Technology For Tuition

There is widespread distaste of the use of DVRs among broadcasting networks. You’d think they’d appreciate that people can record the shows they broadcast and watch them in their own time, but the distaste is for one reason: Consumers can now skip the commercials. Ted Harbert, NBC’s chairman summed it up in a presentation to advertisers by saying, “This is an insult to our joint investment in programming, and I’m against it.”

Commercials have been around for nearly as long as television has. Unlike radio, where the debate was whether or not the radio waves should be privately or commercially funded, the only debate around television was what the best way to generate advertising revenue was. Soon enough, the commercial was born and became a mainstay in television. It soon became the top medium for advertising and is still that way today (Pavlik, 346). In fact, 59.91% of advertising dollars spent are spent on advertising in Cable TV, Network TV, and Local TV. An additional 4.84% is spent in Hispanic and Syndicated TV. With figures like these, it’s easy to see why network broadcasters wouldn’t like the idea of consumers being able to skip one of the main sources of their revenue.

The advertisers are paying to advertise to us, the consumers, and they’re paying quite a bit. With that, we become the products the network broadcasters are offering them. However, with the advent of DVRs, if more and more people can just skip the commercials, it may get to the point where advertisers won’t want to waste their money to advertise somewhere where their advertisement is just going to be skipped. They may prefer to advertise somewhere where consumers can’t avoid seeing their advertisement, such as an ad before or during a Hulu video, the ones that are unable to be skipped if the consumer wants to see the show, or somewhere similar.

However, I think that the amount of people without DVR is still significant enough that there are still numerous people who can’t just skip the commercials. Advertisers know this and as a result, I don’t think that as of right now, DVR is cutting significantly into revenue brought in by advertising money. But if DVR usage continues to increase at a considerable rate, it might in the future. But, by then, technology might advance and software might change to make DVR usage more like Hulu, where you can’t watch the entire show without seeing a few commercials. It’s hard to tell if it could cut into the revenue in the future simply because of how rapidly technology changes.

Sources:

Pavlik, John. Converging Media. 3rd Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. eBook.