Skipping the Ads
Research says that even DVR users have a tendency to watch the ads:
Against almost every expectation, nearly half of all people watching delayed shows are still slouching on their couches watching messages about movies, cars and beer. According to Nielsen, 46 percent of viewers 18 to 49 years old for all four networks taken together are watching the commercials during playback, up slightly from last year. Why would people pass on the opportunity to skip through to the next chunk of program content?
The most basic reason, according to Brad Adgate, the senior vice president for research at Horizon Media, a media buying firm, is that the behavior that has underpinned television since its invention still persists to a larger degree than expected.
“It’s still a passive activity,” he said.
Kevin Drum characterizes this as people being “too lazy to bother” skipping them. I suspect the real truth is that people don’t always bother to skip the ads because they’re not always watching the show. If I’ve Tivoed something I really want to watch, I’ll sit on the couch watching the show, paying attention, and skipping the ads. But if it’s time to tidy up the house, I might put on an episode of a show I’m not all that into and keep half an eye on it while unloading the dishwasher, using the dust buster, putting books back on the shelves, etc.
Part of which is to say that one problem with all studies about how new technology (DVR vs live TV, reading a newspaper online vs reading a paper newspaper) impacts people’s advertising is that I don’t think our understanding of the baseline is all that good. Of the ads people “watch,” how many really get watched. When my dad and I watched the Giants-Eagles game yesterday it’s not like we were staring blankly at the Ford 150 ads—the breaks in a football game are when you talk to your friends, get a drink, check your email, whatever.
33 Responses to “Skipping the Ads”
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November 2nd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
In observing pictures of Mr. Yglesias, it would appear that he spends the time during commercials to go to the kitchen to get some junk food snacks.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Yeah. “Brad Adgate,” though? If that’s his real name, he was born to work in marketing.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Advertising can actually be more effective when you’re doing something else while it’s in earshot and not engaging it consciously.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
gotta go to the bathroom sometime – it’s a lot more passive to just let the thing keep playing during the commercial while you go rather than hit the pause button
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Yep, I’ll put the TV on while I’m doing other things, especially cleaning or some kind of home repair.
I actually think there’s a hidden market for updated radio shows–lots of people would probably enjoy having them on as they were multitasking. I listen to BBC radio shows, and they’re fantastic for this kind of thing.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I skip the commercials, but if I one catches my eye, I will stop and watch it. Out of guilt I suppose.
Oh, and Mac and Dos Equis ads. Always watch those.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
actually think there’s a hidden market for updated radio shows–lots of people would probably enjoy having them on as they were multitasking.
Maybe they could call them podcasts?
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Many times I forget that I am watching the show on playback. Often I’ll go straight through the entire commercial break before I remember.
Once I do remember I do skip through them. ‘We have the technology!’
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Dust buster? Is that for cleaning the Frito crumbs off of the Commodore 64 keyboard?
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Yep. That pretty much describes my viewing habits.
I will often stop and rewind back if an ad looks interesting or is advertising something I’m interested in – it happens all the time. I think the rise of the DVR just means that advertisers will have to get more creative and not just rely on stuff like playing footage of a truck in the American countryside in slo-mo to the tunes of a current country star.
Mad Men is great at this. The trivia bits and nostalgic ginger ale commercials often have me stopping to view commercials.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
There are a lot of unreported factors here, apart from people playing shows but not necessarily watching them. Advertisers should be tickled pink that people aren’t changing the channel when watching DVRed shows, and many people just don’t like hitting buttons all the time, or forget to keep the remote handy– it can be liberating not to change the channel all the time.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I really wonder how well commercials connect with people. I remember a few years ago I found one commercial to be particularly compelling. I watched it every time it was on, breathlessly hanging on everything it was showing. Yet I could not, and still cannot, remember what they were trying to sell.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Some commercials are entertaining. Also, ads for things you are in the market for are actually of value. Maybe advertising, for all its annoyances, actually can add value to consumers’ lives.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I listen to BBC radio shows, and they’re fantastic for this kind of thing.
Yeah, the BBC has long been aware of how radio + internets make for a good combination.
Maybe they could call them podcasts?
Maybe they could, but the BBC has got the most out of the radio/online dynamic with live shows.
As for DVR-skipping, it’s mainly that if you’re actually watching with any degree of immersion, you have to work out where the remote is, which means that the first ad in the break should be charged at a premium. There are a few ad++ things which seem to be intended to blur the line between show and ad to disrupt skipping — the most successful one I’ve seen was the Bud Light whole-show sponsorship of SNL that used old dress-rehearsal clips in the middle of breaks.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
I call bullshit. Who would sit and watch the commercials? What for? People who don’t understand what a Fast Forward button is for? This has to be people who are simply using commercials as bathroom and snack breaks like in times past.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:07 pm
“Skipping” is a misnomer. Would that there were a button to let you skip commercials. The best my DVR can do is fast forward through them, which means I have to stare intently at the screen to catch the moment the show comes back on. So advertisers don’t get sound, but they do get my eyeballs staring hard at their logos and images (Happy people! Beer Logo! Attractive Woman! Beer Logo! Giant Truck! Giant truck Logo!)
