• by Lydia Loizides , Op-Ed Contributor, August 7, 2008

An interesting turn of events this week. An appellate court overturned a ruling from 2006 that will clear the way for Cablevision to launch Remote Storage Digital Video Recorder. Obviously, for some this is a victory; for others it is a problem.

I am not going to quote percentages because, well, why bother? The reality is there. There are a growing number of TV households with DVRs, and the ad-skipping is high -- we know that. And yes, by taking out the capital cost of set-top boxes with finite storage capacity, cable operators have alleviated one cost but arguably added another (storage is storage and streaming is streaming -- the more you store, the more you stream, the more it costs). And yes, it is likely that the number of TV households with DVRs, and therefore ad-skipping tendencies, will grow, if an operator is able to offer the service to its entire footprint because the barrier to entry is now much lower. I understand that. What are you going to do about it?

Here are some suggestions for content owners/distributors:

1. Face that the future is finally here and see to it that you are concentrating on developing properties that can live on multiple platforms (translation --- figure out how to make money off a property).

2. Make sure one of those platforms is online, and build in sustainable and predicable calls to action so that you can increase the value of your online CPM (translation -- get ready to rid yourself of what you think you know about building interactive television).

3. Work with your advertisers to embrace new ways of marketing and advertising (translation -- get ready to do more for about the same, if not less, CPM).

4. Take a look within. A friend who works for a network, that shall remain nameless, told me about some of the politics that come from the ad sales groups. Management needs to know and remedy any and all situations where people simply won't play (translation -- if they can't figure out how, or don't want to, sell it as an integrated package, find someone who will. Your business depends on it).

Now the upside to this news is that for some of the viewing audience, access to a networked DVR will likely increase the amount of time they spend watching TV. Now I know that that doesn't solve the host of other issues that come with that -- but it's better than a poke in the TV viewing eye.