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Hard-disc video recorders, which can play back the beginning of a programme
while recording the end, are bad news for advertisers. Viewers who start
watching a few minutes after the broadcast begins can zip through commercial
breaks. Broadcasters suffer too, because they can’t charge as much for airtime.
But this creates a new opportunity, says TiVo, which pioneered these machines. A
new device (WO 01/47279) “bookends” recordings by storing ads on disc and
displaying them just before a recorded programme plays and just after it
finishes, selecting sports adverts for soccer fans, and so on.