Some interesting comments about Live TV

[pjpjpjpj]

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=867964

[Skybolt]

Interesting take on how the network views "Us". The interviewer clearly sees where things already went for most of us, but if the networks think any special events other than sports are going to keep the masses from DVR'ing there shows, I think they are smoking something.

I even DRV all of the sporting events I watch, I don't need to be beholden to there schedule all of the time, I just need to stay away from the internet and email until I watch them.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

Interesting take on how the network views "Us". The interviewer clearly sees where things already went for most of us, but if the networks think any special events other than sports are going to keep the masses from DVR'ing there shows, I think they are smoking something.

I even DRV all of the sporting events I watch, I don't need to be beholden to there schedule all of the time, I just need to stay away from the internet and email until I watch them.

+1

I record everything even my local news and watch it later. I still watch some things on a delayed basis occasionally but I haven't watched a truly live show in several years.

[tmiranda]

I DVR everything as well, including sports.

Question for the group: As a heavy DVR user, what ad model would appeal to you? In other words how do you want to be marketed to? If you were talking to an ad exec on Madison Ave what would you tell him/her to do?

I am not looking for "I don't want any ads any time" because we all want ways to find out about new products and services. As a DVR user, how could the ad execs provide a way for you to find out about new things that you may be interested in?

I personally like the Groupon model. I sign up for the categories of things I may be interested in, and they deliver ads that I can look browse at my leisure.

[BobPhoenix]

Never really thought about anything before but how to remove them. As it sits now I see adds in existing recordings because I have autoskip turned off and I sometimes don't bother dropping what I'm doing to skipping them. It has been sufficient so far for me. But your Groupon model sounds interesting.

[wayner]

I don't understand why anyone watches live TV anymore. I am a big sports fan but I record everything and watch in near real-time, usually watching a game later in the day that it took place.

DVRing sports is a HUGE time saver. Watching a 60 minute hockey game takes 60 minutes not 2 3/4 hours. NFL football games can be watched in almost no time since only about 15 minutes of action takes place. I can't stand the amount of commercials in the NFL - someone scores a touchdown and they cut to commercials, come back for the kickoff and then it is back to commercials. Watching that live would drive me nuts.

I don't bother with Comskip for sports since so much of the skipping has to be done using the skip buttons. The Dynamic Skip Time addin is a huge benefit for this.

Placing such a high importance on skip also makes it hard to replace SageTV since so many of the alternatives fall down when it comes to easily skipping through the show.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by wayner

I don't understand why anyone watches live TV anymore. I am a big sports fan but I record everything and watch in near real-time, usually watching a game later in the day that it took place.

DVRing sports is a HUGE time saver. Watching a 60 minute hockey game takes 60 minutes not 2 3/4 hours. NFL football games can be watched in almost no time since only about 15 minutes of action takes place. I can't stand the amount of commercials in the NFL - someone scores a touchdown and they cut to commercials, come back for the kickoff and then it is back to commercials. Watching that live would drive me nuts.

I don't bother with Comskip for sports since so much of the skipping has to be done using the skip buttons. The Dynamic Skip Time addin is a huge benefit for this.

Placing such a high importance on skip also makes it hard to replace SageTV since so many of the alternatives fall down when it comes to easily skipping through the show.

Are you kidding me you are in the Minority... there is nothing worst then DVRing a sports event then trying to avoid the News, Radio and the Internet or your friends just so you can watch it. If I have to DVR a Sports event in order to watch it I prefer not watching it at all. Heck I stopped watching the Olympics because I cannot stand Delayed broadcasting of sports events.

[wayner]

I generally do this in "near real-time", not a few days later.

So if a hockey game starts at 7pm I will watch it later that night. Sometimes I will watch the first period starting at 7:30 or 8 or so and then watch the rest of the game after I put the kids to bed. The big issue is staying away from something like Twitter or Google news on your phone.

With stuff like major golf tournaments like the Masters I may start watching an hour or so into the telecast and if I catch up with real time then I will do something else for a bit before coming back to the tournament.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by wayner

I generally do this in "near real-time", not a few days later.

So if a hockey game starts at 7pm I will watch it later that night. Sometimes I will watch the first period starting at 7:30 or 8 or so and then watch the rest of the game after I put the kids to bed. The big issue is staying away from something like Twitter or Google news on your phone.

With stuff like major golf tournaments like the Masters I may start watching an hour or so into the telecast and if I catch up with real time then I will do something else for a bit before coming back to the tournament.

