Tapping into TiVo - CiteSeerX

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new media & society Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi Vol8(1):97–115 [DOI: 10.1177/1461444806059877]

ARTICLE

Tapping into TiVo: ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Digital video recorders and the transition from schedules to surveillance in television ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

MATT CARLSON University of Pennsylvania, USA ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Abstract This article explores the early stages of the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) market, with particular attention paid to brand leader TiVo. The television industry, which relies on schedules to organize the audience commodity, faces threats from DVR technology. Initially, broadcasters and advertisers reacted with fear, but also came to realize the potential of using the technology for data collection and target marketing. These firms employed a mix of investment and litigation to shape the developing industry. Simultaneously, TiVo characterized its relationship to broadcasters and advertisers as advantageous rather than contentious. As a result, the emerging DVR model offers users greater control through time-shifting and increased functionality with content playback, while presenting existing television firms with a platform for audience surveillance.

Key words data collection • digital video recorder • schedules • surveillance • television • TiVo

INTRODUCTION The end of the 20th century saw the rapid diffusion of new information and communication technologies mainly relying on networked digital technology. Two hallmarks of this technology have been personalization and 97

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interconnectivity – the ability of media users to control and share their media experiences. These technologies facilitate a shift from a one-way mass media model to a two-way interactive model – a trend that has not gone unnoticed in either the trade press or in academic investigations of new technologies. With regard to interactivity, a growing literature examines the concept both in practice and in theory (see Andrejevic, 2004; Bucy, 2004; Jansen, 1998; Rafaeli, 1988). In addition, research on interactivity and new media environments has both looked at the impact on existing structures (e.g. Jenkins and Thorburn, 2003; Katz and Rice, 2002; Stromer-Galley, 2000), as well as the development of new spaces for interaction (Baym, 2000) and the social and cognitive barriers to these spaces (Bucy and Newhagen, 2004). Shapiro (1999) asserts that new media technologies possess the common characteristic of decreasing institutional control through the increase in user control. ‘The real change set in motion by the Internet may, in fact, be a control revolution, a vast transformation in who governs information, experience, and resources. Increasingly, it seems that we will’ (p. 10, italics in original). This process can be differentiated from ‘narrowcasting’ since personalization allows for the user to select content, rather than relying on ‘someone else’ to create content packages (p. 46). Elsewhere, this reconfiguration of control has been referred to as ‘prosumerism’ (Khoo and Gopal, 1996). Other authors (Dyson, 1998; Negroponte, 1995) view the personalization capabilities of new media technology as facilitating a power shift away from traditional media and advertising institutions to the benefit of individuals. A parallel optimism exists for advertisers and marketers as they realize the same capabilities that increase user control also permit new possibilities for data collection and target marketing. Businesses are growing eager to interact with customers on an individual level, rather than through the traditional mass-market model (Turow, 1997). This involves a highly information-oriented approach where each customer is evaluated and categorized through ‘tracking customers individually, interacting with them, and then treating different customers differently’ (Peppers and Rogers, 1997: 53). Proponents of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) candidly suggest that future success lies in ‘better profiling and targeting’ (Jupiter Media Metrix Report, 2001). This two-way, data-driven approach has been the goal of web advertising (Campbell and Carlson, 2002). This article will explore the above contrast between expanding user control on the one hand and increasing data collection on the other, as it pertains to the medium of television with the advent of the digital video recorder (DVR).1 Emphasis falls on TiVo, the technology’s brand leader, and its relationship with traditional media and advertising companies. As we will see, these companies actively approach the new technology with a mix of 98

