JonInMiddleGA
 

just wondering, since you're so vocal about your feelings regarding people who illegally download music/software, where you stand on Tivo/DVRs, where you can tape a show and fast forward the commericals.

according to your belief system, wouldn't that be essentially stealing? i'm trying to apply your train of thought to a similar scenario, and from what i gather it would in fact be a form of stealing. what's involved when you watch free tv is that you "pay" for the free channels by inadvertendly agreeing to watch the commercials. viewing the commercials for sponsors that essentially pay for the show to be on the air is basically your form of "payment'. if you don't want television with commercials then you go the premium channel route (HBO, Showtime, etc.).

i'm not knocking your belief system, but just trying to see if someone with your similar extremist viewpoint could make a case for DVRs/Tivo basically being a way to skirt the payment.

No good can come of this thread.

It's extreme to think that stealing is wrong and that people should be punished for breaking the law?

Wow.

Depends on your perspective.

there was no malice intended with that. jon knows he's my boyee. i had a very JIMGA moment regarding the ethics of digital stealing the other day when i was thinking about Lost (the show) and how i couldn't stand to watch that show if it weren't for DVR (since the plot moves slow as it is it's a saving grace to be able to cut out the "filler"). that got me thinking "the whole point behind Lost is for ABC to make money, and i'm essentially cutting out the entire point of Lost being on the air - for ABC's sponsor's to advertise their products to me".

being that Jon is in that line of work, i wondered just exactly what he thought of it, since i know he has Tivo or purchased Tivo for someone in his family.

I think this statement has merit as a Final Exam question for membership in the Silly Party.

if you've been involved in many debates with Jon you'd know where he stands on this subject, which is why i considered him an "authority" on the topic.

i'm not calling him out, i'm genuinely curious as to what he thinks about it. hopefully entertaining conversation/debate will be a result.

I do know where he stands as I've sided with him many times.

Are you saying that his stance on punishment is extreme, or his stance on whether it is wrong?

how so? free tv isn't "free". you pay for it by watching commercials. you don't watch commercials on premium channels, but you pay extra money for those channels. either way, be it time or money, you pay for watching tv.

Tivo/DVRs eliminate watching commercials, so you're essentially not "paying" for watching shows like CSI, Lost or whatever.

what's so silly about that? :confused:

Imagine all the different possibilities that ran through my head when I saw the thread title ;) :eek: :D :rolleyes: :cool: :mad: :( :confused: ;)

And then it turns out to be something fairly simple.

FTR, I don't own TiVo, but did consider buying my parents one for Christmas (they opted for other stuff) and might at some point consider at least one unit for my house as well.

The first, and most obvious, difference that I see in the scenarios is that there's no law that I can think of that creates an obligation to view the commercials. Hard to be legally guilty of a crime if there's no law against something (perhaps akin to not being charged with homicide for stepping on a cockroach).

Ethically, versus legally, I think there's probably a pretty large gap too. The primary difference being that broadcasters et al hope you watch the commercials which are paying for the program, but they've always known that a certain percentage don't -- it's a risk that goes with the broadcaster/viewer /advertiser "agreement". The "water-consumption-rises-X-percent-when-
there's-a-commercial-break-in-Big-Program" information has been around for as long as I can remember, and I think pretty much everybody on all sides of the business know it (even if they don't like to consider it too much).

Probably the closest thing I can think of at the moment to compare the situation to would be something like a church concert that is billed as "free admission, a love offering will be taken at the door". You're asked to contribute but not compelled to contribute by anything (other than your own conscience perhaps.)

And that's the bargain that has existed pretty much throughout broadcast television -- whether the viewers were particularly conscious of it or not (much more common knowledge now than, say, 50 years ago IMO).

Can we reach a point where that "understanding" is broken & has to be redefined? Yeah, I believe that's definitely possible. There are days when I think it's even likely to happen eventually. But even then, it'll be primarily a matter of business necessity, not ethical, moral, or legal, obligation. (And when it does happen, the viewers who will raise serious hell will have no one but themselves to blame ;) )

his stance on what constitutes stealing can be viewed as "extreme", and his views on punishment certainly are. he has a very black and white viewpoint on this subject, he doesn't leave a lot of room for grey area in a debate on this topic, which is why i'm curious to get his opinion.

i guess for my own sake, i'm trying to see if it's intrinsically bad to use Tivo/DVR. basically, "if Jon says it's not stealing, then it must not be stealing".

