Forget preroll, and postroll – the new new thing is Google’s idea of semi transparent ads over the top of the bottom fifth of video. It may even have legs on TV – as we all move to control our own TV watching through time shifting.
Frankly this may be the only hope for TV, as consumers are increasingly driven to timeshifting to get past the great mass of advertisements on free TV.
It is to the point where I simply cannot watch a program of Free to air TV now, be it sport, movie or even news.
Scrolling or semi transparent ads may help me want to come back. The only other thing that could work is a dramatic reduction in the minutes of advertisments per hour – down to say one or two minutes of very expensive ads. Think of say four 30 second ads per hour – it would mean that you could actually watch a movie, and I’d even consider (briefly) not getting pay TV. On the other hand right now the choice for me is clear – between pay TV or no TV. No TV loses only because of rugby. The World cup rugby coverage on Channel Ten is so poor that I would simply not bother following things until the final. Thankfully all of the games are on Foxtel (Japan Fiji was excellent), and I am able to record them on my mac. Thank goodness for eyeTV, SkyTV/FoxTel and the 250 GB HDD on my MacBook Pro.
Lance Wiggs 