A couple of important notes I discovered buried in an article about electronic program guides in the Green Guide (The Age):

• Channel 7's Tivo will have the advert skipping disabled
• The electronic program guide is embedded in the TV signal

The second point is excellent, as it tells me the Tivo machine should be smart enough to start recording when the show actually starts instead of trusting the advertised starting time.

The first point will kill their market dead. As indescribably awesome as it will be to never miss a show again, I struggle to imagine what it would be like to have to sit through ads. Even when watching real TV we flick to other channels during the ads.

I'm sure that "feature" will be hacked within seconds. It occurred to me though that many of the shows we'll be subscribing to are on ABC, which has no ads. I wonder if the introduction of Tivo will coincide with the introduction of more ads during ABC shows (like SBS)?

Still, if Tivo has no up front fee and the monthly fee of around $10 that has been put out there, I MIGHT be able to put up with it.