I don't know anything about Jon's ideas on illegal downloads but your reasoning above is rather bizarre. Standard channels sell advertising time to companies who buy that time for the 'chance' to sell me their product. I am under no obligation to watch the commercials. By that above logic I would just as much a thief if I got up to make a sandwich during a set of commercial as someone fast forwarding.

The illegality of downloading is the distribution aspect not the copying part. If I buy a CD I can copy the songs on my Ipod or make an MP3 to listen too when playing games. That falls under fair use. If I make 10 copies for my friend I have broken the law. If I recieve an illegal copy I have broken the law.

Nothing about thinking distributing illegal copies of intellectual property or recieving such copies conflicts with fast forwarding through a Tivo of the Simpson's.

As an aside, it's sooooo much more fun to have been answering HA's question (a fairly legitimate one IMO, albeit a bit ... random ... for the middle of a Monday afternoon) before seeing anything else appear in the thread.

Ya'll have at it if you want, I hope I managed to answer the question to HA's satisfaction with regard to my own p.o.v. about it

HA -- I'll likely check back into the thread a time or two to see if you wanted some clarification of my answer or whatever, otherwise it might turn out to be fun just to watch people argue over whether you should have asked me, whether I should be offended, whether I'm offensive by my very existence, or if you're actually the Lindbergh baby ;)

Then I guess I continue to question how his view on what constitutes stealing is extreme. To me it IS very black and white, and the law would agree.

thanks.

as a response, i would say there is/was most certainly a type of "unwritten" agreement between broadcasters and viewers - you don't have to pay for NBC, ABC, UPN, CBS, etc on your tv, but you will have to deal with the frequent "inconvenience" of watching the commercials that our sponsors have paid for us to advertise their products.

tv, and radio for that matter, don't exist to provide us with free content. they exist to make money off of selling airtime. shows are what they use to draw in customers and to set rates for that airtime. i'm sure you of all people would agree with that statement.

sponsors give broadcasters money for the right to advertsie their products to an audience. the whole concept is thrown in the trash once the audience can get the content (shows, music) for free while skirting the requirement to view the commercials.

or have i been reading too much into this supposed unwritten agreement, and it's like how you said, there's just an element of the viewing audience that broadcasters assume will not be watching the commercials, but as long as the sponsor's checks clear they don't care?

Forget TiVo/DVR/VCR...I regularly turn channels off during commercials, and in doing so, like most men, have discovered an innate ability to turn a program back on right as commercials end. Of course, legally, there's nothing requiring me to watch those commercials. I guess as part of some ethical obligation/social contract, though, I should at least feel bad for not allowing the networks to recoup their maximum amount of return from airing commercials? I think I'll sleep just fine at night.

i just find it odd, i guess, that sponsors spend all this money to advertise their products and it's essentially wasted.

Can the question be reworded: "Is it illegal to change channels once the commercials begin?"

Obviously, that's a ludicrous requirement. You can't broadcast something and expect people to watch it in its entirety.

You can make a feed available to someone, as television stations do. You can make a feed available for a specific period of time for a specific payment, as cable and satellite stations do.

It is not wrong to take that feed and view it in any manner you see fit.

Is is wrong to take that feed and redistribute it, or break any encoded copy protection.

If advertising revenues decline, stations have choices:

1) They can figure out a way to force the viewing of commercials, and risk making people tune out entirely (or taking a lot more bathroom breaks). I, personally, will not buy DVDs where you can't skip commercial segments at the beginning. Their choice, and my choice not to buy it.

2) They can revise their advertising model to include more product placement and less commercial interruption. If the product placement becomes too blatant, they risk people tuning out entirely.

Commercial television stations (like a CBS affiliate, for example) have the right to broadcast a signal over the airwaves. They have little control over how it's used.

Cable television stations could, using technology, force use of a special set-top box that prevents viewing of their signal without the commercials. It would then be illegal to break the copy protection that the set-top box can decode. But I think they'd quickly find that as a business model, that sort of technology will never take off.

Does anyone remember DIVX? People will resist special formats that limit their use of an entertainment product.

Oh yeah, I love that. Bugs the shit out of my wife, as she is convinced we're going to miss some part of the program, but half the time I flip it back just as the program is coming back, or within 5 seconds of the last commercial having ended.

Although, I would like to say that HA's point that all this advertising money is being wasted is not really the case. The majority of viewers watch programs "live", and often sit through commercials. Saying that the advertisers are getting nothing out of this isn't true. It may be true they're not getting as large an audience as expected, but I'm sure that's taken into account somewhere along the line.

