The face of the television industry may never be the same again after the UK launch of "intelligent" VCR TiVO.

The £400 piece of equipment is designed to sit next to your television, "learn" what your favourite programmes are and record up to 40 hours of them.

It also has the potential to edit out the adverts, striking fear into the hearts of commercial television's money men.

Experience from America, where TiVO has been available for a year, shows most users choose to edit out commercial breaks.

As it is only the advertising revenue which enables commercial TV to be provided free to the viewer, this development has left industry executives searching for alternatives to the traditional ad breaks.