Tivo is doing everything it can to remain viable, and in recent years that has meant advertisements in the onscreen menus. Personally I find them to be unobtrusive. It’s not like Tivo is making you watch ads before viewing a show. But the ability to fast forward through commercials has long been a sticking point with advertisers and networks with Tivo. So the company has made some compromises.
According to the NY Times Tivo is about to take things one step further by adding ads to television programming. Um, correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t that pose a problem for Tivo’s image? I understand that advertisers need to get their products seen, but forcing Tivo users to watch ads is counterintuitive to what the system is all about. You are supposed to be given the freedom to control what you watch on TV. Tivo people don’t always want to watch commercials.
This is not a good idea at all. Like I said the advertisements in the menus is acceptable. Hell, I’m even happy that they’re there if it helps Tivo out. And how will the networks and cable channels react to this? The ads are being offered by Tivo to advertisers, initially with Amazon as the partner. Meanwhile the networks are watching as ads bought by their partners are being skipped by the Tivo user base. Tivo needs to be careful to not piss off the networks any more than they have, or you’ll wake up one day to find your “Now Playing” list empty of programs and full of Amazon.com advertisements. That is not a good viewing experience for anyone.
