I think it's going to hit a point where advertisers quit paying for ad time, at which point cable companies will just directly charge us for everything. I'm expecting us to move towards a pay per view model for everything at the rate things are gooing.

I seriously doubt that we are approaching the end of tv advertising. But I do think it's going to change, more corporate sponsorship, more product placement. I've also heard arguments that DVRs will enable advertisers to target the audience more closely, airing one set of commercials in one zip code and a different set in another.

That is precisely it. Special effects and all those cast members don't come cheap. Even worse, what if the shows are priced according to how many people tune in/download. All of our lovely little genre shows will cost me per episode to watch. We're not talking cost like $1 an episode, I'd say it would be much higher. Even if it were only $5 an episode, if you watch 10 episodes in a week, that's $200 a month in television viewing.

I'm pretty confident in big business's ability to use tv to get their products in front of us, even if the method changes. I think that they're going to go product placement with a lot more, and probably come up with other creative ways to sell.

wow, that's a sobering thought. I mean, it's more like movies, I guess.

I think right now we're in a transitional phase, advertisers and execs are a little leery of the new technology. Once they figure out how to use DVRs to their advantage, they'll sing a new tune.

Yeah, it's definitely a changing field. I do think we are going to see more and more shows where products are written into the shows and placed with advertising planned. It's a pretty big gulf that needs to be crossed here with the advertising dollars that are being lost. Right now DVR's have about 25% penetration into homes and networks are feeling the pinch. Predictions are for 50% penetration by 2010 and that's when things are going to start to squeeze the networks.

I thought that it was higher than that. I was listening to NPR tonight, and they were talking about the FF button thing, and I think they menitoned a higher number,I remember being surprised

Higher now? Or higher in 2010? I listened to the same report and I'm pretty sure it was only 25% right now.

hmm, maybe. I was driving so I might not have been paying close attention.

Once they figure out how to use DVRs to their advantage, they'll sing a new tune.

Definitely. It's the same with the music industry - a few years ago they went on a hellfire crusade against music downloads, and totally dismissed the market. That's now changed -- a decade later.

That Comcast thing I mentioned, with no fast forwarding of adverts, is also a trial of targetted advertising. Depending on your location, you'll get taylored adverts. It's a pact between ABC and ESPN as a trial.

I do not see the market, at the moment, emerging as pay-per-view TV, particularly for new productions. If Drive cost $3m per episode (including the pilot costs), and got 50,000 pay-per-view people, that'd be $60 an episode. I love Tim's work, but not that much.