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alienating your customers is always profitable! [Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:02 PM]
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[music |L7 -- Mr. Integrity]

Those of you with Tivo may have noticed an irritating trend that the networks have started, of marking hour long shows as being 61 minutes long in the schedule. That extra minute will make Tivo skip recording a show on another channel that started in the following hour.

ABC is unapologetic. "It's not my job to make it easy for people to leave our network," says ABC scheduling chief Jeff Bader. "Our whole goal is to get people to stay with us from 8 to 11."


Update: In the comments below, a lot of you are missing the point. One problem would be if a show was actually 61 minutes long and marked in the schedule as 60 (then you fail to record the last minute.) The more annoying problem is when the show is actually marked as being 61 minutes long, because that extra minute causes a scheduling conflict in the following time slot. Dual tuners help with this, but only if there are not two things you wanted to record in timeslot two (the 61 minute timeslot one show will bump one of them.)

Tivo currently has no feature that lets you say "stop recording at 9:00pm instead of 9:01pm", except by using "record by time" instead of a season pass subscription, which is bogus in several ways.

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Comments:
[User Picture]From: [info]sc00ter
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:04 PM (UTC)

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This has been going on for over a year. It has yet to effect me much. The only time it has I'm usually recording the next show on the same channel so I still get it.

Plus you can set your TiVo to record extra time at the start/end of a show for programs you know do this.
[User Picture]From: [info]zonereyrie
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:08 PM (UTC)

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I solved this problem by not watching much network television. He successfully keeps me from watching his network from 8 to 11.

I think the only network shows I watch these days are the Law & Order series and Crossing Jordan (I have a weakness for Jill). And NBC has played games a couple of times with L&O so far this season, but not often.

Screw them, if they're going to be wankers I'll wait for some cable network to pick up the syndication, or I'll watch the DVDs - or a pirate. I see a lot of people talking about ABC's 'Lost', but I don't watch it because of this very reason. Plenty of other things to watch - especially with TiVo.
[User Picture]From: [info]yekop
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:10 PM (UTC)

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Using a dual-tuner device usually negates this trick.
[User Picture]From: [info]sc00ter
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:28 PM (UTC)

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Not really..

Since the TiVo will still record from say 8-9pm on channel whatever. Even if you have dual tuner the TiVo still will not record past 9pm unless you tell it to.

[User Picture]From: [info]brokengoose
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:29 PM (UTC)

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The problem with that plan is that you're limited to devices with dual-tuners, and they're all awful.
[User Picture]From: [info]kalimdor_wilson
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:15 PM (UTC)

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Smite them all!

*hasn't watched television in over 4 years now*
[User Picture]From: [info]fgmr
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:31 PM (UTC)

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Then I will be unapologetic about collaborating with other people and swapping programs over bittorrent or whatnot. I'm not going to wrap my life around preserving their business model.
[User Picture]From: [info]tfofurn
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:34 PM (UTC)

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I'm looking at four networks, and I don't see any fraction-of-an-hour shenanigans in prime time on my TiVo. Once it's time for the 11:00 news, things get goofy from channel to channel, but not prime time. Either my market's stations have decided not to play along, or I'm looking at the wrong nights.

My Fox affiliate consistently starts syndicated Simpsons early, so I have it set to get an extra two minutes on the front. That then messed up Iron Chef when Iron Chef was on Sunday nights at 7:00. I eventually set up a manual recording from 7:00 to 7:55, plus two minutes padding. And then Iron Chef wasn't on in that time slot anymore.
[User Picture]From: [info]cabrius
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:46 PM (UTC)

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I'm seeing it on even a non-TiVo. Lost this week (on the 19th) goes from 9:00pm to 10:01 on the ABC affiliate available here, and then Alias after that goes from 10:01 to 11:02. Then, on the 23rd, Desperate Housewives goes from 10:00 to 11:02.

They're not bothering to do it for things like Extreme Makeover or America's Funniest Home Videos though...
From: devpreed
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:49 PM (UTC)

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They're increasing shareholder value; what's your problem?
[User Picture]From: [info]gordonzola
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 2:59 PM (UTC)

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I predict that opposition to this practice will be every bit as effective as those Major League Baseball boycotts called for after the last strike.
[User Picture]From: [info]transgress
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 3:12 PM (UTC)

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heh, what makes you think that you are their customer?

