Harikrishnan

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

Skipping Advertisements on TV

All I would need is a small button. I am not aware of any TV remotes that has this button. But let me guarantee you, we are talking about a button which is going to be used very frequently. If you are a person like me, very very frequently.

Function of the button is simple- it swaps you to any other pre-set channel for a pre-set time, and returns back to the channel you were watching.

It works like this- Most programs have a specified time duration for the commercial break. for example, every 15 minutes you have a commercial break of 3 minutes.
The user has the option to set this time first. So when the ad starts the user presses a button, and again when the break ends. The stop watch calculates and sets the time.Then the user chooses to which channel he would like to swap to.

Consider you are watching a movie in STAR movies [1], and you calculate the typical ad break is for 3 minutes and set the swap time to 3 minutes. You choose your swap channel to be, say MTV.So next time when the ad break starts, user presses the SkipAd button, he is taken to MTV, watches/listens to music for 3 minutes and at the end of 3 minutes he is automatically swapped back to the Star Movies, just in the nick of time, so that he can continue to watch the movie.

I know for sure no TV manufacturer is going to add this feature, the channels are going to kick them if they do it. Someone will have to hack a remote and add this feature. I do not have any idea how to do it. Instructables has some good DIY articles, for remotes but not this feature.

Though it is an annoying user experience to have ad breaks in between the programs - I dont have a problem with the Ads, infact, I love the ads like this or this or this. And again I get irritated when the same stupid ad is played again and again, as if you are so dumb that you will not understand anything unless its fed into your senses multiple times, over and over again. Dude, I got it the first time you said that !

On the other hand, these are the so called pay channels. We pay for what we see.
How is it like to watch ads between a movie in a theatre ?

[1] from wikipedia on star movies india:
This beam is targeted towards India and the rest of South Asia. As of late the beam is only present in Nepal and Bhutan outside India. This beam has many advertisement breaks during films, creating an annoying viewer experience. As most Indian channels share this disadvantage, Indian viewers are forced to bear with it. The channel has higher TAM ratings in India over HBO South Asia. This is the only region where Star Movies enjoys a lead in the viewer ratings.