TiVo Buster

June 7, 2007 — -- Whatever happened to the good old advertising jingle? You know, "Double your Pleasure, Double your Fun," "Betchya Can't Eat Just One?" "Taste the Rainbow," "Mmm, Mmm Good" and others that over the years have helped advertisers carve out a little piece of real estate for their products in all of our brains.

With the advent of DVR and TiVo, which make it even easier for TV fans to record their programs and fast-forward through the advertisements, this staple of TV viewing as we know it may quickly become a thing of the past.

"Advertisers are under pressure in many ways," said Columbia University business professor Bernd Schmitt. "First off, the new media is forcing them to use less and less traditional advertising … and there's more and more pressure in making these ads actually useful to consumers."

At the end of May, Nielsen Media Research released a portion of the data it gathered from a study of 1,750 DVR homes taken in the first week in May that shows just how little attention people now pay to the ads.

The study indicated that DVRs are most popular among 18- to 49-year-olds and that 42 percent of primetime TV was recorded and watched later rather than viewed live.

DVR households comprise only 17 percent of the nation's estimated 111.4 million TV homes, but within the first three days of a program's run, viwership of primetime shows increases 73 percent in a DVR household.

Trouble is, most of them don't watch the adds. The number of DVR viewers watching commercials only improves by 32 percent after the original program airs, as more than half of these viewers fast-forward or skip through the ads.

"The Nielsen ratings, the new ones, show us that the commercial break needs to be reconceptualized," said Schmitt. "They need to think outside of the box in terms of what it really means to advertise to consumers through various means."

All the TV networks, from ABC to MTV, admit they are working on new ways to keep people from tuning out or changing the channel. But how exactly are the networks and their advertisers transforming their advertising strategies? And how will these new formats affect the average TV viewer?