Reuters reports a survey of 4,000 British television households conducted by French market-research firm Ipsos found that 90 percent of DVR users fast-forward or skip through commercials. The figure was even higher amongst the coveted 18-to-34 year-old demographic, where 97 percent said they skipped ads most of the time or all of the time.
DVRs, or digital video recorders, enable users to record television programming to internal hard disks, pausing live TV and easily fast-forwarding through material. In the U.S., TiVo ignited interest in DVRs, although many television manufacturers and cable and satellite providers now integrate (or plan to integrate) DVRs into their product offerings.
Without access to the actual study, it is difficult to evaluate the findings: Reuters says the study found 6 percent of Britons owned DVRs, but does not state whether this means the sample of DVR owners in the survey amounted to only some 240 respondents—perhaps too small a sample from which to generalize. Nonetheless, the findings would seem to bode badly for the traditional television advertising industry, which normally pays a premium for commercial time in top-rated networks and shows. Fears that the increased adoption of DVRs in the consumer marketplace enables users to skip advertisements has lead marketing groups to pursue new forms of advertisements which circumvent commercial-skipping technology (including increased use of in-programming product placement), and even to consider technological, regulatory, and legislative initiatives to discourage or prevent users from skipping advertisements. Who knows? In a few years, even a few minutes of promotion-free broadcast television may be a rare thing.