Carlson: Tapping into TiVo

investment and litigation in order push DVR development toward a structure capable of delivering increasingly specific viewer information and target marketing. Essentially, what follows is an exploration of the political economy of DVRs, an approach Mosco (1996) defines as ‘the study of the social relations, particularly the power relations, that mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources’ (p. 25). This approach follows others that have rejected technological determinism in favor of pursuing other factors that impact the development of new technology (Bijker and Law, 1992; Edge, 1994; McChesney, 1993; Molina, 1990; Robins and Webster, 1999; Schiller, 1999; Williams, 1990; Williams and Edge, 1996). Institutional entities exercise control over the shape of new technology, which in turn impacts users of that technology as well as the society into which it becomes embedded. Therefore, an analysis of the influences affecting the initial stages of DVR technology will offer insights into the development of new media technology, as well as the changing nature of the relationship between audiences, advertisers, and the technology that brings them together. In order to look at discourse on DVRs, this article utilizes trade and popular press coverage of DVRs over a five-year period. The Dow Jones Interactive Database (now Factiva) was used to collect articles from the trade press: Advertising Age, Brandweek, Broadcasting and Cable, Consumer Electronics, Dealerscope, Mediaweek, Multichannel News, and Variety; and the popular press – Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Newsweek, Time, US News and World Report, USA Today, and Washington Post. Additional marketing research and media advocacy reports were consulted, as well as material from websites and the Securities and Exchange Commission filings of DVR companies. The period of examination runs from the beginning of the DVR in 1998 to June 2003. This range covers the initial industry reactions to the development of DVRs, which offers the opportunity to monitor the interaction between the makers of a new media technology and the members of the existing, established media systems before the technology becomes widely disseminated. THE GOLDEN AGE OF TELEVISION: SCHEDULING THE AUDIENCE Critical to any undertaking examining the relative power held by parties with disparate interests is first to establish guidelines for understanding and recognizing control. Who is controlling? Who is being controlled? By what means is control exerted? With its authoritarian connotations, discussing control as a general concept concerning television technologies may seem inimical. Networks2 must entice potential viewers, free to do as they like, into becoming actual 99


audience members. Transportation offers an illustrative analogy. In many places, transportation from one’s home to other places in the community is a necessary precursor to participation in the rest of society. Likewise, media allow people to participate in society by partaking in shared informational and entertainment content. To be more specific, we can compare television as a form of media with trains as a form of transportation. Both trains and broadcast media operate on strict schedules that provide organization at every second of every day. A person may decide whether or not to watch television or to ride a train, but must adhere to schedules created by broadcast and train company executives respectively. These schedules are outside one’s control; a train cannot leave when one wants it to, nor can a program begin at the viewer’s choosing. A person can choose to watch television or not, but, in order to see show X, he/she must turn on the television at time Y to channel Z. Even with the explosion of channels with cable and satellite television, this basic model remains unchanged. The examples of the train and television remind us of the power of schedules as an organizational device in modern social structures. Zerubavel (1981) contends that: Unlike many non-Western civilizations, where events and activities are temporally located in a relatively spontaneous manner, we tend to ‘schedule’ them, that is, routinely fix them at particular prearranged, and often standard, points in time – at particular hours, on particular days of the week, in particular parts of the year, or even in particular parts of one’s life career. (p. 7)

This level of scheduling allows for the temporal coordination of events and the development of routines. Such routines allow for predictable patterns to emerge – a key assertion for advertising-supported media. The control television networks have over audiences can be characterized as a control over the structure of content, as well as the actual content. Certainly, viewers must decide from among the content offered by various channels, but they must also adhere to its presentation as created by the programmers. By presentation, I refer to such elements as the start time, the duration, and the linear form, including intermittent commercial breaks. With television, schedules are necessarily rigid in their structure and repetition in order to meet the logistical demands of a continuous stream of programming, as well as to allow viewers to form routines of watching based on repetition. A set schedule allows for programs to accumulate viewers as they develop a habit of tuning into a particular program, which allows for advertising rates to be set. Programmers carefully craft schedules that aim to retain viewers through the alteration between program segments and commercials in a process that Williams (1990) identifies as ‘flow’. This is not a simple process; intricate cues and devices are used to create a sustained visual enticement intended to 100


