The president of FOX Television Networks told Kellogg students Thursday that the effects of technology on the present and future of the television industry are uncertain.

About 70 students grilled Tony Vinciquerra in the Jacobs Center about issues such as the digital video recorder TiVo, product placement and potential mergers during the hour-long question and answer session.

Despite fears of reduced advertising revenue, TiVo does not pose a large threat to the television industry, said Vinciquerra, who has worked in newspaper, broadcast television, cable and radio.

“There are only 600,000 installed TiVos with a marketplace of 107 million households,” he said. “It is fairly easy to defeat so the machines wouldn’t know when the commercials were.”

Vinciquerra also emphasized the difficulty of coordinating product placement, especially with last summer’s hit “American Idol.”

“Trying to do a product placement in a show isn’t as easy as it sounds,” Vinciquerra said. It requires coordination between the show and performers, as well as a plan for what happens if the show goes into syndication, he said.

One of the biggest lessons in the television industry or any industry is that every action has unintended consequences, Vinciquerra said.

“In 1992 the deregulation of radio allowed consolidation of radio stations,” he said. “Now, there are only four companies that own radio stations.”

Vinciquerra supervises business development, finance, advertising sales, affiliate relations, administration and personnel at FOX. He also oversees Madison Square Garden and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“The reason FOX News bought the Dodgers was to ensure that we would always have the rights (to broadcast Dodgers games), since ESPN was threatening to start a channel of their own,” Vinciquerra said.

Students seemed to enjoy his speech, which originally was to be delivered via live video.

“I thought his speech was really good,” said Maya Lyttleton, a first-year Kellogg student. “It was fascinating from the perspective of an international student, to learn about the U.S. TV market and it was a wonderful opportunity for people in the media major.”

Katja Roever, also a first-year Kellogg student, enjoyed Vinciquerra’s honesty about opportunities for media companies.

“He gave a lot of in-depth information that we couldn’t have obtained anywhere else,” said Roever, a media management and marketing major and former employee of America Online. “I liked that he answered all the questions from TiVo to product placement to potential mergers.”