AnchorDesk

When networks attack, or, a plan to save TiVo
If I were the illegal file-sharing type, I'd have spent Wednesday night on BitTorrent, searching for and downloading the episode of Lost that my TiVo didn't record because ABC scheduled it to run three minutes long. The idea was to keep me on my couch for the exciting last minutes of Lost, then drop me right into butt-kicking Alias action. The result, though, was that Lost conflicted with The West Wing, which runs on a different channel. So although TiVo managed to record both Alias and The West Wing, which run simultaneously, Lost had a lower priority and it got, well, lost.

I know the above paints an embarrassing portrait of inveterate TV watching, but hey, everyone needs a hobby. It also illustrates an annoying and unintended consequence of using a DVR. Networks, starting with NBC, began scheduling shows just on or off the hour more than a year ago, making DVR owners feel like the targets of a malicious scheme to screw with their carefully constructed recording schedules. In reality, the networks aren't targeting DVR owners, but channel flippers. They're definitely trying to keep you from changing over to The West Wing after Lost ends, because after all, who'd want to watch The West Wing after you'd missed the first three minutes, which usually contain, say, the previous week's recap plus the credits?

But the TiVo nation is the victim of this supremely irritating schedule monkeying and is not happy about it. But here's the thing: the networks probably won't quit fooling with show scheduling. They might--NBC has cut back quite a bit on its "supersize episode" flimflam--but they don't really have a good reason to, other than suffering through a lot of angry user letters. Why wouldn't they grub for ratings? Ratings rule TV, and I'd hate to see either Lost or Alias get canceled because of declining viewership.

Enter TiVo, and, perhaps, a chance for it to save itself.

Television ratings are, right now, calculated in an extremely DVR-unfriendly fashion. Shows are ranked based on who's watching them at the time they're on. Given this age of DVR time-shifting, this method is outdated and probably increasingly inaccurate (after all, people have been using VCRs to record shows for years, as many of you have pointed out). Meanwhile, if you're a DVR owner, the networks' over/under scheduling actually defeats their own purpose. If I don't end up recording Lost, I don't watch it. If I could have recorded all three shows, I would, at some point--probably over a period of about a week--watch all three shows, Lost, Alias, and The West Wing. After all, the point of scheduling a season pass for shows I think I might want to watch is that I'm probably not going to watch them when they're actually on. But I will watch them at some point, and those viewings will go unrecorded by Nielsen or Arbitron, which may or may not negatively affect the ratings of the three shows.

So, TiVo, why aren't you more in bed with Nielsen? We already know that TiVo can track its recorded and replayed moments--a fact many of you aren't too happy about. And TiVo already does work with Nielsen to track its users' viewing patterns. But given this capability, why can't TiVo work with Nielsen to create an entirely new ratings model, combining its recording tracking capabilities with Nielsen's live-watching data to deliver networks with a future-proof package of ratings data? And, of course, charge a bundle for the data.

Now, I know what you're going to say. The reason networks want the ratings data is so that they can use that information to entice advertisers. And the DVR audience is averse to commercials; about 92 percent of them don't watch commercials when they watch their recorded shows. But the networks will have to deal with this problem somehow, and what better way than with TiVo onboard? TiVo's already shown its willingness to place ads on your viewing menu and even banner ads onscreen when you're fast-forwarding. I know no one likes it, but we'll have to get used to it, because DVRs aren't going away, and neither is advertising-supported television.

They'll have to find a way to peacefully coexist, because, by most accounts, DVRs are streaming into households. TiVo just hit 3 million subscribers. Parks Associates reports that about 16 million households will have multiroom DVR solutions by 2009. DVR penetration is expected to grow by 59 percent each year until 2008, per Strategy Analytics, and Forrester Research reports that TiVo and other DVR owners spend 62 percent of their time watching recorded, not live, shows. Networks need to quit worrying about keeping us on the same channel and start worrying about their statistics skew when 41 percent of Americans are watching recorded shows on their DVRs by 2009, instead of watching them live.

If TiVo also rolls out more intelligent season pass management, which could absorb and outsmart one- or two-minute schedule conflicts without having to cancel entire recordings, its future would be assured. That way, networks could keep dinking around with their schedules to their heart's content, annoying the live-viewing audience but leaving DVR owners out of it, and they'd get the bonus of having the recording audience watching, most likely, even more shows. See? Everybody wins. TiVo, if you're listening, I'll be expecting a bonus.