Personal Television Recorders To Hit Shops From October
The date for the end of TV advertising as we know it has been set, as BSkyB has officially announced that its TiVo personal television recorders (PTR) and service will be available in the UK from October. Ever since the broadcasters announced they would be introducing this new technology into the country earlier in the year (see BSkyB To Bring Personal TV Viewing To The UK) the advertising community has been wondering where TV advertising will go in a world where prime time shows are accessed at viewer convenience and those all-important ad breaks can be fast-forwarded without any regard for either creatives’ talent or brand’s money. If the imminent launch is successful, this question will soon have to be answered.
TiVo’s technology, which will be available in high street electrical outlets such as Dixon’s and Curry’s for £399 upwards, contains a hard disk which can record up to 40 hours of programming, and includes a facility to automatically record every episode of a favourite series or soap, if required. More than just a fancy video recorder, the box can also ‘learn’ the viewing preferences and recording habits of its owner, enabling it to suggest or record programmes it thinks they would like.
The most significant feature for advertisers, however, is the viewer control it offers on live programmes. Live television can be paused, rewind, or scariest of all fast forwarded, should the viewer be interrupted, miss a bit or want to get through the boring bit (say, the ad break…) as fast as possible. For this reason, television advertising sales negotiations look set to become more complicated, if nothing else.
A recent sweetener for the advertising community came in the form of reassurances from TiVo that they will give advertisers 30-minute blocks of promotional programming time inserted into the hard drive of the devices (see Personal Video Recorders To Offer Tool For Advertisers). The phrase “You can bring a horse to water…” springs to mind, however, as viewers will still be able to fast forward through this advertising if they wish.
At its launch it is thought that the TiVo device will work in “almost all” UK homes, including analogue and digital terrestrial, digital satellite and analogue cable services, with compatibility for digital cable expected soon.
It will obviously take some time before enough TiVo units are sold to make a dent in the value of television advertising slots. But ignoring new technology could come at a cost. ITV has consistently failed to come to an arrangement with Sky over carriage of its channel on Sky’s digital platform, and, as the popularity of digital platforms increases, both recent viewing figures for ITV in digital homes (see ITV Slips While Non-Terrestrials Improve In Digital Television Homes) and subsequent problems at Granada over falling ad revenues (see Granada Predicts Slowdown In Ad Revenue, Announces Completion Of United Deal) bear testament to the difficulties caused by this. Once again, in TiVo’s case, change seems inevitable, and creative solutions will have to be found to survive it.
BSkyB: 020 7705 3000