Is Tivo Selling Out Their Customers? In-Show Ads to Come Soon.

So there you have it – I promised CloudAve would be all about business, and am now ranting about a consumer service. But I feel somewhat justified, it fits a theme I started with Just Because You Can Does Not Mean You Should: the theme of appreciating your customers vs. squeezing them for incremental revenue.

Zat’s Not Funny reports that Tivo is getting ready to push advertisements whenever you hit Pause on your remote.

Using the TiVo Pause Menu, advertisers can, for the first time, reach audiences with targeted product messages displayed within the pause screen of a Live or Timeshifted program. The feature provides an original solution for advertisers seeking to capture the fast-forwarding viewer. It’s another example of how TiVo offers unique and different solutions for advertisers looking to get viewers to watch advertisements.

Another example of offering solutions to whom? Certainly not their customers. If this plan gets implemented, it means Tivo breaks a fundamental rule of business: Loyalty to customers – which of course assume not getting confused about who those customers are in the first place. For Tivo it should be crystal clear: unlike most Web 2.0 services, they never had a freebie version that they would need to support by advertising: Tivo has always been a pay-for service – rather expensive, I might add.

They started messing with the system for a while, the occasional ad videos were tolerable, the order Domino’s Pizza option is stupid but again tolerable, as they are optional and not intrusive. But now they are about to spoil the user experience – a cardinal sin, since user experience is the only factor somewhat keeping their already diminishing customer base.

Now, you may have noticed I was saying if they implement it, not when… here’s why. For now, this is just an announcement. The screen shot that’s being re-used in several blogs is a photoshopped one:

Here’s the original:

There’s a huge difference: the original ad does not show an ad, the blue bar is the link to Swivel Search, which brings up related items like future show times, actor listing, other films by same actors ..etc. It’s all about extended convenience features enabled by the recent Tivo software update.

Was this update a Trojan Horse, enabling Tivo to turn on in-show advertising? It may very well have been … but if Tivo listens, they still have a chance to do what’s right.

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One response to “Is Tivo Selling Out Their Customers? In-Show Ads to Come Soon.”

Dave Zatz December 9, 2008 at 5:41 pm | Permalink

No, it’s a done deal. Check out the Multichannel article for the real image and here’s an excerpt:

The company said it has signed two initial sponsors for the “Pause Menu” ads: Mercedes-Benz USA, which will promote its GLK sports-utility vehicle in early 2009 by targeting football viewers, and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, which plans to promote the DVD release of Dr Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who on Dec. 9.