I am a season Ticket Holder to the Portland Trailblazers ... one of my roommates also is. They can go to the games and watch live ... but cannot stand to watch on TV live they will record and only watch after they know the score and the Blazers won.

[pjpjpjpj]

I typically start watching a football or baseball game 90 minutes to two hours after it starts. Depending on what happens and how "skippy" I am feeling, I might catch up to real time before it's over, I might not, but it's usually pretty close.

Unless, of course, I am having friends over for the game, in which case we have talk and beer to fill all the dead time.

As for Tom's question above: we do not use comskip in our household, but use the skip1 and skip 2 buttons (10 sec and 120 sec, respectively) to get through commercial breaks. The biggest thing we find ourselves stopping for are commercials for new TV shows (or specials), and movie trailer commercials. If we had comskip, we'd miss out on lots of TV shows because we wouldn't even be aware they were upcoming, and we probably wouldn't ever see movie trailers and thus wouldn't ever say "I'd like to go see that in a theater". But if I had to see ads for other stuff, honestly, I don't mind the little in-show pop-ups that networks put on for their other shows. You could pop up ads for other things in that manner and it wouldn't annoy me too much. I would glance at it and if it was something I didn't care about, I wouldn't even look at it until it was gone. Obviously the disadvantage of that for advertisers would be that it couldn't have any sound, so they'd have to write out any "message" they wanted to send, if the graphics weren't clear.

[BobPhoenix]

I hate the popups. I reaaaaaaally hate them on a premium channel. Would rather they be after or imbedded so I can skip them if I want to.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Question for the group: As a heavy DVR user, what ad model would appeal to you? In other words how do you want to be marketed to? If you were talking to an ad exec on Madison Ave what would you tell him/her to do?

Just let me pay for what I want, and just what I want, and don't bother me with adds for things I'd never be interested in.

I am not looking for "I don't want any ads any time" because we all want ways to find out about new products and services. As a DVR user, how could the ad execs provide a way for you to find out about new things that you may be interested in?

I seriously can't remember the last time I saw an add for something I'd be interested in buying. At least not something I hadn't known about long before the adds started (like the Xbox One).

OK scratch that, there is the Dyson Slim. I think a commercial turned me on to that, but that's the exception. 90% of crap they hawk on TV is for the buy-lots-of-disposable-garbage masses. I'd rather buy less things that are good than ton's of crap like they hawk in adds.

The companies that make stuff I'm interested in just don't buy adds on TV at all.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Just let me pay for what I want, and just what I want, and don't bother me with adds for things I'd never be interested in.

How do you find out now about things you are interested in? I am sure you look on the web somewhere? You are finding about new things from SOMEWHERE. My point is that the broadcasters need to make themselves be one of the "somewhere's" we turn to.

Here is an idea for them. I love science and technology shows. Have a show on the science channel where you advertise the new shows. I can record that and then look through it once in a while to see if anything intereting is coming up that I can select to record.

Right now probabaly 90% of the new shows I only find out about because I use Intelligent Recording and it's pretty good at finding things that match my viewing habit.

Another idea, have a "commercial channel" and imbed keywords into the show descriptions so that if I am interested in something I can search for what I am looking for. For example, I like to travel and was looking to go to the Galapagos. If I could have searched for deals on "Galapagos" and then watched some "commercials" made by competing travel agencies I would have done that. What I ended up doing was searching the web and reading blurbs and looking at pictures of boats.

More and more advertisers are turning to YouTube. Why? Because video is a powerful selling tool. TV is tailor made for video (obviously).

I just feel like the broadcasters could do more to offer commercials that we want to see instead of forcing us to watch commercials for things we don't want to see.

[Dargason]

I've been thinking for a couple years about the idea of getting 'credit' for watching commercials...

The idea would be that you would subscribe to a website with shows you want to see. You could either pay cash for the content, or you could earn 'credit' dollars by watching commercials that you were interested in.

In effect, you'd be getting shows in exchange for shopping. Isn't that the ideal situation for everyone? I'm not sure how that would work for a cable service, however.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

How do you find out now about things you are interested in? I am sure you look on the web somewhere? You are finding about new things from SOMEWHERE. My point is that the broadcasters need to make themselves be one of the "somewhere's" we turn to.

I'd say that any time anyone is doing a search - Google, Amazon, Newegg, Netflix, news outlets (like lunchtime news reading on Yahoo for example) ... there are plenty of places to advertise, and to do so when a person is actually looking for something, and then to even hone in on things that person might be interested in related to the query. It seems there are so many other tools these days that TV advertising is like a tampon commercial during a football game.

