You Can't Coach That

Monday, March 19, 2007

Driving home from work this afternoon I saw a sign on the back of a bus advertising the new DVD hard drive recorder from LG. (now I am sure you are saying to yourself - wow I am glad I tuned into this post - but bear with me).

The tag line for the ad was “make this the last tv ad that you see”.

I would be interested to know what the reaction of those companies that advertise on tv would be to such an ad - on second thoughts, I know - they would be pissed off!

More to the point, I ponder the contrast between this situation and the copying of copyrighted material such as music cds and DVDs. It seems that the general consensus in our society that it is fine to record material from tv and then use that recording to not watch the ads. As PVRs become more widespread (in Australia at least) this situation could escalate and fewer and fewer people will bother to watch ads. This will of course be offset by people’s desire to watch now rather than record and watch later but I know from my own experience that I am in fact recording more content to watch at a time that suites me.

Of course when I do record a program I dutifully watch all the ads in their entirety

“You can’t coach that”