And now, a word about our sponsors:
An ad-free environment would be costly for those who can least afford it

People have been complaining for years about excessive electronic advertising. What's new is that they can now do something about it.

TV viewers can use their VCRs to tape shows, then fast-forward through the commercials. Newer digital video recorders can even skip ads automatically. Internet surfers can download software that blocks pop-up windows, or strips banner ads from web sites.

Music lovers can listen to MP3s or ad-free Internet radio instead of private (ad-driven) broadcasters.

You can even buy gadgets that block calls from telemarketers.

At the rate these anti-ad technologies are proliferating, it won't be long before you can buy yourself almost complete freedom from advertising. An ad-free lifestyle will become just another product to be packaged and sold.

The prospect of mass ad-evasion has not gone unnoticed in the worlds of media and marketing. In the U.S., broadcasters have filed suit against the makers of ReplayTV, a digital VCR whose latest model offers the option of automatically skipping commercials.

They argue that ReplayTV circumvents the implicit contract between advertisers, broadcasters and TV viewers. Advertisers buy time on broadcast TV with the assumption that viewers will have to see their ads -- or at least fast-forward through them -- to watch their preferred programs. TV networks can broadcast programs for free because programming costs are underwritten by advertisers. ReplayTV, they argue, amounts to cheating the system.

On the Internet front, advertisers have pursued technological solutions to the problem of advertising evasion. There are now several types of anti-blocking software available, which allow Web sites to prevent users of ad-blocking software from visiting their sites. These products have been deployed across a range of Web sites that seek to placate online advertisers who worry Web sites are not delivering the promised number of viewers.

These legal and technological counterstrikes are a message from our sponsors. The message is that consumers have an obligation to watch, read and listen to advertising. But that obligation exists only in the eyes of advertisers and the media they support.

Advertisers can continue to seek technological or legal ways of forcing us to consume their marketing -- lending new meaning to the notion of "must-see TV." But there will always be a new technology around the corner offering consumers new ways to slice and dice their media streams.

Does this mean electronic advertising is dead? Let's hope not.

Instead, hope that these new technologies will encourage advertisers to earn our attention by packaging their messages in ways that are interesting, funny or informative.

It's an option that's in all of our interests. After all, advertising is one of the great cross-subsidies: Advertisers pay big bucks to get access to the most affluent eyeballs and ears. As a result, we get access to free TV, radio and Web sites.

Without advertising to underwrite "free" content, the best TV will be pay-per-view, the best Web sites will be subscription only, and the cost of magazines and newspapers will go through the roof.

For those who can afford it, the world will look a lot more like an ad-free utopia.

But for many more, a world without advertising would be a world that offers far fewer options for viewing, listening and surfing.