DISH Auto Hop ad-skipping feature continues to stir contention

"More emotional than realistic." That's the assessment of DISH Network Chairman Charlie Ergen when it comes to the negative industry response to the satcaster's commercial-skipping feature, Auto Hop.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Ergen said that the functionality is "competitively necessary" given the on-demand online video explosion, which has for all intensive purposes negated the linear advertising value proposition.

Auto Hop allows viewers to automatically skip ads in content that has been stored in the company's DVR service. It doesn't work in linear broadcast environmment, but that hasn't stopped content owners from raising the flag of mutually assured destruction in the wake of making ads irrelevant.

The only real effect of the feature is to force "more meaningful" advertising approaches for the on-demand environment, like dynamic ad insertion, household-level targeting, personalised intreractive ads, and telescoping. "Ultimately, broadcasters and advertisers have to change the way they do business or they run the risk of linear TV becoming obsolete," Ergen told the Journal.

The major networks aren't buying it. "While Mr. Ergen wraps himself in the flag of 'innovation,' the idea of using technology to exploit others' intellectual property for personal gain is not a new or innovative idea," FOX said in a statement.

DISH, the No. pay-TV operator in the United States with 14 million subscribers, filed a preemptive motion to have the service declared legal, but found itself slapped with lawsuits from three of the big networks in response.