"Scooby Doo where are you?"

My three and a half year old is the first of a totally TiVo generation. If we run out of TiVo’d Scooby Doos and have to watch “live” TV it’s a nightmare. “Daddy, the telly is broken, I can’t fast forward through the commercials!! Aaaaaaaaah! Where's Scooby?” There is no way I can explain to her the concept that we HAVE TO sit through this interruption to her show. Tantrums follow. Three and a half year olds know when they are being marketed at rather than having their attention earned by brands.

So I turned to the media diva for some more robust stats on the TiVo DVR trend. Devon O'Donnell duly forwarded this report to Digital Hive from Tobi Elkin, Executive Editor of MediaPost.

“A new study by consulting firm Accenture projects that nearly 10 percent of all TV commercials in the United States will be skipped by 2009, or $6 billion worth of ads. Why? Digital video recorders. TiVo. Cable company DVRs. That's why.

The study finds that nearly 40 percent of US homes will have DVRs by 2009. Currently, about 8 percent of homes have DVRs with 2 percent of all ads skipped.

The Accenture report estimates that CPMs (cost-per-thousand) will increase at a compound annual rate of 3 percent through 2010.

Beyond DVRs, a new survey conducted by market researcher BIGresearch finds that media usage is growing fastest among 18- to 24-year-olds. It's really no surprise, is it? Young people are early adopters of new technology and new media, including wireless video via mobile phones and portable devices, portable game players, Internet video, and MP3 players.

BIGresearch's "Simultaneous Media Survey" surveyed more than 14,000 consumers and examined the impact of the Internet, picture phones, instant messaging, blogging, cell phones, MP3 players, satellite radio, text messaging, TiVo/Replay TV, and Web radio.

"The 18- to 24-year-olds are digital nomads who have adopted new media more readily than any other age group," says Joe Pilotta, BIGresearch's vice president of research. "Not only do they use new media more, they are influenced by it much more than any other age group when it comes to making purchase decisions."

The study found that 17.2 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds say that Internet media influences their purchases of apparel and 13.2 percent say it affects their car and truck purchases. In addition, 20.7 percent of respondents say e-mail influences their purchase of consumer electronics products, 6.2 percent say instant messaging affects dining out decisions, and 3.1 percent say blogging influences consideration on car and truck purchases.

Other notable findings: 29.6 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds say they use or access blogs; 79.8 percent use instant messaging; 45.3 percent enjoy MP3 devices and iPods; 12.2 percent enjoy satellite radio; 30.6 use picture phones; 58.3 percent employ text messaging; 17 percent use TiVo or ReplayTV; and 44.4 percent access Web radio services.”

As always Devon has her own interpretation of events, and she speaks as a Digital nomad herself (“the ones who will rip this market to shreds in the years to come”). Picking up on her earlier on-line ad unit discussion, Devon debates the value of trying to ape interruption TV ads online, however many interactive bells and whistles you can add. After all, TV ads are themselves increasingly challenged to

“become part of the programming or at least to be targeted in such as way that the audience doesn’t view them as an annoyance but as part of the overall feel of the program. Online, my biggest annoyances are of course pop ups. Despite the fact that they seem to annoy every internet user, they also yield the highest results when it comes to acquisition based advertising. However, thanks to the pop-up blocker, I predict pops will be down to a slow trickle if not non-existent, by January 1, 2006. So thinking in that respect, I say get me with a great ad, not something that will distract or annoy me. If I want to buy it, I will. Great offers that entice me, or are clever and those ads that create a buzz are what gets me. ‘Wow, that is a really cool ad, have you seen it.’”

So one way or another we will have to work harder and harder to earn the attention of three and half year olds and above. Relevance is one way. Sheer entertainment value another. Simply interrupting them not even a possibility.

Comments

[Edward Drewery]

It's been a few months and Tivo has lost their contract with DTV, moved to a contract based service like cell phones, and finished a pilot test for the popup ads. I totally agree with you Simon - they *should not* even consider being the first on the block to do it given their waning market share, but they are. Hopefully the comcast boxes won't go to it, or cable cards will become more readily available (and two way) so that the homegrown pc DVR market can improve!

The high tech crowd is already moving beyond the offered solutions in favour of homebuilt machines that can not only skip commercials (in some cases measuring the black fade) but also burn directly to dvd or transfer to the ipod video and the like.

It's an alkward back and forth - people skip commercials on dvr so they ad (ok bad pun) in commercial skip popups. People burn tv shows and movies to dvd so they add encryption. People record HD and now they add the broadcast flag expire tag to the content.

If they just make me want to watch the commercials like the BMW films campaign and I won't skip them :)

It's a shame really, as i still find the Tivo UI the most feature rich and easiest to navigate, that they are ultimately going to lose the war and fade away.

[Simon Pearce]

Edward, i have heard a great deal of chatter on the web about the impending horror of "pop up" ads on Tivos. Here is why it won't stick: Tivo is not the only show in town. If they persist in this then people will switch to other VODs that don't force pop-ups in the place of old fashioned 30-second spots. I ain't fast forwarding that ad to have it replaced with a different ad. Healthy VOD competition will ensure i don't have to (my comcast vod box does not force popups on me!!)

[Jeff Flemings]

I had my own TiVo moment last evening while watching a new episode of Six Feet Under live. I assumed that (as usual) I was watching the show on VOD instead of live, and I tried to fast forward over the opening credits. Awkward.

[Edward Drewery]

Tivo is currently readying their popup advertising mechanism. When a user fast forwards or rewinds to skip commercials - a screen approximately 2/3 of the television set comes to the foreground - semi transparent - with an image of whatever still ad is chosen. Obviously Tivo users aren't happy with this but to obtain buy in from industry executives I can't imagine it won't happen.