Scholarship Essay

When my family stays in a hotel, one of our least favorite differences between the hotel and our home is the fact that the hotel doesn't have DVR. Due to this fact, we must be patient while we watch TV. DVR has allowed us to skip commercials and we had grown accustomed to that way of watching TV.

I remember during the times when my family had DVR service, my friends would ask me if I wanted to go to the movie theater to watch the newest movie. I would ask for the title and then tend to respond that I had not heard about that movie. Because I was skipping commercials, I wasn’t seeing movie trailers.

I believe that DVRs have caused a decrease in TV advertising revenue and an increase in the amount of advertising found online. One cannot skip through online commercials. Youtube has also been showing more ads before videos.

Very rarely does the American public look forward to watching commercial. One example of Americans anxiously waiting for commercial breaks is the Superbowl. Despite DVR servicing (and most likely use during the Superbowl), at the time of this game, commercials are still viewed, at least the first time.

Television advertising was a huge amount of revenue for most major companies in America for a very long time. Suddenly, these companies need to find a new way to reach the American public.

All in all, Mr. Ted Harbert’s views are valid. DVR is leading to a decrease of revenue for television advertisements. However, one must think about the claim Mr. Harbert has in this situation. He is not the CEO of a company in the usual fashion, but he must ensure that NBC is bringing in enough revenue to make a profit, or at least break even. If people aren't watching commercials, companies will stop creating and selling commercials. When this happens, NBC will lose its customers that pay to run an ad on the network. If this happens for long enough, NBC could very realistically collapse as a corporation. With NBC’s long heritage of success as a TV programming station, I would certainly dislike being the man under whose care this collapse occurred.