I will admit, the commercials that they are having right now as an overlay on a current TV show takes up anywhere from 10 to 25% of the screen, and missing part of the show because it's physically covered up by the advertisement seems like a terrible way to go about this.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

How do you find out now about things you are interested in? I am sure you look on the web somewhere? You are finding about new things from SOMEWHERE. My point is that the broadcasters need to make themselves be one of the "somewhere's" we turn to.

I sort of addressed that in the second part of my post, but generally I find stuff I'm interested in by "word of mouth". Second to that it's probably professional reviews. Like I said, my Dyson is probably the only thing I've bought that I can remember an advertisement contributing to.

I mean going down the list:
Anthem - reviews/WOM
Planar - dito
BD Playr - dito
SageTV - dito
etc
etc

When it really gets down to it, what I'm interested in is too niche (either the whole concept is niche, or the actual products are too high-end) to appeal to the mass market that television advertising targets.

Here is an idea for them. I love science and technology shows. Have a show on the science channel where you advertise the new shows. I can record that and then look through it once in a while to see if anything intereting is coming up that I can select to record.

OK, I see I was a little too focused on "products" (physical ones), TV shows, and possibly movies, I do tend to find out about from commercials.

I just feel like the broadcasters could do more to offer commercials that we want to see instead of forcing us to watch commercials for things we don't want to see.

Sure they could, but at least in my case, I think my interests diverge too much from the norm that they'd never consider tailoring commercials to me.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Sure they could, but at least in my case, I think my interests diverge too much from the norm that they'd never consider tailoring commercials to me.

I think this is the kicker for most Sage users. We already know what we want or who to ask if we don't, how to research it, and where to buy it from. The products being advertised on TV aren't things I'm going to buy, no matter how frequently you mention them or how great you tell me they are. A beer commercial with hot women isn't going to make me want to try that beer. Word of mouth will get me to try it. Some fancy Super Bowl ad for a new car isn't going to make me go check the car out. When I need a new car, I already know the type I want and what my budget is. I also know all the brands already and will compare every company's similar models via the internet, understand the options, and know the expected selling price before I even step foot onto a dealer's lot.

The truth is that word of mouth is what gets me to look into something and possibly make a purchase. You want my money? Get people or websites I know and trust to talk about it (note to advertisers: I don't know nor trust any celebrities.) And, guess what? The sites I visit already talk about stuff I'm interested in and it didn't cost you a dollar for them to tell me about it. Spend your marketing money by sending out products for review to sites I frequent.

For subsidizing TV shows? Your only option is to somehow integrate the product or service into a small segment of the episode. If they can show me something really cool or unique about it then I might actually check it out on my own, but I don't think this will work most of the time. We don't need "The Truman Show" style advertising.

Honestly, I think they need to do away with commercials subsidizing the shows and do it how Amazon and Netflix are via shorter seasons and a pay wall. This way, we pay for what we want... after our friends have told us how great the show is and that it's worth our time and money.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Honestly, I think they need to do away with commercials subsidizing the shows and do it how Amazon and Netflix are via shorter seasons and a pay wall. This way, we pay for what we want... after our friends have told us how great the show is and that it's worth our time and money.

I love the idea of a pay wall rather than commercials. I want to vote for the shows I love buy spending my money on them and when the networks produce total and complete crap, I want to vote my distaste by not buying it!

Free (ad driven) TV is fine, but there is too much poor quality shows. There is a LOT of shows, not too many good ones.

[KryptoNyte]

Agreed - I'm happy to pay, especially if I can watch a show that I want to watch, start to finish without any commercials. This is what some cable TV was in the beginning.

I find it darn close to offensive to have to pay a monthly fee to the cable company to watch commercials - almost as bad as having to watch a google commercial before watching a movie trailer (essentially, watching one commercial just to get to another commercial).

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by Dargason

I've been thinking for a couple years about the idea of getting 'credit' for watching commercials...

The idea would be that you would subscribe to a website with shows you want to see. You could either pay cash for the content, or you could earn 'credit' dollars by watching commercials that you were interested in.

In effect, you'd be getting shows in exchange for shopping. Isn't that the ideal situation for everyone? I'm not sure how that would work for a cable service, however.

Obviously you (and some others here apparently) missed my thread about Hitbliss.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61273
Specifically post #3 where I explained it.
Sounds like something you might like.