/ Cory Doctorow / 10:29 pm Mon Nov 2, 2009

TV admits it was wrong about PVRs

Tim from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "Digital Video Recorders, once considered a mortal threat by the entertainment industry, have now become its new best friend. It's just the latest example of how the industry's constant warnings of the dangers of "piracy" frequently turn out to be baseless hysteria..."
A mystified NBC President Of Research called the situation "completely counterintuitive." But the reason behind the revenue isn't counterintuitive at all -- it's obvious: When consumers are granted the ability to watch television whenever and however they want, they watch more TV -- not less. That's a simple result which could only be "counterintuitive" to an industry that all too frequently treats its own best customers like criminals.

It's a cycle that by now has become sadly familiar: When the industry meets a new technology, it panics and fights it tooth-and-nail. Eventually, the industry loses this fight, often squashing innovation or arbitrarily singling out a few citizens for punishment along the way. Finally, the same technology ends up benefiting the same short-sighted industry -- but rather than learn their lesson, the same corporations are usually busy repeating the same cycle all over again with something else. It happened with the VCR, the audio cassette, and even the turntable.

DVR is TV's New BFF (Thanks, Tim!)
Previously:

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  3. an industry that all too frequently treats its own best customers like criminals.

    Look at who pays the bills and you’ll see that for commercial television viewers are not the customers, they are the product.

  4. I have VHS tapes that we only watch for the commercials.

    “Look at who pays the bills and you’ll see that for commercial television viewers are not the customers, they are the product.”… reminds me of this:

    It’s why many people sound like southpark, ATHF, and family guy sound boards.

  5. Forgive me for being thick, but I don’t own a PVR so I don’t know: how *do* networks make money off them? People watch more TV, sure, but I can’t imagine that they willingly sit through ads while doing it. As an advertiser, I certainly wouldn’t be willing to pay for the DVR audience.

    So we have a network executive telling us that PVRs make them money, but no explanation as to how. Anyone care to enlighten us?

    Is it just DVD sales? One thing is certain: the quality of television has increased significantly over the decade, to the point where people actually want to own the content they may have already seen for free.

    Might it be that the DVR, and maybe the competition for time and attention that the internet represents, has forced networks to improve the quality of their content? Higher quality = more revenue?

    1. Product placement for one. But much in the same way they hope you don’t leave the room for every commercial, they hope that you don’t fastforward through all of the commercials.

    2. There’s also been some initial research that shows people often can still recall the content in the ads they skipped, especially if they’ve seen the ad before (in potentially related news, the latest software upgrade for our DVR lowered its top FF speed)

      1. (in potentially related news, the latest software upgrade for our DVR lowered its top FF speed)

        that was an upgrade???

  6. I know if it weren’t for my DVR, I wouldn’t watch TV at all. I don’t watch much as it is, mainly Mythbusters and other Discovery/History channel shows, but I certainly am not going to structure my life around when a TV show is on. Seriously, how sad is that?

  7. I dunno, people who seize every opportunity to brag about how little TV they watch seem pretty sad to me.

  8. @syncrotic, Discussion #4
    You’re not more thick than the wide majority of all these industry CEO.
    Huh. Sorry, that actually might be insulting and that’s really not my intent.

    The industry don’t make money directly from PVRs. But these recording devices make watching television a more enjoyable experience. Therefore, their owner will tend to watch TV more which is exactly how the industry makes money.

    Think of a restaurant. They don’t make money from letting you use their bathroom. But it is quite convenient, and will probably help you to decide whether you come back there or not.

  9. I LIKE commercials when they’re well done. But like most other things, usually they are crap. Make better commercials and I’ll watch them.

  10. Well, that observation came too little, too late for me. Barriers placed in the way of efficiently time-shifting shows I wanted to watch over time, eroded my viewing and I don’t really watch TV programming anymore. I’ve got better things to spend my time on…

    Not gonna waste my time figuring out if HDTV time shifting will work, or bother with wasting money on the equipment for it, given all the built-in anti-piracy hysteria.

  11. This is also why we will be seeing many more product placements – hard to skip as they are embedded within the show itself.

    I made the mistake of tuning in on one of the Extreme Makeover shows on the weekend, and there was a big embedded ad for Ford. The sobbing family was getting a new Ford something or other.

  12. People fast forward through ads, which means 1) they don’t go out of the room while it happens, and 2) they look at the screen constantly through the entire adbreak in order to tell when to stop fast forwarding. So ads are now designed to look good when being fast forwarded. The market adapts. Interestingly, I notice that others in the room also tend to pay attention to the fast forwarding too, rather than do something else for a minute or so.

    In the days of realtime ads, people would turn away from the TV at that point, even leave the room and put the kettle on, knowing they had a few minutes to play with.

  13. Look t it this way — if I’m watching TV live and the commercials come on, I get up to go to the bathroom, or read a magazine, or otherwise tune out for a few minutes. If I’m watching on my DVR, I fast-forward through the commercials, but in order to know when to stop, I have to stare at the screen intently.

  14. You guys have to fast forward through commercials? What sub-standard PVR are you using that doesn’t integrate ComSkip?

    I don’t get this. Sure they make money off product placement but the majority of their money comes from commercials. If the PVR is recording, it is recording commercials too which might lead the machinery to think that the commercials are being watched, however if the viewed is skipping the commercials either by fast forward or more likely and more frequently via an automated commercial skipper that plays the show as if it never had commercials, then the commercial time purchasers aren’t getting the bang for their buck and will eventually pay less for that commercial air time.

    Perhaps right now is a gap where air time is still high in value because the numbers show people are watching though it doesn’t reflect the reality that people are skipping commercials and until this is properly reflected the TV industry is making bank until people buying commercials realize that they’re getting suckered.

  15. I also skip almost all the commercials. To the extent that I don’t really know what’s being advertised right now. As an Ad exec I’d think twice about paying for me to sit and watch.

    Agreed, the quality of TV has gone up. Colbert, The Daily Show, Mythbusters, Heroes, Galactica (first seasons anyway), Dexter – all good stuff. It feels like writers have become more creative. Even SNL is actually funny now.

  16. People who read this site probably use their DVRs to record shows and then go out and/or do other non-tv related things. Most Americans probably use their DVRs to record 1 or 2 shows while watching another, so perhaps the shows being recorded arent seeing increased viewers of the commercials, the one being watched “live” does. I think people will tend to watch their least liked show “live” in these instances, and without the DVR would have foregone this show in favor for the one they would have recorded, so ratings are increased (and so too are the people forced to watch commercials) for those shows that are least likely to be recorded (think reality TV and sports), so DVRs do increase overall viewership and network ad sales, just maybe not for the shows actually being recorded.

  17. So does anyone still make a stand alone DVR besides Tivo? I’m not RENTING a DVR from the cable company… My wife still uses her VCR for the soaps everyday. And when that dies, well I hope it’s not for a while.

  18. So what’s the status on the movie industry forcing DirecTV (and other providers) to delete PPV movies from DVRs after 24 hours? I *used* *to* PPV movies, when I could keep them as long as I wanted. But now that they “expire” (get deleted from my DVR), I PPV probably 5% of what I used to. And I DON’T go buy the DVDs in the store. I simply do without.

  19. I have a Philips PVR/DVD recorder/digital tuner that somehow slipped into the NA market a couple years ago. The remote recently went all wonky, but the unit itself is definitely OK-to-good.

    Odd observation: the 1984 Sony Trinitron it’s connected to behaves better, though. We need screens these days more than ever, tuners notsomuch. I will probably replace this remote, but will never get another tuner.

    After all, the internet is the place for media now, no matter what the MAFIAA does.

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