In Kenya on Saturday morning, Multichoice SA CEO Nolo Letele announced the pending launch of technology that could eventually allow subscribers to skip commercials on the DStv bouquet. The feature is part of the new PVR (Personal Video Recorder) decoder, and is the local conglomerate’s response to the growing popularity of TiVo in the Unites States and similar devices in Europe.
The rollout of the PVR decoder is set to take place in South Africa and neighbouring countries in late 2005, and will be available to the rest of the African regions served by Multichoice in the first half of 2006. Through a built-in hard-drive the PVR will initially allow viewers to pause live television, record one show while watching another, and view ‘on-demand” screenings of first-run movies, but it is the theoretical ability to censor advertising messages that will have the biggest impact on the African satellite TV business model going forward.
Quoting a research survey by Forrester, Letele said that ’50 percent of [decoder] owners interviewed [in the US] cited skipping commercials as their favourite thing to do with it.” However, although this function will be built into the local box, it will not be activated immediately. ‘We will not enable the ad-skip feature initially,” says Letele. ‘We will keep it ready and test the market.”
Asked by eMedia to clarify what impact the function will have on the revenue generation capacity of Oracle if – or when – it is activated, Letele responded that ‘product placement” could turn out to be the answer. He also said that advertisers may need to be ‘more creative” in reaching this market.
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