dissuade viewers from changing channels (Budd et al., 1999). Gitlin (1983) notes the salience of flow in decision-making by broadcast executives: ‘Scheduling meetings dwell not only on demographics expected but on problems of ‘flow’: Would an eight-o’clock audience of given demographics stay tuned to show X at eight-thirty, given the competition?’ (p. 60). Television schedules, which facilitate the creation of a system of flow that both draws viewers in at particular temporal points as well as helping retain them, provide the organizational element necessary for a stable relationship between three parties: advertisers, broadcasters, and the audience. Smythe (1990[1977]) characterizes this relationship by locating the audience at the level of commodity, bought and sold by advertisers and broadcasters respectively: ‘I suggest that what [advertisers] buy are the services of audiences with predictable specifications who will pay attention in predictable numbers and at particular times to particular means of communication. As collectivities these audiences are commodities’ (p. 270). The role for programmers is to construct programming that routinely attracts audiences to sell to advertisers. Viewers participate through viewing both the programming and the advertisements, entwined through the practice of flow. Smythe wrote about this phenomenon in the mid-70s, before the widespread fractionalization of media, but the model remains just as relevant with the continuing increase in niche programming and marketing and the shrinking of Smythe’s ‘collectivities.’ Meehan (1984) offers an alteration of Smythe’s model by asserting that the actual commodity is not the audience, but the ratings believed to reflect audiences. Advertisers’ decisions are based upon such services as Nielson Media Research, which purports to supply accurate audience measurements through scientific sampling methods. As programmers and advertisers turn from the mass-marketing model to demographic-conscious niche-marketing, these ratings take on a greater importance as advertisers attempt to minimize risk and maximize resources through more exact purchasing and monitoring of the audience commodity. Because television is a one-way medium, advertisers and programmers are entirely reliant on these rating services to justify the pricing of advertisements. A key component of this arrangement, therefore, is the trust that these numbers represent an accurate portrayal of the audience. Through scheduling, networks are able to utilize ratings in order to set advertising prices. Schedules lead to consistency in audiences; if show X drew a certain rating and share one week (as well as an audience with a specific demographic makeup), then the show is believed to be likely to continue this level on a regular basis, thus attracting certain advertisers willing to pay certain prices for their commercials. ‘What the media sell (because they own the means of communication) is what they control – the watching-time of the audience’ (Jhally and Livant, 1986: 130). 101


As technology creates an increased number of circumstances by which viewers may ‘break’ from the flow, the techniques of flow become more embedded into the content and blur the boundaries between different types of content and commercials. However, as we will see, DVRs’ functionality promotes an environment altogether antithetical to the flow model and the strategic use of scheduling, based largely on the introduction of the ethic of personalization to television. INTRODUCING THE DIGITAL VIDEO RECORDER The core functionality of a DVR is to record linear television content onto an internal hard drive, which allows the user to playback – time-shift – this content whenever or however she pleases. Unlike a VCR, a DVR stores content in a digital form that can be accessed in a manner similar to a DVD. Aside from recorded content, DVRs allow users to pause and replay live television. Material to be recorded is selected through an electronic program guide (EPG), which is designed to make recording a simple task for the user. By monitoring viewing and recording preferences, TiVo boxes also make recommendations and record programs that it identifies as being of interest (the TiVo remote has thumbs up and thumbs down keys through which users may identify preferences). The DVR market consists of a handful of competitors, but the indisputable brand leader is TiVo. The firm quickly rose to the top of the market by presenting an easy-to-use DVR. A naming consultant created the name ‘TiVo’ (it doesn’t mean anything), and the company prides itself on its cute television-with-legs logo. As a brand, TiVo has shown its success as ‘TiVo’ increasingly becomes used as a verb meaning to record with a DVR. This is not by accident; in 2000, TiVo signed a deal with the Creative Artists Agency for marketing purposes, in hopes of getting CAA talent to promote the DVR by saying such things as ‘Hey, if you really like us, TiVo us’ (Friedman, 2000). While sales have not been as robust as initial predictions (one article noted there were more outhouses in America than TiVos in 2002 [Johnson, 2002]), reviews of TiVo in the press have been largely enthusiastic. Those people who are users, including former FCC commissioner Michael Powell and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, border on disciples: ‘The most important way that TiVo has changed my life is that it’s given me freedom,’ one user said (St. John, 2003). TiVo has also used this idea of freedom in its advertising campaigns. In a television commercial that irked CBS, TiVo owners storm into a network scheduling meeting and toss a television executive out a window (Lowry, 2000b). According to a survey reported on the TiVo website, 98 percent of users said they could not live without their TiVo.3 102


