The Hopper DVR lets users record television and then instantly fast-forward past all the commercials. Today, Dish put out a new ad (yes, there’s some irony here) that offered an “in memorium” for TV commercials — the concept is that sitting through commercials is something people did in the past but no more.

The Hopper’s ability to skip ads is the subject of a heated legal dispute between Dish and broadcasters. So far, courts have refused to issue a preliminary injunction to shut down the service for copyright reasons. ”The lawsuits going on today will ultimately decide the fate of commercials. Be careful what you wish for. If broadcsaters win, they’ll outlaw the DVR,” warned Ergen at the event. He says the service is legal under the law because it doesn’t erase the commercials, but simply lets consumers skip past them.

Some people in the Industry have suggested the fight over the Hopper is really a way for Dish to pressure broadcasters to lower retransmission fees — the money they charge Dish for the right to broadcast their over-the-air shows. While Ergen denied the Hopper is a leverage device, event host Peter Kafka pressed him on why the Hopper only fast-forwards past broadcast shows and not cable ones. Ergen claims this is due to technology limitations related to the way shows are streamed.

Speaking Friday morning in New York, Bewkes also expressed confidence that the TV business is not threatened by the likes of Netflix or Amazon because these services are largely distribution platforms that don’t own the quality content audiences want to watch. He added that such platforms compete with each other and not with traditional TV companies.

“It’s a good thing to have more of them,” said Bewkes, adding that multiple universal platforms are good for consumers because they mean the content industry “can’t be held hostage” to a given distributor.

Despite his dismissal of cord-cutting, Bewkes did acknowledge the emergence of “cord nevers,” which are younger people who never acquire cable in the first place. For them, he said it’s not a question of money — “they can afford three Starbucks a day” — but rather different habits and expectations. Bewkes pointed out that the “cord nevers” are not receiving the best content (it will be interesting to see if this argument one day sways them into signing up).

In the meantime, the traditional cable model is under other strains, including the spiraling cost of sports. As Bewkes noted, “half of the population that doesn’t want sports is subsidizing the other half that does” because the former are forced to buy expensive sports channels they don’t want as part of their cable plans.

All of this suggests that the cable industry will finally have to give in and offer consumers a full-blown a la carte model — but don’t hold your breath. As Peter Kafka has pointed out, even a company as rich and powerful as Apple has proved incapable of dislodging “the TV industrial complex.” The simple reality is that the mighty incumbents are going to ensure that a cable subscription remains a toll to get access to things like HBO and the NFL on the iPad.

Finally, there is the question of advertising. According to Bewkes, advertising-only models are not viable for most types of content, pointing to the era of the big three networks as a “wasteland” for TV. He called on companies to make more ads that people want to watch, citing a James Bond trailer or ads in GQ magazine as examples.

Bewkes made the remarks during a chat with Reuters’ Chrystia Freeland at the Paley Center for Media’s “Innovation without Borders” event. (Highlights available here).

(Image by holbox via Shutterstock)

The response came at an Advertising Week event in New York where Google’s head of mobile, Tim Reis, and other execs pranced on a Broadway stage adorned with marketing messages.

The event was fluff which is a shame because publishers face a real pickle: how can they reclaim lost desktop dollars as readers move to mobile? For now, the problem is that many ad buyers think that mobile screens are too small for effective advertising while, at the same time, consumers find mobile ads invasive.

If any these publishers came to hear Reis and other Googlers explain “how should I invest in mobile” (as the program promised), they were likely disappointed.

Reis did little more than recite familiar facts about consumers using “multi-screen touchpoints” for shopping, and spout platitudes like “a sociological shift” and “small screen, big opportunities.”

Reis’ nostrums, however, sounded like the Book of Proverbs compared to what came next.

The rest of the presentation featured over-caffeinated marketing cheerleaders who explained that Google had consulted honest-to-goodness anthropologists (with PhD’s!) who believe in the “power symbolism of small.” Just look, they said, at Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker or little toy trucks – they’re small portals into worlds of imagination!

It descended from there. Background screens flashed images of swimming fish and tribal drummers while one of the amped-up Googlers cited the movie Grease to explain how “we want to be this quicksilver, protean self.”

What any of this has to do with the small screen marketing dilemma is anyone’s guess. I suspect the audience member who had asked how ad buyers should respond to 7-inch tablets didn’t give a fig about quicksilver, protean anything.

The only interesting part of the whole episode is why Google gave such a clunker in the first place. Perhaps the company read Peter Kafka’s story about how its search advertising business is becoming less dominant in the age of mobile. Or, maybe like the rest of us, Google is still figuring out the mobile riddle too.

(Image by Chepko Danil Vitalevich via Shutterstock)