Gdrlv

Turner CEO Calls TiVo "Stealing"

What a buffoon...and that's from someone who doesn't even have a TiVo. I had no idea that I had a "contract" with any network to watch commercials. His best line - "I guess there's a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom."

clemente

I've never cared for Jamie Kellner, but I never knew he was such an idiot!

I have a contract with the network to watch commercials?
They're going to tolerate me going to the bathroom every once in a while?

My favorite part: Oh my lord!
A device that was created for the sole purpose of skipping commercials, who would create such an evil device! Wait, my VCR allows me to skip those commercials too......I'm stealing too!

Finally, proof that network execs have very tinny brains that they seldom use.

Goat3001

Pac-Rat

It doesn't surprise me. Hollywood, advertisers and tv executives are pushing hard to eliminate things like TiVo, VCR's and anything that allows you to record tv broadcasts. Direct TV and Dish recently came out in support of scrambling digital broadcasts to prevent recording. (FYI- Direct TV, and DISH have been macrovision capable for at least 5 years now.) I'm actually glad when things like this article come out. Hopefully people will begin to take the possibility more seriously.
For those that care visit :http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020405_eff_bpdg_alert.html and http://www.digitalconsumer.org

Gdrlv, I apologize if it seems like I'm on your thread.

Static Cling

It's kind of a long article, so let me simplify it for everyone.

"Hi, I'm Jamie Kellner. I want to make television more convenient for everyone, and I want to get paid for it. Right now, PVRs are making television more convenient for everyone. This is good... except I'm not getting paid for it. This is bad. I encourage innovation... but only if it's innovation that results in me getting paid. In a perfect world, I would be able to charge people who made television convenient for themselves without actually doing anything on my end, except collecting money.

Oh, and if you're going to go to the bathroom, be sure to do it during the show. That way, you won't miss any advertising."

Gdrlv

Not at all, Pac-Rat. That's good information, actually. Thanks.

Stats

So ... how does free television survive without people watching the ads?

I have to think that P&G, Anheuser Busch and other huge advertisers are closely watching the PVR sales rate. J6P is too much of an idiot to time shift on a VCR but the PVR does it for him. At some point they'll do some research to see if their TV $$$ is well spent. If that research shows that TV ads are ineffective, then ... well, you know.

Not that I totally agree with everything Turner says, but I see where he's coming from. You don't get to own 10% of New Mexico by being an idiot.

das Monkey

Come on, people. Be serious. The guy has a point, and we've know this would be an issue since the creation of the PVR. I don't agree that it's "stealing" but while television would be a "right" in a perfect world, it's not that way in our reality. Without advertisers, who the heck is supposed to pay for these shows?

With VHS, I had the technology to record everything and skip all the commercials, but I didn't ... because that's crazy (sorry, Princess ) But with PVRs, I can avoid all commercials all the time if I want. It's just too damn_easy. Even the morons who can't set the clock on their VCR (the people ad execs are targeting to begin with) can figure out how to skip commercials with a PVR.

No, it's not "stealing." But the technology is forcing the industry to adapt. There's no way it can continue along the current path. And it has little to do with networks. It's the ad agencies. They're not going to be willing to buy ad time as more and more people can ignore their commercials. Look at what happened to the Internet. Once people got used to ignoring all those damn_ads, companies started paying more for click-throughs and less for displays, and in many cases, the ad revenue could no longer support the product. The same is a virtual certainty for network television.

I expect a combination of many things to start happening, and we may take a step back to the days when more shows were sponsored by a single company/product. It's a little annoying, but in part, that's what Alias has done with the not-so-subtle product placement and a completely sponsored premiere episode sans commercials. A friend of mine believes that in 10 years, network television will consist of the local news and public access shows. He has a point.

Like all things, however, you can only fight the technology for so long. Oil companies will fight against electric cars ... but they will lose. The RIAA will fight against file sharing ... but they will lose ... hell, those dumbasses already lost when they sank Napster. And networks will fight digital technology as well ... but they will lose. Those who embrace the technology and modify their business strategies to utilize the benefits will end up on top. That's why a company like IBM is still standing, while so many others have crumbled.

Sure, I'd love to watch TV for free with no advertising ever, but it's not an inate right, and network execs are not idiots for being scared sh|tless of the future.

das

nevermind

And every time they broadcast complete CRAP to the masses, you're stealing my time. We're even.

