The Way Modern Technology is Affecting Advertisement

Since the UK's digital television switchover, DVRs (Digital Video Recorders) have become increasingly popular, allowing the user to record televisions programs and watch them at a later date. The UK's most popular from of DVR devices are Sky+ and Virgin+, allowing the user the option to record a television program and then the ability to skip the advertisements. A report from the 'Guardian' suggests that 86% of TV viewers throughout the UK skip advertisements via their digital TV recorder. The image below is an example of a Sky+ planner where a user has recorded a list of programs which can be watched at any time.

Within the last two years, online TV catch up services have become extremely popular, such as BBC iPlayer, 4oD, ITV Player, etc. By incorporating these services not only on the computer, but on TV, game consoles, smartphones, and tablets, they have managed to expand catch up TV to a much wider audience. However, TV catch up services have little to none advertising, which results in advertisers searching for new ways to distribute their product. The image below shows the layout to the most popular catch up service, BBC iPlayer, where the user can watch any BBC programs that they may have missed from the previous week.