Dish’s “Reverse AutoHop” Will Cut Out Everything But The Commercials From The Super Bowl

(Brady O’Brien)

Aside from the scrumptious gameday food, you could argue that for many people the best part about the Super Bowl is the commercials. But to get to those often funny, sometimes disappointing 30-second spots, you have to spend a majority of your time watching two teams you don’t really care about throw and kick a football down a long green field. To appease consumers who don’t care about the game but do care about the commercials, Dish Network is turning its commercial-skipping technology into game-skipping technology.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Dish is releasing a temporary feature called Reverse AutoHop that will let subscribers who record Sunday’s game avoid the plays on the field and focus on the billions of dollars worth of commercials.

Reverse AutoHop will be available when a viewer plays back the Super Bowl the day after it airs. Dish Hopper customers must have the Prime Time Anytime feature enabled for NBC prior to the game.

“This day is about two things: football and commercials, and for good reason — both are entertaining and our customers love them,” Vivek Khemka, Dish senior vice president of product management, said in a statement.

Media buyers say Reverse AutoHop will help make the ads featured during the Super Bowl front and center for a wider audience.

“Regardless of who wins the game, that’s a win for advertisers and consumers,” Bill Koenigsberg, president, chief executive and founder of media buyer Horizon Media, tells the WSJ.

The limited-time component is a take on the company’s AutoHop feature that is normally used to let viewers skip through ads and only watch their recorded programing.

AutoHop has been the center of numerous battles for Dish and broadcast networks since the feature was released in 2012. Broadcasters such as FOX, CBS and NBC have claimed that the ad-skipping element violates copyright while Dish had maintained that it is not different from when an individual chooses to record a program and edit out the commercials.

Some of the broadcasters quietly dropped their legal battles against Dish in exchange for tweaking AutoHop to be more advertiser-friendly. For example, Dish’s recent deal with CBS prohibits the pay-TV provider from editing out ads for the first seven days after a CBS primetime show airs.

Attention Football-Hating TV Commercial Lovers – This Dish is For You [The Wall Street Journal]