TiVo is built on a network structure: each day, the DVR connects to a central computer database through a phone line to download EPGs. At the same time, two files are uploaded. First, a diagnostic file associated with the individual unit is sent. This file does not contain specific viewing information. Second, the TiVo box sends a viewing information file containing each action performed by the user, from which programs are recorded down to changes in volume. This data is collected at the ZIP code level, and TiVo claims it cannot be connected with specific users (Martin, 2001). To take advantage of this setup, TiVo has hosted a number of permission-based marketing initiatives, such as a contest where users can win a car simply through registering with their remotes. One way TiVo has made use of the information it is collecting is through its Commercial Viewing Reports service, launched in June 2003. Unlike Nielsen, which uses its data to infer overall viewing patterns, TiVo aggregates user data to examine viewer behavior and show patterns of how people watch TV. ‘The level of granularity is absolutely unheard of. You can tell at any moment what parts of the country start to tune out of a program, at what time, by demographic and time of day,’ a TiVo executive said (Elkin, 2003). The reports also allow advertisers to monitor the level of commercial skipping for individual ads. While TiVo is able to utilize its data collection platform to create a new revenue stream, perhaps more importantly the reports aid in promoting a two-way flow of information model as the future of television. Viewing itself as producing more than a digital VCR, TiVo is building a market for direct data collection. This new aptitude for data collection caught the attention of privacy advocates (Center for Digital Democracy Report, 2001). The Privacy Foundation issued a report on TiVo’s data collection practices blasting the company for its failure to provide a clear privacy policy. The report notes, ‘On one day, for instance, we observed almost 100 pages of information being deposited in the diagnostic log. We are not aware of any other consumer device that routinely transmits so much operational information to corporate headquarters’ (Martin, 2001). TiVo was chastised for being surreptitious about these practices, as well as for concealing its opt-out procedure. FEAR AND LOVING IN THE INDUSTRY: REACTIONS TO DVRS While the DVR may not yet be a common living-room fixture, the enthusiasm of its users has been loud enough to get the attention of networks and advertisers. With the entrance of the ‘control’ revolution in television, fear is certainly a salient reaction among those invested in the established system. Yet, many are quick to highlight opportunities with the new technology – including the DVR makers themselves. 103


Threats and fears The fear that DVR technology will completely disrupt the existing economic model created a sense of trepidation on the topic of DVRs. As Tom Freston, chairman of MTV, stated in 1999, ‘I hate to think about Replay and TiVo. We kind of like the world the way it is now’ (Carter, 1999). These worries gained weight as technology analysts would make such bullish proclamations as, ‘With the ability to capture and save as many as 30 hours of their favorite kinds of programming, why would a consumer tune into TV at all?’ (Haley, 1999). The story in the press was one of a revolution with regard to viewer control. DVR technology challenges four core established television practices: the reliance on scheduling to create flow, the ‘bargain’ whereby viewers watch commercials as well as programming, the necessity of third-party ratings to support audience metrics and set advertising prices, and the airing of unprotected, copyrighted materials without mass copying. While past technologies have assaulted individual practices, DVRs are unique in that they challenge all four aspects simultaneously. When the press began touting DVRs’ ‘potential to change how people watch TV,’ (Greenberg, 2000) the industry recognized that its use of scheduling as an organizing device of the audience commodity was in danger of being relinquished to viewers, who could now be their own programmers (Lowry, 2000a). Technology columnists declared DVRs to be ‘revolutionary’ because of the ease with which viewers could replace ‘appointment viewing’ with their own schedule (Rothenberg, 2000a). This leads to ‘unbundling’, the release of individual shows from strategic schedule lineups, which mitigates the long-used practice of promoting new or unpopular shows by inserting them between more popular shows (Rothenberg, 2000b). Networks lose the prolonged attention of their audiences. The reaction of the advertising industry was less than hospitable: ‘[D]VR is fast becoming a four-letter word in some advertising and media circles’ (Forkan, 2000: 18). Unbundling of programming includes the unbundling of commercials from the flow of the content, which leaves them susceptible to the DVR user’s fast forward button. Accordingly, ‘People who use these devices tell us they rapidly get used to the idea that they never have to watch a commercial again’ (Walker, 1999). Commercial avoidance has been an issue from the start for DVRs. In 1999, Advertising Age announced the arrival of TiVo – the ‘ultimate zapper’ – by declaring it as an adversary of advertisers (Johnson, 1999). One survey indicated that 88 percent of DVR owners use the device to skip commercials (Grose, 2001). TiVo has claimed that 50 percent of viewers fast-forward through commercials (Broadcasting and Cable, 2001). Brandweek wrote, ‘If there’s an antichrist for advertisers, thy name is TiVo’ (Ebenkamp, 2001). While DVRs are cited by the advertising 104


