Why aren't there more ads on DVDs?

Following up on the SXSW panel discussion, I'm wondering why DVDs don't have more ads on them.  CSS, the DRM system used on DVDs, allows the maker of the DVD is make some content non-skippable.  So, for example, the FBI anti-piracy warning that comes on the screen can't be skipped or fast-forwarded.  So I'm wondering, why haven't the makers of DVDs exploited this feature to include more actual product advertising that home viewers can't skip over?  The movie industry has shown little compunction over blasting a few minutes of product ads at its theater audience.  Home audiences aren't captive in the same way as theatergoers, but CSS allows the content owners to force display of ads in a way that broadcasters (in the age of Tivo) cannot (although there are certainly efforts to disable the ability of ad-skipping for broadcast TV, too).  So why aren't we seeing more non-skippable ads at the beginning of DVDs?  Or even in the middle (some sort of forced "intermission")?  It seems like this would be yet another way to exercise price-discrimination, offering a cheaper, ad-supported version of a DVD, and selling a more expensive version (sort of like the "director's cut" version now available) with fewer or no ads?  This sounds incredibly annoying to me, but the DRM in the current DVD standard makes it possible, so why isn't it happening more?  Is it because the studios or DVD distributors think this would turn off consumers?  Is it because directors would object (see ClearPlay litigation)?  Or perhaps is this something we'll see more of once the new video disc standards like Blu-Ray and HD DVD are rolled out?  Or is this already widespread, and I've somehow missed it by watching the handful of DVDs that don't have it?

Comments

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I am very familiar with a line of children's DVDs with ads on them. But ads for related products, so maybe it's hard to sell that space to others.