I'd imagine it's the other half the time that bugs the shit out of her. :D

Well, the other half I'm hoping she'll lose interest in what she's watching and allow me to continue to watch whatever sports program I'm checking. Sometimes it works... sometimes I must endure verbal abuse. But if I'm paying attention, my success rate I would estimate around 85%.

There is no implied contract that in return for putting on television shows, I will watch their commercials.

Besides, the companies are getting smart.. anyone ever hear of product placements?

that's why I have the feeling that this "Trusted Computing" initiative is going to fall flat.

The concern is that if/when Tivo/DVR's become more prevalent, that the majority of viewers may not watch 'live.' As that happens, or if that happens, then you will most likely see a decline in what an advertiser is willing to pay for a commercial, since the audience isn't as large. To bridge the gap you will probably see more product placement (as Jim mentioned above).

Instead of spending $200,000 on a 30 second commercial, you might see Coke spend $120,000 on a 30 second commercial and $80,000 to have the actors/actresses drink a coke during the show.

Not only would I agree, but I'm almost overcome with joy & emotion that someone outside the business readily acknowledges those facts.


The latter is most definitely true -- truth is, the broadcasters seem to give less than a rat's ass if anybody is watching ... as long as the checks keep coming in.

As for the other leg of the equation, the advertiser, this really isn't something that gets a lot of discussion historically as far as I'm familiar with, it's a topic usually left to the occasional seminar, study, focus group etc. The info is collected, hmm'ed & harumph'ed about for a bit, and then it sort of goes poof.
I suspect that part of the reason for that is that we (subconsciously at least, and much to our chagrin) know that delivery figures (i.e. ratings) are nothing more than reasonable estimates anyway.

If, for example, we tried to subtract "lost viewers" consistently & regularly from every program we place spots in, we would basically be subtracting one guess from another guess & probably end up missing reality by an even larger margin than usual. So to some degree, again mostly sub-consciously, these "AWOL viewers" are already taken into account by the levels of spots we buy (often measure in Gross Rating Points, aka GRP's; 1 GRP = 1% of the subject universe). We buy X amount of GRP's, budget permitting the amount we believe based on past history is likely to be required to have the desired effect -- if we adjusted for those folks who had gone to the bathroom, we would also adjust the GRP level downward slightly, since we've been hitting the desired effect (give or take a little) without accounting for them in the past.

Now, all that big mouthful said, there's a good possiblity that at some point in the future the weight of TiVo's + DVR's + bathroom breakers + channel surfers + kitchen snackers will reach a point when they will have enough impact that we will have to deal with them on a consistent basis. Given that the path of least resistance is usually the road more traveled, I wouldn't be surprised if the "standard GRP level" bought in a market simply gets adjusted upward at some point, with a fairly significant amount of pressure put on the networks to reduce rates (well, more like "slow the rate of increase of rates") to avoid very large increases in spending from year to year.

see, this is just so odd to me, that it's no big deal to skip commercials. don't get me wrong - i always did it, even before DVR. i was the fastest channel changer on the East Coast. it never bothered me pre-DVR days because there was no way to skip commercials entirely - mostly all shows go on break at the same time, it's only through having cable do you have enough viewing options to find *some* channel that isn't showing a commercial. either way you sliced it, i'd hit on *a* commercial. so even if i wasn't watching the commercials for the channel i was originally viewing, some channel, somewhere, was showing a commercial that i'd enevitably hit on. so somewhere some advertiser was getting their money's worth. but now with DVR i can just screw the entire process. hence my curiousity as to where commercial skipping Tivo/DVR fell on the stealing spectrum.

the overwhelming consenus here is that it isn't an issue at all. what a waste of money on advertiser's parts.

see, tv actors should be concerned with this bit of info. if i'm the head of a network the first place i'd look to cut costs because advertisers are refusing my airtimes rates is the salaries of my actors. that means no $1million per episode for ensemble casts (hello "Friends"). that also means an even itchier trigger finger for borderline shows (like Arrested Development), public sentiment be damned.

There's a reason why networks overpay for live events, like football. It's often the only way to reach certain audiences with commercials.

They then spend a lot of that live event commercial time touting their regular programming ("His father is the District Attorney").

In that way, they figure they're overpaying on the sporting events to boost the ratings of their other programming, thus generating higher ad revenues on those shows.

So far, with the exception of the Super Bowl, which has its own built-in ad buzz, networks have been largely unable to charge all that much of a premium for advertising during sporting events. I think that may change in the future.

