Switching Channels may be history
Posted:Saturday, April 22, 2006

Royal Philips Electronics patent application that would prevent viewers from switching channels during commercials has been filed.

The patent, filed March 30 but not yet approved, would force viewers to watch ads by locking the channel during commercials. It would, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office filing, "prevent a viewer ... from switching channels when an advertisement is displayed," or if the show is pre-recorded, prevent viewers from "fast forwarding ... in order to skip past advertisements."

The advertising-control software is applicable to any type of TV signal, analog or digital, and will work with either analog and digital TV signals or Internet connection, and will work for a program recorded on a VCR, DVR or playback device in a cable box, according to the Philips patent filing.

Philips stated  that the technology, which most likely would be a feature on a TV or a set-top box, would offer the opposite result as well, allowing viewers to watch TV with no advertising inserted, and that it has no intention of forcing viewers to watch ads against their will and no plans to implement the technology in Philips products.

According to Advertising Age, Phillips  stated

"We developed a system where the viewer can choose, at the beginning of a movie, to either watch the movie without ads, or watch the movie with ads. It is up to the viewer to take this decision, and up to the broadcaster to offer the various services”