future - or even the now.