An ABC/ESPN experiment for its Indy auto racing coverage that provides a split screen during national commercials is a success, at least from the perspective of this TiVo user and commercial skipper.

Called "Side-By-Side," the technique splits the screen into parts, with the commercial itself taking the majority of the right side of the screen, as well as the audio. The live, albeit silent, Indy race is in a smaller window on the left side (you can see this in the screenshot to the right).

The top of the screen includes more information, including the name of the company whose commercial is running at that moment. The top three race leaders also are listed on the top of the screen, in addition to the current lap.

The whole point, of course, is to keep you from changing channels. But what about when you've TiVo'ed the race? Does it help keep viewers from fast-forwarding through the commercials?

I recorded the Bombardier LearJet 500 race on Saturday and I watched it on Sunday. I didn't use the magical 30-second commercial skip because I might miss a good crash (which is the reason most of us watch, no?).

The side-by-side split is such interesting eye candy that it keeps me watching -- both the race and the commercial. The only caveat is that the race window is pretty small. Maybe advertisers in the future will agree to split the screen equally with the programming. I'm sure the advertisers will never cede the audio to the programming, though.

(On Bloomberg Television, for example, commercials consume less than half of the TV screen's real estate, as they must share space with news headlines, stock tickers and other information. As far as I know, Bloomberg was the first TV network to ever do this.)

It's these kind of innovative advertising techniques that will ultimately prosper in a crowded and PVR-filled world. If the experiment is successful, as it seems to be, we may see this spread to other sports, like golf, that don't have natural (or even artificial) commercial breaks like baseball and football do.