May 9th, 2007
Cox to Test Video-on-Demand with Ad-Skipping Disabled
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
I shuddered when I read this. Honestly. After being spoiled by past PVRs as well as my current Tivo, commercial skipping is a necessity nowadays. We almost never watch anything live, or at least delay it until the point where “ok, we can start watching now; it’s late enough so we can skip all the commercials”. 
You may recall I wrote earlier about Philips and their ad-skipping technology. Well, Cox Communications has signed a deal with ESPN and ABC for a video-on-demand (VOD) service. Part of the deal, though, involved making sure people couldn’t skip ads … and while this only affects VOD for now … and it’s only a test … it’s quite possibly a sign of things to come.
The goal with the new program is to increase ad revenue, which broadcasters have been crying foul over since the dawn of PVRs like TiVo. ABC, ESPN and parent company Walt Disney Co. handed Cox the rules to abide by if Cox wanted to have access to hit programs. But Cox isn’t showing any concern, and in fact welcomes the restriction.
Reports say that Cox and Disney are still ironing out the details on what kind of ads will play, for how long and how often during a program. None of the above companies mentioned whether or not users will still be able to switch channels when a commercial pops up. Source: DailyTech
We Say: Yes, yes, same “feature” possibly as the Philips tech … no channel changing during ads. Although that’s still a rumor, right. Hang on to your old PVRs, people, the newer, better ones might just tick you off in the future, if this becomes de rigeur.
Freud says:
thank heavens for picture in picture and multi-feed inputs.
May 10th, 2007 at 1:23 am
上海翻译公司 says:
This is good
May 10th, 2007 at 5:50 am
Dave says:
Bad idea. The few people who actually do skip the ads (fewer than you’d think) are not very receptive anyway and will simply turn the thing off.
More likely winner is to start putting the commercial as part of the show. NBC did this well with Vegas and Fox is way ahead of the game with “24″.
May 10th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Lewis says:
There is nothing on TV worthy of watching an ad. Read a book, rent a dvd, play a game, cruise the net.
May 11th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
bryan says:
what box you ahve won’t matter, it’s done on the software side of things, so holding on to your old box won’t get you around this, unfortunaly advertising is a neccisary evil, and eod does cost money
May 14th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Kevin K. says:
Even on live TV, I never watch the ads. That’s what the mute button is for. All you have to do is stare blankly until the show comes back on and turn the sound back up.
Recorded shows have the ads skipped for sure but removing the ability to skip them would end up with one of two choices. Watch TV as we’ve done from the early days (thankfully we have mute buttons) or not watch at all. Either way, the “ad revenue” they think they are getting still won’t exist in my household.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:13 am