We're already seeing a lot more product placement during network shows. I wonder what Coca Cola pays for those big Coke glasses constantly on the table during American Idol? Or what Apple paid the number of shows that specifically referred to characters giving each other iPods during the recent holiday season?

Or you could see a shift from sit-com type TV more toward the cheaper to produce reality TV.

Oh, wait....

Here's a study that seems to relate to this subject pretty well
http://www.edisonresearch.com/home/a...Study_2005.pdf

The relevant part seems to be on Page 7 -- basically says that 25% of TV viewers "never/rarely" change channels during commercials, while 49% "always / usually" do. (I guess the other 26% were "undecided" ;) )

Keep in mind that this is a study done on behalf of radio (where 73% "never/ rarely" surf away during commercials, according to the study), so the actual numbers might actually be a little better for TV than they appear.

BUT ... what's missing from your "wasted money" lament is the fact that the object of the advertising is to generate the desired effect. Whether it takes 500 GRP's, 1000 GRP's, or 100 GRP's to do that is largely irrelevant ... IF the points are priced correctly in relationship to the effect.

In other words, if 500 GRP's (unadjusted for missing viewers) is the level I'm buying, it *should be simply be the same cost as 250 GRP's (adjusted 50% for the TiVo surfers et al).

*Note: This says "should", not "is". If you want my honest opinion, I'd say that somewhere on the order of 1/3rd to upwards of half of all advertising dollars spent in the U.S. are indeed pissed straight into the wind. But those making the decisions at the highest levels have become very adept at perpetuating their own existence by justifying the expenditures ... and those who could tell them no typically don't understand advertising or marketing nearly well enough to figure out why some things they do don't make much sense. There are probably quite a few unflattering parallels that could be drawn to the advertising/marketing industry and the "professional civil rights" industry -- both developed a strong tendency to be self-serving & self-perpetuating over the years, instead of working to the greatest benefit of their "clients".

Tangentially, I've noticed that you can now buy TV shows on iTunes, for instance. I'm wondering if this is the type of content delivery paradigm we're going to start seeing more of, down the road.

totally. i even recall watching one time and one of the judges (not important who) took a sip from the Coca Cola glass, set it down on the table and upon seeing that the logo wasn't facing the camera actually adjusted it. i normally find myself keeping an eye on the glasses to see if the logo is always perfectly facing the cameras.

re: product placement
Interesting website I stumbled across, I probably ought to bookmark it for my own use
http://www.productplacement.biz/

Among the blog-style tidbits ...
Nissan’s deal with ABC’s Desperate Housewives provides us with some guidelines on what a $20 million media committment is worth:

- On-air billboards that start a segment of the show
- Traditional product placement for 3 of their models
- Bonus video on the DVD
- Print ad within the DVD package

And, from that same http://www.productplacement.biz/ website, a little deeper in the archive, something I thought might be of some interest. Keep in mind that the rates shown are from a little over a year ago & don't specify what the basis for the numbers are (As I buy very little broadcast network prime-time nationally, I can't really tell if these are last-minute buys, "up-front" buys placed early in the year at a lower unit rate, or something in between. But checking the few of these I have some general knowledge about, they don't look out of line for generall all-purpose asking price figures)

October 22nd, 2004
2004 Advertising Rates

When discussing Product Placement with clients - it’s alway important to keep things in perspective.

Below you will find a listing of how much an advertiser has to pay for each 30-second commercial time they buy during any given series.

Example: If there were 6 commercials per break on a half hour show (say ‘Joey’), and 5 commercial breaks in all, ‘Joey’ would make NBC $11,775,000 for that one episode.

