• by David Kaplan , November 7, 2004

Even with digital video recorders (DVRs) becoming more commonplace, TV viewing will continue to remain a passive act with advertisers poised to reach viewers through more innovative ways, said panelists speaking at the Advertising Research Foundation's conference in Manhattan on Thursday.

Currently, 40 million American households have digital TV through satellite and cable subscriptions, and that has changed the media landscape drastically, said Jen Soch, a vice president and associate media director at Publicis Groupe's MediaVest unit. "Time shifting," a DVR feature that gives viewers the ability to watch a program any time they want, will have a particularly strong impact.

"In the future, [commercial] pods will be gone, as advertising will be sold in blocks," Soch said at the conference, which was held at the New York Marriott Financial Center. "TV will come to resemble a magazine, where consumers no longer just 'watch' TV, but 'consume' TV through the choices of programming that they will decide to make."

As this happens, Soch explained, the "video anywhere" concept will force a different set of metrics to the forefront, as ratings will no longer be able to account for time shifting and greater audience fragmentation.

As to how viewers will relate to DVRs, Artie Bulgrin, senior vice president for research sales and development at ESPN, and Rachel Mueller-Lust, vice president for sales research at ABC Television Network, criticized current research for relying too much on "early adopters" and for being too "TiVo-centric."

The two conducted an ethnographic study from February to August 2004, in which 157 homes were given DVRs. Of those households, 67 returned the DVRs, finding either a bad experience with installation or that the cost was too high.

In terms of the homes that stuck with the DVRs, roughly half said they didn't watch more TV, but that they did watch more efficiently--but that doesn't mean they skipped through commercials, merely that they were able to watch desired shows according to their busy schedules. For example, some would watch shows on weekends, and others, later at night, Bulgrin said.

"Commercial skipping is not the primary impetus for DVR users," Bulgrin said. "About 30 percent said they never used the device to avoid commercials. TV is still passive. People don't want to work too hard when they're watching; speeding up and slowing down is considered work."

Mueller-Lust added: "The 30-second spot is not dead; it may be wounded among the DVR set, but it's not dead. For the majority, they do not want to sit with a remote. Plus, people will still want to watch a program live--or at least the night it airs--so that they can talk about it in the morning."

Furthermore, Bulgrin and Mueller-Lust argued that DVRs will make viewers more "passionate" about watching TV.

"Overall, on the plus side, audiences will become more attentive and clearly defined for some shows," Mueller-Lust said. "On the downside: when it comes to fragmentation, you ain't seen nothing yet."