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A Nemo blog. Dealing with uncommon cents.

Mark Drapeau posted an interesting article on Mashable about new media and how it could help the cable and network TV companies retain their advertising dollars.

In an age of DVR’s such as Tivo, thousands of viewers are time-shifting their viewing so as more and more cable and TV news shows ask viewers to “Twitter your comments” and interact with the hosts those time-shifting miss out on that opportunity. Yet as Drapeau points out – The financial consequence of [viewers] not using DVRs, or downloading the shows from a third-party website, or other new options, is that more people watching the real-time version means more viewer share, which in turn means more advertising revenue.

Will more people start tuning in to watch in real time? With the political race heating up we might just see a switch to traditional TV viewing for a while.

For decades now the dream of media types and ad firms has been to convert the humble remote control from a mere volume and channel changer to a spangly ‘product buying module.’ Tivo and Amazon are announcing a partnership today that introduces a “product purchase” feature via Tivo’s DVR service.

The idea is simple – turn the Tivo remote into a tool for buying the products being advertised and promoted on commercials and talk shows. If a talk show host talks up a book, Blu-Ray disc or CD, Tivo viewers will see onscreen menus with links to buy those products.

The NYT reports that – In the months ahead, TiVo plans to begin offering this feature to advertisers and programmers, so that the chance to buy products and have them delivered will be presented to viewers during commercials and even alongside product placements during live shows.

“Just a few years ago, we were viewed with great paranoia as the disruptor,” said Thomas S. Rogers, chief executive of TiVo. “Our goal now is to work with the media industry to come up with ways to resist the downward pressure of less advertising viewing and create a way for advertising on TV to become more effective, more engaging and closer to the sale.”

Tivo is now positioning itself away from media industry disruptor – offering its customers ways to skip ads, to media industry saviour, but not without Mr Rogers sowing the seeds of paranoia – “As DVRs get more popular, “the majority of commercials in home will be fast-forwarded through,” he said. “It is critical that there be a form of advertising and a transactional solution that underpins the DVR, or the economics of television are going to be substantially undermined.”