Ian MacLean is a veteran broadcaster and vice-president of the Media Experts iTV Lab, a research division of Montreal-based Media Experts with the goals of understanding, exploring and anticipating the impact digital technologies will have on television and the television advertising model.

It was with both interest and disappointment that I read a recent article in this publication by Bob Kennedy (‘Are we being complacent about the PVR threat?’ On The Spot, Feb. 4).

I am pleased that personal video recorders and their attendant impact on the television advertising model are finally beginning to appear on the industry’s radar screen as these developments are the primary focus of our energies in the Media Experts iTV Lab.

The source of my disappointment is the perpetuation of what is rapidly becoming one of the greatest urban media myths of our time. OTS is only the latest in a host of publications in which a now-famous article from The New York Times has been cited as ‘proof’ of the commercial killing power of PVRs.

This article purportedly states ‘88% of commercials are skipped by PVR users.’

So great are its mythic proportions that remarkably, in Mr. Kennedy’s piece, the article has now adopted the lofty pedigree of a ‘New York Times survey.’

What is most remarkable of all, however, is that The New York Times article is a myth, a phantom, a misinterpretation that is being repeated ad nauseum in connection with PVRs.

We have conducted an exhaustive search of The New York Times archive, consulted with New York-based media analysts, and the research firm to which this misquoted information was originally attributed.

The article simply doesn’t exist.

We recognize that affordable, high-capacity home media storage technologies will have a dramatic and far-reaching impact on the current television and television advertising models, and we adopted long ago the perspective that the glass is more than half full.

Consider carefully that any TV program captured by a PVR and viewed in a time-shifted mode is one that would have otherwise have been missed by the viewer. This viewing, as well as their exposure to any commercials within that program, is incremental. Our focus should be on the advertisements within the time-shifted program that were viewed.

Moreover, an impressive volume of PVR usage research conducted in the past three years demonstrates conclusively that PVRs increase time spent viewing and program recording while dramatically increasing viewer satisfaction.

PVRs, VOD, and the digital two-way interactive back channel open myriad opportunities for marketers, and it is crucial that the Canadian advertising community be intelligently informed in order to meet the tsunami of change that digital television is bringing to our industry.

Perpetuating misinformation in the guise of ‘research’ serves only to cloud the future, and retard the potential business opportunities to be realized in the digital television environment.

-www.iTVLab.tv