Jackass.

calhoun07

Wait a minute...people have been stealing from the networks for YEARS!!!! Every time people switch to see what else is on during commercial breaks to avoid commercials all together!!!! Start charging everybody for the hourly use of their remote control!! And for poorer people who have their kids turn the channels for them-charge them for their kids like you would charge for HBO! It makes sense to lay a larger bill on people if they flat out refuse to watch crappy commercials.

Or....Ted Turner and the sort could just get over it. And me thinks that he could get over it real quick if he got some finacial kick backs from TiVo.

Giantrobo

I'll bet this man has a DIVX player at his pad......

Geofferson

huzefa

His argument is total BS. Most people are watching TV live and there's no way to skip forward 30 seconds on a live broadcast. Atleast 80% of the time this is the case, so there's no 'stealing'. What a ****ing moron.

As much as we'd like to think it, there aren't that many people who tape and record shows. I know I use Tivo only for skipping back to parts of the show I didn't hear properly or pausing 'cuz of the telephone.

mikehunt

fast forward the commercial, or ignore it. What's the difference?

Scheherazade

So everytime I turn the channel during commercials I'm stealing? I'd like to see them prosecute me for it!

~Scheherazade

kevin75

NitroJMS

Kellner's more an accountant than an entertainer. AOL brought him in to cut the fat at Turner Networks (most notably WCW Wrestling). He cares more about the bottom line than potential growth of his networks or even if people like the garbage that's on TNT, TBS and the sister networks nowadays.

Groucho

This attitude that just because some is ad supported, users of the service must pay attention to the ads is inane. This is the same mindset behind pop-ups.

From now on when I watch programs on Turner networks I'm going to pay close attention to the advertising...so I know which companies to BOYCOTT!

WarriorPrincess

Yep, I know, I'm odd. I just don't have the patience to sit through commercials, and find myself pressing ff on the remote when I watch live tv, too, lol! I don't even have a fancy-shmancy vcr that will edit out commercials or have an auto-ff of 30 sec increments. I use the good 'ole fashioned trigger thumb on the ff button - and I'm good at it, too.

But since I am watching them in visual ff, that should count, right? And amazingly enough, if a commercial is good enough to catch my eye, I will rewind to watch it. I love that one with the lizard that runs on water - I watch it every time. And the gap/banana republic/mitsubishi ads with good music - I watch those, too. And I watch the superbowl only to see the ads. So what the ad industry really needs to do is make better commercials.

But I agree with most of what you said, das - the industry needs to change, and it won't be that hard to do. Alias has done it quite well, and movies have been doing it for years. Discreet product placement that fits the storylines works for me. So does a small fee - or better yet, just release everything on dvd. I'd rent shows I didn't want to keep and buy those I did. Problem solved - I get my shows on demand and can back up to catch stuff I missed and they get paid. Oh, and no ads for me. Of course, then how will products get the exposure they want? Oh yeah - make better ads and people will watch them (and often buy the product).

Sorry for the hijack - to make a relevant comment, I think the interview shows the lack of foresight and lack of understanding that many many executives seem to have these days. Whatever happened to figuring out what the public wants and then figuring out a way to deliver it, and making a profit because you succeeded? Fighting progress and clinging to outdated ways is an invitation for failure.

mmconhea

Isn't the beaming of television signals into my house, when I'm not watching them, breaking and entering?

Jadzia

I skip through commercials on my PVR, but I would be more than happy to support the sponsors of my favorite shows so they can stay on the air.

Networks should put a list of the show's sponsors on their web-site. If I know that choosing Jif over Skippy will help support my favorite show, then I'd keep that in mind next time I'm shopping.

Red Dog

It doesn't matter anyway because it is only a matter of time before we see in-show commercial scrolls and blatent product placement. The networks, especially NBC, already do this to promote their other shows.

Pac-Rat

In a very small way there's already ads during the show (besides the product placement). ESPN's botton line at times has a company logo near the beginning of it, and I'm sure I've seen a Gateway logo in the corner on ESPN News, also VH-1's "Cardio-Video" logo morphs into different logos once in a while (today was Slim Fast). So, I think you're right. I think it's only a matter of time before that becomes the norm.

dek

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3186058.htm

SonicBlue ordered to track digital video recorder users
SUBHEAD
By Dawn C. Chmielewski
Mercury News

A federal magistrate in Los Angeles has ordered SonicBlue to spy on thousands of digital video recorder users -- monitoring every show they record, every commercial they skip and every program they send electronically to a friend.