industry as especially bothersome, the ability to avoid advertisements has been heightened by past technologies. A Mediaweek article noted that since the proliferation of remote controls, advertisers have had to struggle with creativity in order to keep viewers from switching channels (Frutkin, 2000). However, many advertisers are resolved that the 30-second commercial is coming to an end (Verklin, 2000). This poses problems for both programmers and advertisers, as it would jeopardize the practice of using program time to entice viewers to sit through commercial time that provides the primary base of television economics. Closely related to the proliferation of unbundling is a concern over trust in the accuracy of ratings, since the existing ratings system is not designed to measure time-shifted programming or skipped ads. As DVRs become more popular, this omission can increasingly skew ratings (Tiegel, 2000). These types of concerns strike at the core of audience research and the traditional method of attaining metrics through Nielsen volunteers. Networks and advertisers rely on third-party ratings as a non-biased objective system of measurement (Meehan, 1984). If the trust in the reliability of ratings – a key component in selling the audience commodity that drives programming decisions and justifies advertising fees – begins to vanish, networks and advertisers will be forced to find alternative methods of audience measurement. The fourth area of concern involves the digital nature of DVRs. A DVR captures program signals by converting them to a digital code on its hard drive. As interactivity and broadband internet resources continue to expand, content providers fear that it will grow easier for individuals to redistribute, without permission, their content. This fear is especially salient for subscription-based programmers and pay-per-view providers. For example, networks such as HBO worry that DVR users would be able to share HBO programming with each other to circumvent the monthly fee. If such instances proliferated, it would make the subscription-based model unsustainable. Advantages Despite the chorus of doomsayers, DVRs quickly found a number of proponents among programmers and advertisers. A number of advantages became clear, such as that widespread time-shifting would add value to the midnight to 6 am time slots since a DVR will search through the entire day for programming (Rothenberg, 2000b). Instead of programmers searching for an audience, audiences – by using search guides – seek out programming (Lowry, 1999). Additionally, industry studies show that DVR users watch more television than they did before owning a DVR (Brown, 2000). Furthermore, DVRs offer new potential spaces for advertisers, such as within EPGs (Mediaweek, 2000). Content providers and advertisers are also 105


interested in interactive ads, such as a ‘showcase’ for programs that the user clicks on to record the show or contests that users can enter with a click of the remote (Walker, 1999). Many advertisers use this opportunity to point to the lack of sustainability with 30-second commercials and instead promote embedding advertising into content with tactics such as sponsorship and product placement. However, the greatest potential benefit of DVRs, and one stressed by TiVo, is the creation of a two-way flow of information that facilitates the collection of viewer data and ultimately addressable programming and marketing. As noted above, much of this data is only aggregated at ZIP code level. However, the company stresses that addressable advertising will eventually be a key component of the DVR experience. As one TiVo executive has said, ‘The viewer wins, and the advertiser wins because it has the opportunity to target the right product with the right viewer’ (Elkin, 1999). TiVo has adopted a cooperative stance with existing media companies as it aims to introduce CRM to the medium of television. As the next section will show, these firms have responded with support for TiVo in hopes of limiting less-friendly DVR makers. Investment and litigation Existing television companies have responded to the above disadvantages and advantages created by DVRs through a combination of litigation and pressure as well as investment. This active response is not unexpected as firms rationally look to maintain profits and market share as well as ensure the continuance of ‘institutional reproduction’ (Ang, 1991: 17) in the face of impending change brought about by new digital technology. When looking at investment, Graham Murdock (1982) provides a useful division between two facets of control, allocative and operational. While the latter refers to decisions made about the use of resources, the former ‘consists of the power to define the overall goals and scope of the corporation and determine the general way it deploys its productive resources’ (p. 122). Through investments and, in some cases, board representation, media companies have gained a degree of ‘economic control’ (p. 123) over the shape of TiVo’s operations, and therefore the developing technological capabilities and business model. Behind this lies the encouragement of data collection and addressable advertising as the emerging underlying economic model of television. TiVo’s success as the DVR brand leader owes much to its ability to court networks and advertisers as business partners instead of adversaries. By August 1999, TiVo counted NBC, CBS, Discovery and Comcast among its major investors. ‘NBC wanted to have a very loud voice in this,’ one network executive said (Tedesco, 1999). Media companies provided a great deal of early financing for TiVo, essentially contributing the necessary 106


