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Ads getting much more intrusive

8K views 46 replies 27 participants last post by  Rkkeller 
#1 ·
I've noticed more and more ads and they are more and more intrusive. They occur larger than ever on the STOP bar (when pause, fast-forward, etc.), they are appearing now in "My Shows", and other places

It bothers me that I purchased my TIVO box and am paying a monthly subscription fee. I should not be inundated with ads for a service that I a paying for.

Does anyone agree with me?
 
#7 ·
Look at it this way - if there were no ads, then your monthly subscription would be a lot more. I'd rather keep paying what I am and simply ignore those ads then to have to pay more a month not to have ads.
Ah yes, this old chestnut. And just how much money per subscriber do you think TiVo rakes in every month?

Let's do some quick elementary school math. TiVo has close to 4 million subscribers right now. So surely, if as you say, the service would be much more expensive they must be making like, at least $5 per subscriber per month on advertising revenue right? (Does 33% qualify as much more?) So that's like, $20 million a month. Or roughly $60 million per quarter.

TiVo made just over $81 million last QUARTER. <sarcasm>Obviously the only thing they're making money off of is advertising.</sarcasm>

Do you people who keep spouting this even stop to do some simple math?

Do you really think it's worth the money to piss their customer's off? I'm sure the advertising isn't a money making proposition today but rather something they ASPIRE to, at some point in the future, make significant money off of. And can you imagine what that will look like?

If given a choice I think almost all TiVo subscribers would pay the fraction of a dollar a month to be free of the ads.
 
#8 ·
Ah yes, this old chestnut. And just how much money per subscriber do you think TiVo rakes in every month?

Let's do some quick elementary school math. TiVo has close to 4 million subscribers right now. So surely, if as you say, the service would be much more expensive they must be making like, at least $5 per subscriber per month on advertising revenue right? (Does 33% qualify as much more?) So that's like, $20 million a month. Or roughly $60 million per quarter.

TiVo made just over $81 million last QUARTER. <sarcasm>Obviously the only thing they're making money off of is advertising.</sarcasm>

Do you people who keep spouting this even stop to do some simple math?

Do you really think it's worth the money to piss their customer's off? I'm sure the advertising isn't a money making proposition today but rather something they ASPIRE to, at some point in the future, make significant money off of. And can you imagine what that will look like?

If given a choice I think almost all TiVo subscribers would pay the fraction of a dollar a month to be free of the ads.
Since you are talking simple math you listed what Tivo makes a month. Now tell how much are they spending for buildings, R&D, insurance and taxes, workers salaries. How much are they paying Tirbute to use the guild. The cost of the Tivo that they discount to buyers.
 
#10 ·
Do you really think it's worth the money to piss their customer's off? I'm sure the advertising isn't a money making proposition today but rather something they ASPIRE to, at some point in the future, make significant money off of. And can you imagine what that will look like?
Their customer's WHAT?

But seriously, apparently plenty of people pay for Hulu Plus, and that has commercials.

I personally won't get Hulu Plus (beyond *possibly* for a free trial), BECAUSE of the commercials.

I have Tivo (and VCRs before that), I think *more* to avoid commercials than to timeshift. Even so, the Tivo's ads are about as unobtrusive as they can be, without not being there.

Actually, the top bar thing on the Premiere beyond bugs me FAR FAR more than any of the ads that the Tivo UI puts in my face. (yes, I know the top bar thing has ads sometimes too, and arguably EVERYTHING is an ad, even when it shows a TV show/movie.. but you get the difference I'm trying to make.)
 
#13 ·
There's not much in life now a days that doesn't have advertisements... You go to the movies and pay $13 bucks and you have to sit through a ton of advertisements. You spend $30 to go to a baseball game and you see advertisements everywhere... I'm completely fine with what Tivo is doing as it in no way takes away from my experience with it. As long as they don't start inserting commercials of their own into your shows that you can't fast forward,,,,
 
#14 ·
There should be as many threads as there are ads. Seems only fair, so that the irony of whining about the whining can thrive. Want them to ignore the ads? By golly, you could ignore the threads. :D :p

</troll mode>

BTW, Tivo's ad revenue is so small they don't even report it in their financials. The impact on our subs is virtually zilch.
 
#15 ·
Since you are talking simple math you listed what Tivo makes a month. Now tell how much are they spending for buildings, R&D, insurance and taxes, workers salaries. How much are they paying Tirbute to use the guild. The cost of the Tivo that they discount to buyers.
Just look at their financial statements. What they get from advertising is minimal and probably isn't even a factor in setting the monthly service fee.

My point is simply that people saying that TiVo is doing us a favor by having ads in the platform to subsidize the cost are wrong.
 
#17 ·
Which begs the obvious question then - why are they pissing their service-paying customers off for so little in return?
Pissing us off?? Who wouldn't want an ad for a $1 paper towel coupon spamming a giant block of their TV screen incessantly and without rate limiting for months on end? They're looking out for us. Stain cleanup is an important public service announcement that never, ever, ends.

Yeah, I don't know. It's an untested, clueless Tivo act. If they did have a clue, they'd be deliberately annoying people at this point. Maybe they have a quota.

If they're going to spam a quarter of the TV screen, it should be limited and for something damn cool. A paper towel ad is certifiably ridiculous. They need to think higher of themselves and us. Whoring us and that much real estate out for literally pennies on the dollar is just reproachable.

And the ads aren't just beyond useless to my house at this point, it's blown back in their faces. We hate Carbonite now, and as hard as it is to "hate" a paper towel, Bounty isn't far behind.
 
#19 ·
I've always assumed the ads were more a proof of concept for their MSO ambitions.

Should we start an ad-complaint thread drinking game?
 
#21 ·
I've always assumed the ads were more a proof of concept for their MSO ambitions.

Should we start an ad-complaint thread drinking game?
I htink most of us agree at this point that it's proof of concept for the MSO markets, we're just the test platform.

I think the drinking game will have us all passed out within a few posts, every ad thread is always exactly the same, it's as if each new poster wants to rehash the same discussion we just finished with in another thread, but not bother to go over to the other sub-forum and read it.
 
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