Are you the customer, or the product? Don't people pay to advertise to you, isn't that the whole point?
[User Picture]From: [info]lalalydia
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 3:18 PM (UTC)

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Yeah... I would really like Tivo to add a "stop recording 1 minute earlier" feature. That would be swell. Right now mine will only *extend* viewing time. Grr.
[User Picture]From: [info]fxl
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 3:32 PM (UTC)

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Tivo also shares your TV watching with Nielsen and it affects the Nielsen ratings for these shows.

With this in mind, there is only one thing to do: If the extra minute fucks with your other shows, cancel the offending show/season pass.

Let the ratings show the networks who is boss.

[User Picture]From: [info]dougo
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 3:50 PM (UTC)

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This seems completely idiotic to me. A 61-minute show competes in two 60-minute time slots instead of just one. They have to be really confident that they'll win both in enough households.

Isn't this why time slots were invented in the first place?
From: [info]el_olvidado
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 4:25 PM (UTC)

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download your favorite show from btefnet.net and screw the networks.
that is one of my pet peeves because i have to go through hoops to make sure i don't miss a show due to one finishing a minute late.
[User Picture]From: [info]c_death
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 4:34 PM (UTC)

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NBC also does that. It's really annoying.

[User Picture]From: [info]tritone
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 5:02 PM (UTC)

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Do these people not understand that TiVo users basically *never watch live TV*? That clobbering the next time slot won't actually increase the likelihood of our eyeballs seeing whatever they're showing at that time? (Unless I happen to turn on my TV sometime during that hour and not immediately hit the menu button.)

Fucking idiots.
[User Picture]From: [info]tjcrowley
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 5:19 PM (UTC)

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As the owner of my own TV network now, I believe that I understand why they did this. Broadcast TV runs on ads -- if they can fuck with people using TiVo enough, then they think people will dump the TiVo and their revenue stream will be safe. Broadcast TV is a dinosaur. Althought there will always be people cheap enough to want to watch broadcast TV, most of the revenue streams for TV in the next ten years will be VOD.

The average TV channel makes $200,000 a DAY in advertising fees. The total inventory per day for a TV channel amounts to about $350,000. That's a lot of beans. No wonder they are trying dirty tricks to keep that going.
[User Picture]From: [info]transiit
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 8:41 PM (UTC)

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This doesn't bug me that much. Tivo has plenty of opportunities to groom the guide data before it goes out to the customer units, or even a simple software patch to give everyone out there the option of trimming everything by up to $minutes if they're getting regularly hosed by the networks. They already added optional padding.

I think more annoying was the first time I noticed ads hanging off the top-level menu.

-transiit
[User Picture]From: [info]invadersteven
Mon, 17-Jan-2005 10:06 PM (UTC)

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This is why I'm not watching Lost. It's a great show, truly it is, but ABC is fucking me with this 61 minute crap. Oh, sure, I could use my vcr, but I'm not really willing to make that compromise.

If ABC wants to fuck its viewers, then I just won't watch.
[User Picture]From: [info]wfaulk
Tue, 18-Jan-2005 9:53 AM (UTC)

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In an even better turn of events, NBC is scheduling Joey from 8:00 to 8:35. Their next show, Committed is being scheduled from 8:30 to 9:00. Yes, overlapping shows. This means that TiVo only gets one of them. (blah blah dual tuners blah blah other conflicting show)

That would seem to mean NBC only wants you to watch one of those two shows and you get to pick.
[User Picture]From: [info]krick
Tue, 18-Jan-2005 11:33 AM (UTC)

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All the more reason to not watch at all and then buy the whole season on DVD later. Then I can watch it on my schedule with no commercials.

[User Picture]From: [info]domesticmouse
Tue, 18-Jan-2005 3:33 PM (UTC)

Audience != Customers

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Hmmm, since when has the people watching TV been the customers? Audience is the product, advertisers are the clients, and tv shows are the bait.

Personally, I only watch TV shows on DVD these days. Too busy meeting people over the internet :-)