With 17 percent of American homes now using Tivo (TIVO) or a similar device, NBC (GE) is trying an old strategy for advertising - live commercials.
Their first effort will begin with Garmin International, a company that sells car satellite-navigation devices.
The live commercial sounds pretty funny as Jay Leno's announcer on the Tonight Show, John Melendez, will be dressed in a lab coat with the logo of Garmin on it. From there he will start to discuss facetiously the dangers of "Direction Disorder" - when men won't ask for directions.
While Melendez is describing what the disorder is, in the background a video screen reveals a man visiting gas station asking for directions. In response, two 
attendants point in different directions laughing, with the dirver looking clueless.
At that time Melendez will step in and say, "But now there's a cure," as the logo for the Garmin device comes up on the screen. From there a regular commercial break will follow promoting the same product.
Research shows that when an advertiser has a product placement, and then given the first ad slot in a commercial break, recall by viewers increases by 40 to 50 percent.
NBC said that this is a test case, and if successful, there will be more of them added. It's not an overall solution though, as NBC added that they still won't be done too often so the uniqueness will remain over a long period of time. Still, it's another part of the answer that DVRs are forcing networks to adapt to.
When you consider the increased recall by viewers, it sounds like something that should be done by networks on a somewhat consistent basis - whether there were DVRs or not.
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