funding in order for it to start up. Sony also invested in TiVo, striking a deal where Sony (along with Philips) would build DVRs and TiVo would promote Sony content (Dickson, 1999). In March 2000, TiVo developed a partnership with News Corp’s British Sky Broadcasting in the UK (Broadcasting and Cable, 2000). In February 2001, Time Warner, which then owned a 15 percent share of TiVo, offered the company up to $43.5 million in capital (Hall, 2001). While TiVo remains an independent company, Time Warner, DirecTV, Discovery Networks, NBC, and Sony owned over 40 percent in 2003 (Lieberman, 2003). As a result of investment agreements, TiVo’s board of directors included representatives from DirecTV, Discovery Networks, and NBC.4 Jonathon Rodgers, president of Discovery Networks, stated ‘One of the main reasons why we invested in TiVo and we got [Discovery Communications Inc. chairman] John Hendricks on the board was to protect the relationship between advertiser and television’ (Forkan, 2000: 18). TiVo’s financial and management ties suggest that the firm does not operate outside the reach of major media companies. By investing in TiVo, these companies can have a loud voice in preventing the technology from moving too quickly in a direction that would severely threaten existing revenues. TiVo’s ties to media companies have not gone unrecognized. In February 2003, TiVo was accused of having its boxes automatically record shows from the network of one of its principal investors: Discovery Networks. Also, TiVo owners became upset that their televisions would automatically be tuned to Discovery each morning following the overnight download by the TiVo box (Gibson, 2003). This instance, along with the accompanying outcry, demonstrates both the potentials of collusion between TiVo and traditional media companies, as well as the limits that users are willing to accept. New opportunities exist, but there is no carte blanche for these firms to do what they may. Another strategy undertaken by existing media firms to protect their interests has been through litigation. This is not unexpected, given the reaction of the recording industry to widespread music file-sharing. Both industries rely on copyright law to protect content. Because of technological constraints, the infrastructure for music sharing developed before video (music files are much smaller and more easily downloaded), but the television and motion picture industries have remained no less concerned. At the same time, these companies wish to take advantage of the technology to profit from personalized media. Litigation then protects copyrighted material. Concern with copyright and, more broadly, control over exhibition of content can be traced back to the introduction of Sony’s Betamax VCR in the mid-1970s. The technology was also built to facilitate time-shifting of 107


content, which is how Sony chose to market its devices. At the time, many firms producing content were looking to develop a video-disk technology that would allow for the home video market without inviting home recording. Betamax came on the market first and met resistance from MGM/Universal and Disney. The firms charged that the VCR created mass copyright infringement and sought a court order to cease all VCR sales and declare the devices illegal. The case wound its way through the court system until the Supreme Court in 1984 ruled in a slim five to four decision that time-shifting fell within fair use exceptions and was not in violation of copyright law. By 1984, VCRs had become ubiquitous in American homes and media companies were realizing the tremendous revenues in the prerecorded home video market. In a larger sense, the case represents an ongoing concern over content exhibition and a reluctance to allow for exceptions unless a profitable alternative arises (Carlson, 2004). The first litigious reaction to the DVR industry came in 1999 when several large media companies – Time Warner, CBS, Disney, News Corp., and Discovery Communications – created the Advanced Television Copyright Coalition (ATCC). One issue that prompted the creation of the group was the fear that DVR or DVR-like devices would replace broadcasted commercials with their own commercials (Higgins, 1999). With fears of massive advertising skipping and time-shifting, the ATCC began by pushing for royalties for DVR recorded items (Consumer Electronics, 1999), which was the same strategy employed by content providers in the 1984 Betamax case (Marlow and Secunda, 1991: 126). The coalition threatened litigation if the DVR companies failed to negotiate with it (Hogan, 1999). One ATCC member admitted that the organization was not likely to have too much trouble with TiVo since member companies had investments in it, but had hoped that the coalition would be a barrier to the development of future, less network-friendly DVR makers (Graser, 1999). The ATCC has since disappeared, but its activities early in the development of DVR brands helped affiliated companies like TiVo and a similar company, ReplayTV, while creating barriers to entry for other potential players. The fate of the ReplayTV DVR offers a counter to the success of TiVo. While initially ReplayTV enjoyed more success than rival TiVo, it failed to sustain the necessary capital to continue. In 2001, ReplayTV severed its ties with media and advertising firms and was sold to consumer electronics company SonicBlue. At the end of 2001, a revamped ReplayTV DVR was released that included automatic commercial skipping and program-sharing capabilities between users. The response from the media industry was a series of lawsuits filed by Disney, NBC, Viacom, Time Warner, News Corp., MGM and Vivendi Universal charging that these functions violated copyright law and endangered free television – paralleling the essence of the Betamax suit two decades earlier. Yet, without the financial strength of Sony, 108