American Idol (FOX, Wednesday) $658,333
American Idol (FOX, Tuesday) $620,000
ER (NBC, Thursday) $479,250
Surivor: Vanuatu (CBS, Thursday) $412,833
The Apprentice (NBC, Thursday) $409,877
Joey (NBC, Thursday) $392,500
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS, Thursday) $374,231
Will & Grace (NBC, Thursday) $359,546
The Simpsons (FOX, Sunday) $336,935
The Contender (NBC, Tuesday) $330,000
Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS, Monday) $315,850
Monday Night Football (ABC, Monday) $315,009 (Average from 9-11PM)
Malcolm in the Middle (FOX, Sunday) $281,800
Related by Family (FOX, Wednesday) $280,000
CSI: Miami (CBS, Monday) $256,760
Two and a Half Men (CBS, Monday) $249,017
The Bernie Mac Show (FOX, Wednesday) $235,500 (Average for Fall and Midseason)
Law & Order (NBC, Wednesday) $227,500
Revelations (NBC, Wednesday) $221,100
The Billionaire (FOX, Tuesday) $217,713
Scrubs (NBC, Tuesday) $216,600
The West Wing (NBC, Wednesday) $213,538
Arrested Development (FOX, Sunday) 211,133
Without a Trace (CBS, Thursday) $211,002
The Bachelor/The Bachelorette (ABC, Wednesday) $205,522
According to Jim (ABC, Tuesday) $204,212
That 70s Show (FOX, Wednesday) $202,307
Law & Order: Criminal Intent (NBC, Sunday) $194,931
House (FOX, Tuesday) $192,561
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC, Sunday) $186,658
Las Vegas (NBC, Monday) $182,861
Law & Order: SVU (NBC, Tuesday) $181,494
Quintupplets (FOX, Wednesday) $177,825
The Partner (FOX, Sunday) $177,580
My Wife & Kids (ABC, Tuesday) $167,956
The O.C. (FOX, Thursday) $164,990
Crossing Jordan (NBC, Sunday) $164,918
Listen Up (CBS, Monday) $163,733
CSI: New York (CBS, Wednesday) $161,548
Boston Legal (ABC, Sunday) $160,000
Desperate Housewives (ABC, Sunday) $156,542
Father of the Pride (NBC, Tuesday) 156,500
Cold Case (CBS, Sunday) $153,305
Still Standing (CBS, Monday) $152,801
Method & Red (FOX, Wednesday) $149,295
CBS Sunday Movie (CBS, Sunday) $148,761
The King of Queens (CBS, Wednesday) $143,302
Hope & Faith (ABC, Friday) $140,037
LAX (NBC, Monday) $139,967
Fear Factor (NBC, Monday) $138,972
Last Comic Standing (NBC, Tuesday) $137,050
Lost (ABC, Wednesday) $133,514
Hawaii (NBC, Wednesday) $132,346
NYPD Blue (ABC, Tuesday) $132,144
Wife Swap (ABC, Wednesday) $129,969
Tru Calling (FOX, Thursday) $129,208
The Swan (FOX, Monday) $118,200
Less Than Perfect (ABC, Friday) $117,700
Average Joe (NBC, Tuesday) $117,500
Smallville (WB, Wednesday) $111,700
North Shore (FOX, Monday) $109,226
7th Heaven (WB, Monday) $107,956
Rodney (ABC, Tuesday) $108,260
8 Simple Rules (ABC, Friday) $106,813
One Tree Hill (WB, Tuesday) $102,820
Complete Savages (ABC, Friday) $102,187
Clubhouse (CBS, Tuesday) $102,053
20/20 (ABC, Friday) $100,680
Judging Amy (CBS, Tuesday) $99,184
NCIS (CBS, Tuesday) $97,577
King of the Hill (FOX, Sunday) $95,750
Joan of Arcadia (CBS, Friday) $95,325
Center of the Universe (CBS, Wednesday) $94,613
American Dreams (NBC, Sunday) $94,040
America’s Next Top Model (UPN, Wednesday) $92,045
Third Watch (NBC, Friday) $90,858
60 Minutes (CBS, Sunday, Sunday) $90,453
Prime Time Live (ABC, Thursday) $89,108
America’s Next Top Model (UPN, Friday) $88,660
The Next Great Champ (FOX, Tuesdays) $85,000
Jack & Bobby (WB, Sunday) $82,415
America’s Funniest Home Videos (ABC, Sunday) $81,136
The Benefactor (ABC, Monday) $79,752
Cops (FOX, Saturday) $76,650 (Average from 8-9PM)
Charmed (WB, Sunday) $77,802
The Mountain (WB, Wednesday) $77,182
Dr. Vegas (CBS, Friday) $76,763
Gilmore Girls (WB, Tuesday) $76,334
Everwood (WB, Monday) $76,263
Jonny Zero (FOX, Friday) $75,500
Extreme Makeover (ABC, Thursday) $74,859
Blue Collar TV (WB, Thursday) $73,200
Crime Time Saturday (CBS, Saturday) $73,140
Dateline (NBC, Friday) $72,479
America’s Most Wanted (FOX, Saturday) $71,500
JAG (CBS, Friday) $70,148
The Wonderful World of Disney (ABC, Saturday) $69,610
NBC Saturday Night Movie (NBC, Saturday) $67,377
The Apprentice (NBC, Saturday) $63,500
The Insider (FOX, Friday) $63,100
Girlfriends (UPN, Monday) $62,500
Dateline (NBC, Sunday) $62,184
Grounded for Life (WB, Friday) $60,772
Reba (WB, Friday) $59,705
Half and Half (UPN, Monday) $51,027
What I Like About You (WB, Friday) $49,661
Life As We Know It (ABC, Thursday) $49,322
Second Time Around (UPN, Monday) $48,592
All of Us (UPN, Tuesday) $48,080
48 Hours Mysteries (CBS, Saturday) $46,489
One on One (UPN, Monday) $45,582
Eve (UPN, Tuesday) $44,719
Drew Carey’s Green Screen (WB, Thursday) $42,000
Steve Harvey’s Big Time (WB, Sunday) $39,970
Kevin Hill (UPN, Wednesday) $39,369
Commando Nanny (WB, Friday) $38,838
Star Trek: Enterprise (UPN, Friday) $31,180
WWE Smackdown! (UPN, Thursday) $30,500
Veronica Mars (UPN, Tuesday) $23,556