Central District Court Magistrate Charles F. Eick told SonicBlue to gather ``all available information'' about how consumers use the Santa Clara company's latest generation ReplayTV 4000 video recorders, and turn the information over to the film studios and television networks suing it for contributing to copyright infringement.

``We've been ordered to invade the privacy of our customers,'' said Ken Potashner, SonicBlue's chairman and chief executive. ``This is something that we find personally very troubling.''

Privacy advocates condemned the ruling which came during the pre-trial discovery process of a series of lawsuits against SonicBlue.

Last October, the studios and networks accused SonicBlue of permitting copyright-infringement with its latest digital video recorder. The machines work like a VCR but record to a hard drive instead of video tape.

The plaintiffs asked SonicBlue to turn over information on how individuals use the recording devices. SonicBlue said it does not track that information. The magistrate, who is supervising discovery, ordered the company to write software in the next 60 days that would record every ``click'' from every customer's remote control.

Four separate lawsuits focus on a pair of features on the ReplayTV 4000; an ``AutoSkip'' function that allows the device to bypass commercials while recording a program; and a high-speed Internet port that allows users to download programs from the Internet or send them to other ReplayTV 4000 users.

The suits allege these features effectively deprive networks of the means of paying for their programs -- advertising revenue. And they allows people who paid for premium programming -- say HBO's ``Six Feet Under'' -- to send it to consumers who haven't.

A Disney spokeswoman accused SonicBlue of a ``deliberate and completely misleading'' characterization of the court's order. The studios and networks are merely seeking access to the same kind of anonymous data that SonicBlue's privacy policy says it is entitled to collect about its users, she said.

Attorneys for the studios say they need this information to determine the extent to which the ReplayTV 4000 allows consumers to steal copyrighted movies and television shows.

``None of the data the plaintiffs are seeking identifies any individuals,'' said Michelle Bergman, the Disney spokeswoman. ``We respect viewer privacy and the order we obtained respects that important right. We are simply protecting our copyrighted content and all whose livelihoods are dependent on it.''

SonicBlue said it stopped collecting anonymous user data in May 2001, after a furor erupted over competitor TiVo's practice of secretly gathering information about its users' viewing habits. TiVo's machine would collect viewing data and send it over a phone line back to the company.

The ruling requires SonicBlue to conduct the kind of surveillance it never anticipated in the privacy policy it outlined to its subscribers, said Laurence Pulgram, the San Francisco attorney representing SonicBlue.

Court documents, which Pulgram provided, show that SonicBlue would be required to document which shows users copy, store and view; what commercials they skip and which programs they send to other users, through the ``Send Show'' feature.

The court ruling also requires SonicBlue to track individual users -- not by name, but through ``unique identification numbers.''

``The concern is once you collect information about an individual, the individual may be concerned that he or she could be linked to that information at some time,'' said Pulgram.

Privacy advocates said the ruling is a more egregious invasion of privacy than TiVo committed. In that case, TiVo collected aggregated data that was purposefully separated from personal details about the viewer. And consumers could opt-out, keeping their viewing habits from being collected.

ReplayTV users won't have that choice.

`It's an incredible invasion of privacy,'' said Fred von Lohmann, an intellectual property expert for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ``But second -- and equally important -- is what the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have been saying was going to happen now for some time. Basically, under the guise of copyright laws, courts are going to be put in a position of telling technology companies how to build their products.''

Pulgram said SonicBlue plans to ask the federal district court trial judge to review the magistrate's ruling.

``We respect Judge Eick's decision on this and on numerous issues he had before him at the time,'' said Pulgram. `But in our view, it is an unprecedented intrusion into the privacy of TV viewers.''

Jadzia

You know, I was just thinking of something:

Since my viewing habits aren't tracked by Nielsen, I pretty much don't count as far as the networks are concerned.

Networks love to cancel shows I love just because some mythical Nielsen families don't watch. (Once & Again for example.)

So why should they even care if I don't watch their commercials?

Obviously, my viewership doesn't matter to them since I am not a Nielsen family.