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Turner CEO: "PVR Users Are Thieves"
mrbrown1602 writes: "It was bound to happen - 2600.com is reporting that Turner Broadcasting CEO Jamie Kellner is calling PVR users thieves. When asked why personal video recorders are bad for the industry, Keller says 'Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming.' Since when have we made contracts with the broadcasters for watching their content? More of the 2600 article can be found here."
Apparently there was no clause in the contract about quality of programming, have you seen the crap on TNT?
yes i run a goth/punk/emo porn site.
Give me a break. Next they'll ban remote controls that let you turn the sound off during ads.
How does receiving publicly broadcast data bind you to a contract? It wasn't in the EULA when I bought my TV.
This is silly. I pay my damned cable company ~50 for the right to watch whatever portion I want of what they send down the wire. I didn't agree to watch everything they offer.
Are they going to come and beat me now up if I flip the channel during a commercial. I almost always do.
This is silly.
I don't look at ads anywhere -- on television, at the cinema, on shopping center walls... And yet I continue to keep my eyes open and see everything else!
I am stealing all of society! I will crush the world economy! It is my evil masterplan!
Bwahahaha! Ha-ha!
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Normally I just zap away during a commercial break.
If they get what they want then I can imagine a future with digital tv, when you zap away the commercial break too long, you will be banned from watching the end of the show.
There's going to be all kinds of irritating rules if we don't watch out.
Skiping commercials is theft? Then what about hitting mute? What about going to the bathroom? What about talking loudly to your loved ones during commercial? Gonna send us to jail for that?
Should we envision a dark future where you watch a show and then are QUIZZED on the ads you saw? If you pass you're good, if you fail you're fined? That's the only way I can see this form of theft ever really held in check.
When I buy something and take it home or have it delivered to my home, I can do whatever I want with it. If I buy something I can use it however I want. I can even throw it away if I want. Same should apply with my cable television. I paid for it, it was delivered. I didn't sign any contracts promising I'd watch any single second of it, and whatever I do with it is up to me -- the sale never stated otherwise.
And what about broadcast television? What are your signals doing tresspassing on my property? Okay, that one's a bit silly, there are federal regulations for airwaves, but it isn't much siller than calling skipping an ad theft.
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
you're actually stealing the programming
Okay! I will record only the ads and watch them 200 times...hope that will compensate them for the loss...
I've written up an essay of one possible result of the conflict between commercial TV, PVRs, commercial skip and DRM.
You can read about The future of TV in the essay.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Why do I pay for cable? I remember when they were laying out the lines that it was supposed to be that you paid for a subscription to avoid ads!
HAHAHAH.
And cable stations didn't have to following the 7 dirty words and decency regulations.
What a crock. MTV is sanitized, no one shows skin, its all a failure.
Sorry, Turner, you and your mogul pals failed to deliver. How about showing European style ads with breasts showing? I hate American TV for how sanitized it is. Forget you TED.
I feel like getting a Tivo - I have already upgraded several for my friends, I should just do it. Thanks for MFSTools.
As for Turner's content, it's a joke. Time for Direct TV with a Tivo BUILT IN!!!
End rant;
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
That's right kids, your cable bill buys you.. spam! Not just any spam, but spam that talks to you and tells you how much you need their products.
:P
I don't remember agreeing to anything about watching commercials and actually wanting to. Nowhere did I put my john hancock on a piece of paper saying, "I wanna see Billy Mays pimp more Oxi Clean to me!"
Someone explain to me PVR's are any different from VCR's with "VCR Plus!" which automatically mark commercials and skip over them when you watch a recorded tape. Same thing, except it's not instantaneous like a PVR. Why is one stealing and one is not?
AOL TW if you're reading. Wanna save some of that 45B mark down? Fire her ass, you'll save yourselves a whole lotta grief down the road.
Don't forget! When you're stealing TV (that you paid for), you're watching communism.
The only payment for a lot [of content] is the willingness of the viewer to watch the spot, the commercial. That's part of the contract between the network and the viewer. For anybody to step in between that content and encourage the viewer to disregard the payment in time that he's making--I think everybody should fight those people...or let the viewer have a subscription model where they pay for that, in which case the monies can be taken in and distributed back to cover the loss of the ad revenue.
This is wrong on so many levels. I can watch whatever the fuck I want to of the television programming you send into my house. If I want to watch only 3 minutes of CSPAN perday and nothing else, so be it. If I want to watch only the 5 or 6 interesting shows on the air, so be it. If I want to close my eyes and not watch the ads or find some other way to not watch them, too freakin bad for you! YOU were the one who decided that the volatile business model of selling advertising would bring you stable profits; you are the one taking the risk and putting together the programming together in the first place.
