New cable network introduces ways to foil ad skipping
Integrating them tightly into the programming itself, a new cable network from Scripps Network is introducing new advertising possibilities to foil new technologies and hardware that allow viewers to skip the regular 30-second advertising according to this New York Times story (registration required):
Television networks, dreading a future in which digital devices hand viewers the power to skip commercials automatically, have responded by increasingly integrating ads into the programs themselves. Now, a new cable network has elevated the practice beyond the occasional, building such anti-ad-zapping efforts directly into its business model.
The entire schedule of the new network, Fine Living, has been specifically set up to incorporate various forms of advertising that can foil the abilities of personal video recorders like TiVo and ReplayTV. Every show, for example, is available for sponsorship, while advertisers are collaborating in the making of certain one-minute segments that run in the middle of programs.
The shows also provide other opportunities for the placement of an advertiser's message. For example, there are minute segments known as "take-aways" that run periodically during the programs, offering summaries of information relevant to the subject featured in that particular show. A show about hiking, for example, contains a segment about what gear to take along. Photographs of rustic scenes take half the screen, while the announcers' words scroll down the other half. But across the top of the whole screen the advertiser's logo appears for the full minute.