Fuck the guy who wanted to suck up to the management in some stupid meeting projecting estimated revenue out of this to ask for a raise later because he "contributed to a revenue increase" to the company. There's absolutely no after thought to this decision - If I paid 1000s of dollars for an "idiot box" that's supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it, showing ads is unacceptable, no matter what the…
In some stupid meeting somewhere: A: ...and in conclusion, it's a win-win situation. Users will benefit from ads and our revenue will go up. B: People don't like ads on their TV. A: But they do. I refer you to slides 18 through 25 where you can see engagement metrics for our ad rollout on the old model. If people wouldn't like ads they wouldn't be clicking on them so much . B: I don't like ads. Do you like ads on you…
The reason they predict their revenue will go up (which it will, at least in the short term until the market adjusts) is because they have a lot of customers already lined up to pay them to show ads on their TVs.
Those customers' marketing departments decided to pay money to include their ads on TVs because a similar process was followed and they (rightfully) predict that they will get "engagement" on those ads (which the marketing department will rely on to justify or increase their salaries).
The problem is that this "engagement" will mostly be just annoyed customers mis-clicking or trying whatever it takes to dismiss the ad and not actually intending to purchase the advertised product, thus not contributing to the company's end goal of selling more product.
I am not convinced that the majority of the advertising & marketing initiatives out there actually translate to more profit. Marketing departments will brag about "conversions" all day long but how many of those are either accidental clicks or people who were already determined to purchase your product anyway (looking at the companies who buy Google AdWords on their own brand - if someone's searching for your brand on Google your website will already be the top result - a click on the ad is not a true "conversion" in this case and is just wasted money).
Ultimately, people have a finite amount of time and disposable money, and throwing more ads at this "problem" won't solve it. Your conversions will go up because of accidental clicks (and your marketing department will capitalize on that to justify their salaries/raises), but that doesn't magically give the consumer more money to actually go and buy your product so your profits will not increase.