I don't owe you anything.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Then I'll just take my public airwaves back please... Oh, NOW who's the thief?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
if I'm a thief of your precious IP then you're a thief of my far more valuable freedoms. Your entire business is a government created business. It cannot exist without state intervention into the economy. In a true lassiez faire nation you would not exist or would be scraping by. Don't whine and bitch and moan to me, you people are worse than welfare babies. Both you and welfare babies have to suck off the public teat for your sustinanice, but at least the welfare babies are even a little bit greatful for what society gives them. You miserable little shits expect society to hand over its cash and rights to you and then respect you and for you to not have to in any way show appreciation.
That is what I would say to that exec if I was called a thief by such a person to my face.....
I personally like to watch commercials if they are good quality.
i.e. Nike ads etc
so if they can make ads attractive enough, ppl like me will WATCH it
..if I decide to watch the ads, I can quit paying money to watch cable?
I was under the impression that the money I pay to my cable company - Time Warner, which is a Turner enterprise in its own right - is passed along to the cable content providers in licensing fees. I thought that my cable subscription fee was divvied up and sent piece by piece to Showtime, E!, the Comedy channel, etc. I guess perhaps I've been wrong all these years, and Turner is giving the programming to my (Turner) cable company? That Turner isn't making a penny off the fees I pay to my cable company? Ignoring, of course, the obvious Turner-Time Warner relationship.
I really don't get it. I pay for cable programming, it has commercials. My local TV stations are free, they have commercials. Guess which channels on which I'm more likely to mute/skip commercials? Damn right - the channels I pay for.
Shaun
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
What's going to be next? This???
Will they pay me if I record their channel and JUST watch the comercials? It sounds like a sound arguement.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
Well, i don't bother to use my TiVo to record the lame edited movies on TBS and TNT, I'd rather watch the whole movie!!
Maybe he just means 'social contract'. But still, if you can claim someone owes you anything simply for passively listening to radio waves broadcast on public spectrum unencrypted, you seriously need to reevaluate your position.
Its a bit different with cable, since you do actually sign a contract, but I doubt "must watch the adds" is a clause.
And how is this different from flipping channels, or going to the bathroom or something during a regular TV show? Or fast forwarding through commercials on a tape?
really, turner's CEO's position is really pretty tenuous...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Now maybe if they'd only show two or three ads an hour, I wouldn't mind watching them so much...
Take life easy: one bit at a time.
"Forget you Ted"
After a quick Google I found an example of such device, being the Hitachi VT-FX880E that has a feature called Commercial Advantage. I am not sure how effective it is but his a snippet taken from a review
If the FX880 were a computer Commercial Advantage would be described as its killer app. What it actually reflects is Hitachi ingeniously tackling the old problem of getting rid of the ads from programmes recorded from commercial TV stations. There have been attempts to do this almost from the dawn of the VCR but most have attempted to blank out the ads completely. What Commercial Advantage cleverly does is detect when an ad break starts, automatically kicks into fast forward and then drops back to normal speed when the programme resumes, all without you having to lift a finger.
It does this by detecting a signal that is sent at the beginning of each ad break which effectively returns a network to local programming so ads for that region can be shown. A signal at the end of the break marks network programming restarting and the end of the Commercial Advantage option. As with all good ideas it is deceptively simple but not without its faults. In our tests of the feature we found CA kicking in at the start of local TV promo spots (trailers, etc) that run before the advertisements themselves. Even so, it's a great idea and a genuinely useful one.
aus.music.scrapbook
Why is it that they haven't figured out that declining profits are of their own making?
Ted, let me tell you something. It's not pirates who are killing your bottom line. It's not the guys who trade your files on Kazaa or Usenet.
It's you. It's your cartel-like pricing, coupled with your outright hostility for the people who have to buy your product. GM tried this tactic in the 70's. At one time they had a greater than 50% market share. Today they are still trying to recover from their mistakes.
Keep legislating. I'll keep voting with my pocketbook. I quit buying CDs two years ago. I quit buying DVDs after a few of Jack Valenti's rants this year. If it comes down to it, I'll pull Time Warner out of the wall and only watch the media I've currently paid for and own. Turn my computer into a glorified toaster and I'll never buy another.
You know what? I'll deal. I thought getting rid of CDs would be bad. It hasn't. DVDs were even easier because I'd been down the road with CDs. Suddenly, I've got a lot more disposable income to spend on other things and other passtimes. I figure this year alone the RIAA and MPAA should save me about $5,000 with their predatory tactics.
Keep it up guys, I'm sure I'm not the only one who is spending their money on things other than your overpriced product.
