[lengarvey]

This is measurably untrue. In Australia, for example, the level of playback, or time-shift, viewing is a very low, but increasing, percentage of total TV. Here in Australia we measure using an audio-signature match to track every minute of the day for television watched in the Nielsen panels. In the US, it is my understanding, that they actually track the commercials watched by way of a code inserted by the broadcasters into the commercial stream. Anyone skipping over the commercials would obviously not contribute to the ratings in such a system.

Television advertising is a multi-billion dollar business. Advertisers are extremely savvy, knowledgeable and are armed with plenty of statistically relevant data that proves that their advertising money isn't wasted.