Friday September 23, 2005
Be Careful What You Ask For
AdAge.com reported last week that the threat to advertisers posed by DVRs like TiVo has been exaggerated. The threat to me, however, is real.
I am not proud of it, but I’ve watched such recent reality flops as Wickedly Perfect and The Cut—starring Tommy “My Upper Lip is a Landing Strip” Hilfiger—all the way to the bitter end. I blame my DVR.
You know you’re the only person watching a reality show when it suddenly moves to a different night, particularly to Friday or Saturday. Both these shows were subjected to such humiliation, and I might have lost track of them entirely—forgotten all about them and gotten on with my life—but my DVR found them and there they were, waiting in the queue for me. After setting my machine to record all new episodes of The Real World, I haven’t been able to shake the series, no matter how boring and unsympathetic the participants have become.
I call it “DVR Lock.” I should write a book about it or launch a blog about how it will change everything. Nah. But I do think DVRs will change the way we watch television in unexpected ways. Sure I skip commercials and almost never watch shows in real time, but decisions made this week—premiere week—may well haunt me until May. First there was “appointment television.” Then we “surfed.” Now DVRs have brought about the age of “assigment television.” We sign up for a show and the homework keeps on coming.
You might say, justifiably, “Just because you recorded it doesn’t mean you have to watch it.” I will answer with a parable.
When I was in college, I ran into an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in a while. He looked like hell. His skin was grey. His eyes were bloodshot. His clothes were wrinkled. I asked him what was was going on.
“I live with these three guys,” he said, “and we have a kegerator in our our apartment.” A kegerator, if you don’t know, is a refrigerator that has been modified to store kegs of beer, complete with a handy tap on the outside. I understood. He had been drinking hard for weeks. “Why don’t you take a night off?” I suggested. “Dude,” he said. “We’ve got a kegerator.”
Dude, I’ve got a DVR.
Posted by jim at 02:14 PM ||