As a TV advertiser, I wouldn't be interested in any spot beside the one that came at the beginning of a commercial break. As a TiVo watcher, I consistently fast-forward through commercials. But I always pause for about two seconds, usually not even realizing that I'm doing it, to see if that first commercial is interesting. It drives my wife crazy, because she would rather not watch any commercials, ever. And I rarely do watch the entire commercial, but if it has an interesting story, I'll stick around to see it.
Now, I realize that others will argue that DVR penetration into U.S. households is still only partial. They'll also argue that there many viewers who are "too lazy" to fast-forward as we do. I'm not sure I buy it. And it's not the trend. The trend is for greater and greater DVR penetration. And I want to meet some of these people who are too lazy to push the fast-forward button.
Because of the medium, if done correctly, TV commercials can be incredibly effective (burning impressions into our memory). But they have no effect if no one sees them.
I realize none of this is new information, but I sense that eventually some genius is going to figure out how ineffective TV commercials have become. At that point, I suspect our culture of "free" TV programming is in for a huge paradigm shift.
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