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TiVo begins displaying ads while your TV is paused

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Home A/V | by Samuel Axon | Wed Dec 10, 2008 11:16AM | 0 comments

The television industry is in a state of panic thanks to illegal online downloading, and even the legal options are problematic for the networks; digital video recorders (DVRs) like TiVo let you fast-forward past commercials, which are of course the primary (and sometimes only) source of income for the folks producing TV shows.

TiVo got its start by capitalizing on your dislike of commercials, but it's lately been trying to find ways to place ads that you can't skip. Its latest experiment: put targeted ads in the screen that comes up when you pause your TiVo box. Pausing isn't the big problem for the networks — fast-forwarding is, but this is not for the networks' benefit, it's for TiVo's. The system will scan for keywords in the description of the show you're watching and show you one-line ads for products it deems to be related.

Presently only the Series2 models are affected by the change, but the Series3 ones are likely to follow.

This story around the web:

Trusted sources:
external link Ads coming soon to a paused TiVo menu near… [Engadget]
external link TiVo increasing on-screen ads, cable… [Boy Genius Report]
external link TiVo now injecting ads when users pause TV [CrunchGear]
external link TiVo rolls out paused TV targeted ads [SlashGear]
external link TiVo Sticks Ads Into Timeshifting [TiVo] [Gizmodo]

Get more information on topics relating to this story:


Related company news:
TiVo
Related glossary terms:
DVR
Related brand news:
TiVo HD, Tivo Series2, Tivo Series3
Related devices and services:
TiVo HD, TiVo HD XL, TiVo Series2, TiVo Series3

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