Is my math bad, or wouldn't that be 15 minutes of commercials in a half hour show?

Not having read through the entire thread, just stopping at that number.. holy crapola.. there's no way I'd ever watch a 30-minute show with 15 minutes being commercials! No way, none, zip, zero, nada..

I hope I misunderstood something here..

You are reading that correctly, but i think they just screwed up there. Commercials are usually like 17 minutes or so in an hour, and im sure it's no more than 9-10 in a half-hour.

The real point was to demonstrate the ad rates, not the amount of commercials per half hour.

I believe this statement I ran across is still pretty accurate for the average show "The standard half-hour of television contains 22 minutes of program and 8 minutes of commercials - 6 minutes for national advertising and 2 minutes for local."

And, as cthomer pointed out, I was pretty much interested in the rates per show portion & didn't even notice the math error(s).

edit to add: IIRC, there are exceptions to this & some half hour block can indeed occasionally include as much as 12 minutes of spots or more.

This is why I own a Tivo.

I think that product placement is the way of the future--that and other ways of incorporating the ads into the program.

You are already seeing it in sports. Between every other play, you have the play-by-play guy pointing out that a new King of Queens comes on this week.

It may be a little harder to incorporate into fictional shows, but the Friends Pottery Barn episode demonstrates that it can be done without losing any viewers.

The law wouldn't actually agree in that intellectual property "theft" is not normally a crime. You can't be put in jail for illegally downloading music like you can for shoplifting. That's a big difference.

I'm pretty confidant you can, but I may be wrong...

There are criminal penalties for copyright infringement, but they are different than petty theft. Until 1997 or so, you had to make a profit off of copyright infringement to be subject to criminal penalties. Then they passed the No Electronic Theft Act. Still, it is hard for file-sharers to be criminally punished and they definitely are treated differently than shoplifters (mostly because "willfullness" is an element of the crime). Congress has, with serious industry proding tried to pass other laws, like the Consumer and Computer Protection and Security Act of 2003.

Historically, intellectual property theft has been treated VERY differently than real property theft in criminal law. That difference has narrowed, but there are still large differences.

None of this goes to say that it SHOULD not be treated the same (although there are lots of good arguments there). Rather, I'm just saying the law isn't really on the same wavelength as you and JoninMiddleGA.

Well, it should be ;)...

In all seriousness, good info, obviously I didn't know the details... but, point being, it is still illegal, even if the punishment is different than standard stealing.

Aren't we, the customers, actually the ones who are paying for the advertising and not the companies buying advertising time? In the majority of cases, companies put money into an advertising budget that is either supported by the customer who purchases the product being advertised or by previous customers who have purchased other products from the company.

So if we're stealing by not watching commercials, are we stealing from ourselves?

dola

The whole notion of integrated advertising as the wave of the future is actually more of a reach back to the past. Early radio programs were notorious for placing products and even product pitches in the script of a radio drama. So as we move forward, it seems we're actually going back in time.

Great thread :D

On that chart from JiMGA, I guess those are 2004 rates for commercials, but there are still some fun things to glean from that. I love how people pay more for different audiences. American Idol and CSI get virtually identical audience numbers but the rate for AI is twice as much because it's a (dumber, richer) more desirable audience. Also, I'm guessing the rates for Joey have gone down quite a bit ;)

SI

(younger)

Oops. I originally had that in there, but had one of those where I accidentally closed the thread and had to rewrite. ;)

SI

It's no different than using a VCR to time record a show. TiVo just makes it easier.