the combination of the lawsuits and poor sales forced SonicBlue into bankruptcy, which resulted in the sale of ReplayTV to the Japanese company D&M Holdings Inc. in April 2003 (New York Times, 2003). D&M will continue to produce DVRs, but will eliminate the automatic commercial skipping and the program sharing features in order to end the lawsuits. The examples above demonstrate that the use of investment and litigation by existing media companies to compel and discourage respectively have had a profound impact on the shape of DVR technology. The ReplayTV example shows how existing firms were able to stifle developments deemed too radical or threatening. Meanwhile, investments propped up TiVo as an acceptable DVR model. The rest of the article will go into more depth on the new model emerging within the structure of television. RETHINKING CONTROL Our look at TiVo and the DVR industry now returns to the idea of control. TiVo introduces greater user control through personalization of the television experience, specifically through the ability to time-shift programming – that is, to release content from network-induced schedules and place it in viewer-created schedules. While VCRs have allowed this practice to occur for 30 years, this function has become overshadowed by their use to play rented and bought tapes (only 10% of VCR owners use the recording function [Forkan, 2000: 18]). DVRs, conversely, were created expressly to time-shift content. These devices also provide the viewer with maximum ease of control over playback (including skipping commercials). As a result, DVR users have control over when they watch as well as how they watch. As TiVo’s website states, ‘With TiVo, TV fits into your busy life, not the other way around.’5 This type of discourse focusing on user empowerment implies a technology-driven control shift modeled after a seesaw. Traditionally, control was located on one side of the fulcrum with networks that devised schedules and flow in order to organize audiences and maximize advertising income. Viewers, located on the opposite side of the fulcrum, could only accept this arrangement as a precondition of being a viewer. However, DVRs’ ability to time-shift programming swings the control to the viewer side of the seesaw by eliminating these preconditions. This is a zero-sum model – control leaves one side and is transferred to the other while the fulcrum remains stable. Importantly, the proposition of this model is not driven solely by technical enthusiasts and DVR makers. It was also expressed by jeremiahs in the television and advertising industries. These groups feared that the economic viability of ad-supported broadcast television was a candle near burning out. 109


However, from what we have seen above, a different model emerges. First, let us return to Smythe and a consideration of power: TiVo promotes data collection and targeting to commodify its audience in order to sell it to advertisers, thus sustaining the established advertiser-programmer-viewer triad. As a Tivo executive told advertisers: ‘What if you could marry the right audience member with the right product? . . . What if you could target your ads? That’s where we’re headed with TiVo’ (Forkan, 2000: 18). This discourse surrounding TiVo and its relationship with network and advertisers promotes another model of control. In this model, the change is tidal – the fulcrum of control does not remain fixed, but moves upward along a Y-axis of total control. This model acknowledges that viewers have gained control in their television viewing through the facilitation of time shifting and control over playback. However, contrary to the aforementioned jeremiahs, DVRs present new avenues of control hereto only dreamed of by broadcasters and advertisers. The basis for this is the transformation of TV technology from a one-way flow of communication to a two-way flow, where data are fed back into the system to the networks (as well as to advertisers). In this way, television companies regain control lost from the decline of schedules as an organizational device through the increasing use of surveillance. The latter ultimately results in the categorization of each viewer – continually assessed on the basis of a number of factors, including geodemographics (such as ZIP code). Surveillance itself is not a new development in television. Rather, this concept has always been imperative in the form of ratings. This is well documented by Ang (1991): Audience measurement too is a form of examination; its aim is to put television viewers under constant scrutiny, to describe their behavior so as to turn them into suitable objects in and for industry practices, to judge their viewing habits in terms of their productivity for advertisers and broadcasters alike. (p. 86)

