90% of DVR Owners Skip TV Ads

TV advertisers are facing a potential disaster as more consumers buy digital video recorders (DVRs), according to a new study, since about 90 percent of current users fast-forward through ads. The trends are even more foreboding among the 18 to 34-year-old demographic most coveted by marketers, with 97 percent saying they skip ads all or almost all of the time.

“This has always been advertisers’ biggest fear,” said Sarah Wade, a London-based account manager for the French market research firm Ipsos, which carried out a survey of 4,000 British TV households. A previous study by media buying agency PHD found that viewers fast-forwarded through about 77 percent of ads.

Reuters