Commercial ads in Japan - skipping illegal?

You must be pretty desparate as an industry when you want to force your consumers to watch your commercials.

Okay, I admit, the industry is desparate. In the US, they have to face TiVo and other digital recorders, which allows an easy skipping and you only have to watch what you really want to watch.

Where this is not possible, viewers simply go to get a drink from the fridge or visit the restroom. I, for one, lower the volume, and read a book, to commercials.

Will Japanese be forced to watch commercials? Broadcasters here are saying that "skipping commercials is actually a violation of that country's Copyright Law."

I say, how low can you go to push your viewers to switch off totally. More will go online and download programs from programs. Let's hope that the industry won't find a way to make us watch their annoying online ads that become trickier as well over the years.

(By Asia Business Consulting)