While Ang describes the creation of audiences by ratings services as a discursive construct, the DVR is the first manifestation of digital television technology capable of recording the actions of each individual viewer or household. A growing literature warns against threats encompassed by the surveillance and targeting aspects of digital technologies (Campbell and Carlson, 2002; Gandy, 1993, 1996, 2000; Lyon, 2001; Whitaker, 1999). The basis for many of these warnings stems from Foucault (1977) and his exploration of the Panopticon – an 18th century prison blueprint relying on surveillance as a governing tactic – as a model for control in contemporary societies. One result, Foucault notes, is that ‘as power becomes more anonymous and more functional, those on whom it is exercised tend to be more strongly 110


individualized’ (p. 193). As we saw above, marketers are realizing the potentials of new technologies to open new approaches to marketing. ‘The key to the new smart marketing is information. Consumers are identified not as mass, undifferentiated markets, but as subgroups with very specific purchasing patterns and power’ (Whitaker, 1999: 135). Examination by others, when resulting in assessment and classification, constitutes a condition of power; those agents who get to examine hold sway over the objects of examination. In short, personalization purports to increase the power of individuals by allowing them increased control over their media experiences while also enabling a greater level of control by commercial firms interested in profiling and targeting customers. This arrangement represents an irony of personalization: While viewers enjoy the freedom to create personalized experiences based on preferences, their individual behaviors are monitored and assessed for their commercial value. This situation becomes more acute as the model develops where the DVR, through its recording of preferences and knowledge of demographic data, gains greater control over selecting programming and specific advertisements, which would ultimately lead to advertising and media firms gaining control over elements of the individual viewing experiences of users. DVR users gain control over viewing schedules, but networks and advertisers can control individual user information and advertisements. CONCLUSION As this article has shown, the development of new media technology is far from independent from existing media structures. But rather than approach TiVo’s actions as sinister and untoward, the developing model stems from the rational actions of a number of firms. TiVo views itself as more than a machine; it is a device to change how we watch television. As a corollary, it must change how advertisers reach audiences as the old devices built on linear, scheduled programming begin to weaken. As we have seen, established firms can employ litigation and the withdrawal of investment as a way to stifle potentially disruptive technology from undermining their economic basis. While this influence can never be complete, these firms are able to utilize their abundant resources to create the most favorable result possible. The fact that this influence is occurring early on in the development of DVRs, and more broadly the development of interactive television, is bound to impact emerging television technologies and forms as they come to market and gain popularity. As part of a trend toward the personalization of television viewing and the accompanying utilization of consumer surveillance, the growth of DVRs generates new questions to be answered by researchers – many of which occur at the level of the audience. As control shifts from schedules to 111


surveillance, what individual and societal implications will follow? How will the institutional maintenance described above play out in everyday use? What form, if any, will resistance take? These questions, and others to come, deserve our examination. Notes An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2003 National Communication Association conference in Miami Beach, Florida. 1 Digital video recorders are also commonly referred to as ‘personal video recorders’ or ‘PVRs’. No difference exists between the two. 2 The term ‘network’ throughout pertains to both over-the-air broadcast networks and cable networks. 3 URL (consulted 18 May 2004): http://www.tivo.com/5.1.asp. 4 Yahoo! Finance, URL (consulted 24 March 2002): http://yahoo.marketguide.com/ MGI/biograph.asp?rt=offrdirs&target=/stocks/companyinformation/ officersanddirectors/biograph&Ticker=TIVO 5 From www.tivo.com (consulted 30 August 2003).

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