ee161agt@sdccs5.UUCP (12/11/83)
I have an idea for a solution to the "not enough viewers, therefore, program is not cost effective" problem. Okay, Advertisers want to reach people who are likely buy their products. TV networks want to sell airtime for as much as they can get for it. TV viewers are generally annoyed by commercials, but are willing to put up with them to see the show (or like me turn down the sound with the remote). Current rating systems are inaccurate and lead to blunderbuss advertising. TV viewers are not always willing to pay the premium for commercial free television, and sometimes have to pay for special stations on cable that advertise (MTV is a perfect example, the subscriber pays MTV for the service, they get the Rock Videos from the record companies for free, and then they advertise on top of THAT. They really must rake in the shakels!). The majority of advertising falls on deaf ears. Try this test: watch TV for a while and count the commercials that apply to you, I.E. something that you might buy. I guess about 1 out of 5 commercials are applicable to me. Some of the incompatibilities are obvious; I haven't much use for MAXI-PADS for example. Solution: Some kind of box or widget that controls what kind of commercials you get. Just like magazines tailor their advertising to their readers, the TV. will give you ads that you are interested in. The technical aspects shouldn't be too hard if you are using cable TV. You could probably do it by having a number of channels that play nothing but commercials and have the black box cut in and change the channel when a commercial is needed. While they were at it, the cable company might even keep track of the number of times this particular commercial was watched and charge the advertiser on a per view rate. This approach would simplify things alot for the TV networks, since they wouldn't have to be running around shuffling scheduals and cancelling shows all the time. The advertiser would be happy, because he reached the people he wanted to reach. The box will definitely please the viewer, you might even set up a facility to have him/her be able to kill especially annoying commercials, and maybe allow him/her to request commercials for cars or any other item he is thinking about buying in the short term. Possible problems: The devise might be easy to defeat. The bandwidth of the cable might not be enough to support so many commercials playing at once. This can be explained away when cable tv turns into light- pipe tv. Modifications to the TV receiver may be required to get channels to switch fast enough - you might be able to get the box to do this without modification. TV companies might not be able to charge premium rates for special events like the Olympics or high rated mass appeal shows. I suppose you could defeat the box from the cable station for these shows. Since it is nearly 1984, you may have some problems with Big Brother phobics who are worried about invasion of privacy, the black box will have sensitive information about the subcriber in it. The cable company might sell the info, or otherwise exploit it. Well, they don't have to use the black box if they don't what. Comments, insights, and technical suggestions should be directed to the net. No mail please. Paul van de Graaf U.C. San Diego