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I call bullshit. Who would sit and watch the commercials?
Most people I know watch TV in the evening, on the sofa, while also on their laptops. So, you’re on facebook or Yglesias or huffingtonpost or whatever half blog reading and half watching TV. In such cases you surf during commercials, then look up at the TV once the show starts again.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Kevin Drum characterizes this as people being “too lazy to bother” skipping them. I suspect the real truth is that people don’t always bother to skip the ads because they’re not always watching the show. If I’ve Tivoed something I really want to watch, I’ll sit on the couch watching the show, paying attention, and skipping the ads. But if it’s time to tidy up the house, I might put on an episode of a show I’m not all that into and keep half an eye on it while unloading the dishwasher, using the dust buster, putting books back on the shelves, etc.
So, what you’re saying is, you’re too lazy to bother?
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
“Skipping” is a misnomer. Would that there were a button to let you skip commercials. The best my DVR can do is fast forward through them, which means I have to stare intently at the screen to catch the moment the show comes back on.
+1 to this. With my Comcast DVR, you can’t just skip, you have to fast forward and keep your eyes on the screen to know when to hit “play” again. If I’m websurfing or reading while watching TV (as I often am) and I don’t need to “hurry up” and finish the program for some reason, I just let the commercials play rather than have to fiddle with the remote.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
The best my DVR can do is fast forward through them
TiVo’s 30 second skip (admittedly non-default) means you can generally blip-blip-blip right through breaks.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:45 pm
“Doing several other household tasks at the same time” doesn’t strike me as “lazy”.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Excellent post — the real takeaway, for me, is the relative attractiveness of sports programming to advertising because you more or less have to watch it live. Sure, it’s not a hard and fast rule, but generally you watch sports live, and you have no option to skip the commercials. I bet advertising rates for sports events are rising relative to other programming, or falling less rapidly, or something.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Now there’s a sobering thought- our knowledge of the world is being gained by surfing the net during the commercials. Maybe that’s how you earn a Harvard degree without learning how to correct the typos.
It is incredible what a time-sink a movie or show is without commercials. And it raises the question- is this really something I want to concentrate on for 2 or 3 hours?
YMMV.
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
“Skipping” is a misnomer. Would that there were a button to let you skip commercials.
I had a DVR from Dish One, and it had a 30-second skip button. I think the DVRs from cable companies don’t have one because the cable companies have some sort of agreement with the stations.
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:13 pm
I really am surprised to hear that so many people “watch” TV while cleaning or surfing the web. I do this all the time and just figured I had some sort of mild ADD. There are very few shows I can actually sit still for. For some reason it’s really interesting to me that so many of us have developed the same habits.
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:53 pm
E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!!!!!!
(sorry.)
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Goddammit Rich!
The New York I love got crushed, and the New York team representing triple distilled suck is now one game from their 27th or whateverthefuckitis Championship.
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
“TiVo’s 30 second skip (admittedly non-default) means you can generally blip-blip-blip right through breaks.”
It’s absolutely bizarre.
TiVo’s interface is abandon-ware from five years ago, and yet it’s still the best DVR out there by a country mile.
Thank god for the FCC and the Cable Card requirement. Without that, we’d all have to rent shitty DVR’s from our service providers.
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I’ll second the idea that some commercials catch my eye. Seriously, I skip most of the time, and yet I will still watch a reasonable number of commercials. Some are for products I’m interested in, but most of the ones we watch are actually entertaining. In fact, for particularly good ones, we’ll use the DVR controls to actually watch them multiple times if they’re particularly clever – then completely skip the boring ones.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Even in the olden days of printed newspapers and non-fastforwardable TV, I didn’t spend much time watching ads or looking at them. I read the articles in the paper, not the ads. I watched the shows and mostly tuned out commercials. But I guess advertisers have figured out that even if 30% of watchers actually look at their ads, it still does its subconscious duty.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
lol @ #1
I’m still waiting for ads to just say f- it and start editing their video for maximum impact, ala #16’s comment.
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:56 am
In the UK, most DVRs have the equivalent of a 30 second skip (not that many people get TV through cable). The skip times on my Humax DVR are customisable, so I have them set to skip forward one minute and back 30 seconds.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Why the hate for commercials? Many, many commercials have more creativity and talent contained in their 30 seconds than the entire show you’re watching. In the UK more so than in the US, but even here there are good commercials from time to time. You could argue that spending 8 minutes watching the ads and skipping the show entirely is probably a better use of time and more edifying than vice versa, especially if the show is a reality show or “Two and half men.”