Fear and Laziness Reasons TiVo Will Not Kill TV Advertising Model

Jim Meskauskas writes a thoughtful piece on MediaPost countering the irrational fear among the ad community of TiVo-like technology's ability to skip ads. The point he drives home is that most people are scared of technology and too lazy to take the effort to put PVR technology to use. He likens it to the scare advertisers experienced when the VCR was introduced. Well, the VCR is still flashing 12:00 and is not being used to record TV shows and skip the ads as was originally foreseen. He claims there is too much importance being placed on the early adopters of PVR technology.

"Do studies show that current PVR households skip vast quantities of ads? Sure. Are current PVR households actual vectors of 'time shifting' within the television-watching time-space continuum? Certainly. Are PVR households representative of the rest of the human race and indicative of a trend? Highly unlikely. Saying that current PVR households are ad skipping time-shifters and they set the pace for the rest of the world is like saying that astronomers who have telescopes in their house do more star-gazing and so therefore star-gazing is going to be the next big thing."

Middle America is where its at when it comes to determining what's really going on and most of middle America has not even heard of TiVo. Advertisers can breath a sigh of relief for the time being and go back to placing their :30's.

Fox Pokes Fun at CNN, Begs Connie Chung to Return

A FOX owned billboard across from CNN center tells Connie Chung that CNN needs her back as her replacement, Paula Zahn is doing even worse than Connie did. Furthering the pun, FOX news spokeswoman Irena Briganti said, "We thought this would lift the morale and bring a few smiles to the faces of the CNN staffers in Atlanta."

CNN, of course, did not comment.

Coke Debuts Long Form Ad on TiVo

Coke has launched its first long form advertainment program on TiVo's Sound Check, and area filled with video and music content. This is the first of what is sure to be many more advertisements that attempt to be entertaining - so much so that they are sought out by viewers as if they were actual programs.

The video features Sting, Mary J. Blige, Ashanti (Yum! Oh, sorry) and Leona Ness in interviews, recording sessions and performances.