Daddy, What does it mean when a fish is stuck to the filter?
Well, Brooke, that's never a good thing. Looks like the fish people at last weekend's carnival didn't take very good care of the fish before we won them. Sometimes, when something like this isn't working out, you have to flush what you have and change the atmosphere so the fish that's still happy doesn't get sick.
Just ask the folks in advertising:
"The free television that we've all enjoyed for so many years is based on us watching these commercials," said Jamie C. Kellner, chief executive of Turner Broadcasting. "There's no Santa Claus. If you don't watch the commercials, someone's going to have to pay for television and it's going to be you." ..Digital Video Recorders Give Advertisers Pause By AMY HARMON
Yes, I'm sorry, but that fish isn't swimming anymore. It's time to pull the old things out of the filter and think about life in the 21st century...
We've trained people that you can buy things at 3 in the morning in the nude on the Internet and make a call to anyone from anywhere on a cellphone, and the idea that CBS is going to determine when I watch `CSI' flies in the face of that trend," said Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research. "TV networks are going to have to figure out how to make money from a TV viewer that is not nailed to the chair waiting for the commercial to end."
The statement is obviously true and well thought out, but, hey, wake up people. VCRs have allowed people to, time shift programs for years now. Suddenly we go digital and there's, gasp, evidence that it ACTUALLY HAPPENS and the whole mass media model is out the window? There's a quote in the article:
"If an advertiser buys `NYPD Blue' on Tuesday night, and 10 percent of its audience watches it on Friday after midnight, should that audience be given equal value as the `live' prime- time audience?"
I guess if you're buying an add that asks them to act on a "special" on Wednesday, and they watch on Friday, you've wasted your money. But aside from that, what makes your razor blade ad (assuming the person actually watches it) less effective at 2am than at 10pm? The assumption you've started with, that the person was watching it at 10pm on Tuesday during NYPD Blue and not up at the fridge grabbing some Turkey Hill Mint Chocolate Chip is a bad one to begin with.
The TV ratings have been a consentual hallucination since I was a Media Planner in 1988.
I was having a nice conversation about this article today with Arthur Einstein (not such a bad guy when you get to know him :-). I told him I'm considering a second Tivo for my living room, since we still can't figure out what is on which VCR tape. And that's even with a VCR that automatically marks and does a commerical advance.
And, hey, I'm ALREADY paying for TV. $60 a month for cable is plenty. If they would get the Yankees up here instead of screwing around about a few bucks, I might even watch more TV. With commercials.
9:53:21 PM 
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