Cogniscant commercials

If you're not familiar with Google Ads: They find ads relevant to the page you're searching, and pick ads from a pool of ads that are relevant to that subject. They are regarded as less annoying and intrusive than normal advertisements, and advertisers have shown that their clickthrough rates are higher than bright, flashy ads. The same thing could be done, with a little work, for television.

Name Brand Television, Inc., provides shows from major networks via cable. (You could also just watch channels straight, if you wanted.) Your DVR records these shows, noting where advertisements should go, and then downloads advertisements.

These advertisements are 'categorized' into groups by Name Brand. Before you turn the TV on, you use the tuner (or go to the company website) to decide just what ads you want to see, and what ads you don't. The first time you watch a show that day, you have to watch the ads, too, just like a normal TV.

In theory, the categories could be extremely specific. Just had a kid? Choose ads for baby supplies. Child going to college? Choose ads for colleges and loans. Love the Shatner? Pick to see more ads from products he endorses. Have a spending problem? Cut back on ads from credit card companies. Tired of song X? Don't allow any ads that play it. No habla Inglés? Choose ads in Spanish. Oppose Company Z on moral grounds because they were clubbing baby seals in your backyard? Ignore ads from just that company. Of course, you'd need to allow a certain minimum number of advertisements to watch TV. Just like a Dish satelite system, each user could have their own custom settings for what they like and what they don't.

Since the ads are customized to an individual user's desires, the advertisers get more bang for their buck. Since getting the DVR to record commercials means there would be several channels dedicated to broadcasting commercials for DVRs to record from, the amount of advertisers would go up and the cost per minute of ad time would go down. Since people would no longer be going insane because they just heard the Venga Bus for the umpteenth time that hour, the consumer would be satisfied, and Ted Turner could sleep soundly at night. It's a win-win all around.