A hearty “fuck you” to TBS executive Jamie Kellner for this bit of wisdom:
“Your contract with the network when you get the show is you’re going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn’t get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you’re actually stealing the programming.” Also, “Someone’s going to have to pay for television and it’s going to be you.”
He is, of course, referring to devices such as TiVo that let you pause live TV and, if you record the show you are watching and jump in a couple minutes after it starts, skip over commercials.
I don’t even OWN one of these things, and only know one person who does (for the record, he says it’s kick-ass though). But his tone and implication piss me off beyond belief.
So, is he going to tie you to a chair and make you watch all the commericials? No. What he wants to do, and the article says a federal court has ordered this, is monitor what people do with their digital recorders, and charge a fee to those who don’t watch commercials.
Now, I’m not really afraid of that happening since there is no way higher courts would ever uphold something like that.
This just pisses me off because it’s yet another example of the entertainment industry just completely not getting technology.
So fuck you, Mr. Kellner. If your outdated business model can’t/won’t adapt to changing times, that’s your problem, not mine.
Want me to pay for TV? Fine. I’ll pay for the 4 ESPN channels, and whatever network has syndicated reruns of the Simpsons. And there had better not be commercials on ANY of those channels.