Advertising

TiVo’s Unreleased Holiday Video

Turns out that video on our TiVo boxes promoting free (with subscription) Series 2 units isn’t the only holiday advertisement they shot… The elves had a little too much egg nog and busted out this Christmas rap while the camera was rolling.

TiVo Sells Ads After Recordings

We knew this was coming… In fact, Mari just covered a similar advertising service that will glue commercials onto Charter’s video-on-demand programming. TiVo’s “Program Placement” allows advertisers to buy slots for their commercials to play at the conclusion of a recorded program. This could be very lucrative for TiVo as it really creates a secondary … Read more

Ad-ding It Up for VOD

It’s kind of like the war between spammers and anti-spammers. As soon as one side comes up with a new technological weapon, the other builds something for the arsenal to counter it. So it goes with television advertising. Charter is starting a trial in hometown St. Louis of dynamic, on-demand advertising. The reason this is … Read more

Radio Shack Advertises TiVo

Shortly after TiVo announced KidZone last spring, they revealed Radio Shack would sell units — which hit stores in August. This week Radio Shack began running TiVo advertisements during prime time and late night TV. Surprisingly, they fail to mention (other than the fine print) that the “free” TiVo requires a subscription… unlike TiVo’s radio … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… Buy a TiVo, get a pizza: TiVo CEA proposes FCC expedite two-way products: Multichannel News ITVN announces Universal movie on-demand: Press Release HD DVR sales drive DirecTV growth: PVRWire Moviebeam expands retail presence into Radio Shack: TWICE

HD-DVD, Now With Ads!

Studio executives would like you to believe that HD-DVD and Blu-ray represent the future of the DVD, but according to Ad-Jab it also represents the future of advertising. In a move sure to infuriate fans everywhere, HD-DVD is going to start including enhanced advertising content on the extra space that HD-DVD discs allow for.

The only thing more controversial then the ads that the studios make you watch when you buy a DVD are the ads that movie theaters force on you when you go see a film. The advertisements that you can opt out of, or skip past don’t bother me quite as much, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rented a movie and have then been forced to sit through some lousy spot that I have no interest in.

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YouTube Goes for (More) Mass Distribution

Notice how indie and mass commercial distribution networks are merging? Well here’s one more example: Reuters and The Wall Street Journal report that YouTube (apparently we still call it that if even after Google’s buyout) and Verizon are in talks to distribute YouTube videos over cell phones and the FiOS TV network. I’m very curious … Read more