NEW DVR AUTOMATICALLY SKIPS COMMERCIALS

In the past, television networks and advertisers have often shrugged off discussion about how DVR users are fast-forwarding through commercials by rationalizing that at least those viewers get a glimpse of the commercials and are not taking a bathroom break, or texting, or checking their email instead; they have to be sitting in front of their TV sets actively using a remote. But that may soon change. On Thursday, DISH subscribers were offered a new DVR called the Hopper, which automatically jumps past commercials. The viewer doesn’t have to pick up the remote except to click an on-screen button (Auto Hop) before they begin watching a show. “You can put down your remote control and not see an ad again for the entire show,” Vivek Khemka, vice president of Dish product management, told today’s (Friday) Wall Street Journal. The DVR is made by EchoStar, which spun off DISH as a separate company in 2008. (The chairman of both companies is Charlie Ergen.) The device is almost certain to anger TV networks, cable providers, and advertisers — and probably lead to lawsuits. But DISH CEO Joe Clayton told the Journal: “What’s wrong with giving the consumer what he wants? That’s my response to anybody who takes issue with this.”