Back after the break
If you're feeling brave and have some technical knowledge, you can use a PC as the heart of what the creator calls a 'homebrew' PVR project. http://www.mythtv.org/ gives you full documentation of Isaac Richards' scheme, plus downloads of the software. You don't even need a huge, fast computer to make it work.
So is Bazalgette correct? Is the traditional commercial model for television doomed? He reckons that within ten years, the industry will have had to come up with a new way of funding itself. After all, if no-one is watching the commercials, what kind of advertiser is going to spend money on them?
How will PVRs change the world?
The old days of radio may hold the answer. Why are they called soap operas? Because in the olden days, the radio soaps were sponsored by firms like Proctor and Gamble, the soap manufacturer. They didn't have commercial breaks - the programme itself was indelibly linked with the sponsor in the listener's mind. Some countries do this even today - for instance, New Zealand's Sunday drama series is called "Lexus Sunday Theatre" (you guessed it, sponsored by Toyota's top-of-the-range brand). For many years it was sponsored by the winemaker, Montana (so long, in fact, that I have heard it referred to as the Lexus Montana Sunday Theatre, such is the connection in the public mind between the programme and its long-term sponsor). It is a model which has also been used by the Internet - there are banner ads on most significant sites these days, which help to pay for the sites' development, production and maintenance.
So called 'info-mercials' have a long, and spotty history. They go back to the very earliest days of TV, and usually featured what passed for a TV celebrity in those days talking blithely about whatever product was being featured. These were eventually banned in Britain by Act of Parliament!
Another route which has been explored quite fully in movies is product placement. Manufacturers pay a premium to film-makers to have their product featured in a major motion picture; the James Bond franchise is probably the earliest and most famous example of this, though it is now commonplace. In the early days of television, producers would go out of the way the disguise brand names - no doubt children who grew up in the sixties and seventies will remember that when characters in TV shows sat down to breakfast, the name
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