-------------------------------------------------
I am suprised it took this long for a broadcaster to finally come out after the PVR people for something like this. I expected it a long time ago when PVR's first hit the scene. I think that instead of putting commercial breaks between the show we will start seeing picture-in-picture commercials or we will see MUCH more product placement in shows, perhaps with the stars of the shows themselves doing advertising like the Truman Show. Either that or an annoying block of text scrolling at the bottom of the screen, however advertisers probably don't feel there is enough sex appeal in scrolling text.
The only thing I know is that PVRs are here to stay, so broadcasters are going to have to change thier business model accordingly.
Information is not a physical object, it cannot be stolen.
It can be copied, shared, illegally distributed, but to call someone a thief or a pirate, is just a way of issuing out your propaganda, to make you feel morally wrong for doing whats right.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I wonder, does this "contract" that we have with the networks also mean that we must buy things too? What if we make a point of expressly NOT buying everything we see in commercials, would that make us thieves if we DO watch the commercials?
Once again, it's old worn-out business models running at hurricane speeds into the reenforeced concrete wall of technology and progress. If they absolutly demand that thier advertisements get seen, then start using product placement in the shows! Oh, wait, that would hurt thier lucrative syndication racket^H^H^H^H^H market. How about making thier business a micropayment one, where you pay per minute watched (with ads deducting from the bill)? Oh, that would require innovation and investment on thier part. Again, not going to happen.
As soon as all of the *cough* "Content" industries fail we may finally have a chance to see some real creative innovation in both the kinds of shows we watch and the models in which we pay for them, but until then, I'll just sit back and enjoy watching them squirm about like the stuck pigs that they are.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Face it, its their way of trying to make you feel morally wrong for doing what you have a right to do.
You paid for access to the information, once it gets to you its YOURS to do whatever you want with it, or at least thats how it should be. information is NOT an object, its more like air, they want to charge you for air and then say you are a thief if you use the air in the wrong way, (example you find a way to use the air to create more air)
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
5 years from now, there will be no commercial breaks. They will just stick a huge banner on the screen all the time like CNN/Fox news do now but with adverts. I guarantee it.
Well, actually they will probably still have commercial breaks. Fat lazy Americans who spend all their time in front of the TV will complain because they need to have pee breaks.
This is quite different from us intellectual people who spend all their time surfing slashdot/k5/fark/etc and have the luxury of urinating whenever we want to.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm sure they wouldn't mind producing this 'contract', then. What's that? I didn't sign a contract? Well, that's interesting. Perhaps they meant 'broken business model' and not 'contract'.
Additionally, maybe this fucktard Kellner can explain how I go about stealing something I've already paid for. I'd love to hear that one.
I swear to God, the year that we perfect a method to endlessly duplicate food will be the year in which half of the US population starves to death.
In the rare chance that Slashdot is still here when that happens, I'll post an 'I told you so' message. I'll be the one with a shotgun and a food duplicator, hiding in my basement, posting from the only Apple IIe that survived the circumvention crackdown of 2015. I'm saving this link. I expect a +5.
No such draconian measures are required. A simple mandatory commercial display device (CDD) will be required to be installed in the bathroom, behind (for the guys) and in front (for the ladies) the toilet.
A computer will detect when you fall asleep, and will air specially created 'sleepverts' that influence buying decisions why the consumer is asleep!
See, no draconian measures are required at all! Good behaviour will be rewarded with soma
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
laugh now.
but bill and ted will have their revenge:
- digital television, brought to you through your xbox2.
- advertising overlays on your shows every three minutes that you can only get rid of by pressing a special key combo on your xbox controller
what's scary is that you could almost see something like this happening. how fucked up is that?
The less attention you pay to an add the more effective it is. Advertisers want the ads to pass right to your subconscious with as little critical thought as possible. If you don't pay much attention to the ad (yelling at kids, nodding off, wanking, whatever) great.
If you flip channels or skip or whatever, then you cost 'em money.
Not that I'm defending their idiotic position, but I just thought I'd point that out.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Well, now that I've got your attention....
Let's think about it this way: let's say in five years, everyone owns a VCR that removes commercials. Thus, no one ever watches commercials, and all broadcast networks go out of business. You know what all the Slashdot posters will be doing? Posting here because they can't afford to pay for their shows!
People, look, you can whine all day about how you deserve to get everything for free. At the end of the day, someone has to pay for it, though. Yes, you can go to the bathroom, channel surf, use mute, whatever. The point is, with all those methods, the advertiser has a chance to get to you first. You can ignore it, but the advertiser can still catch your attenetion. With a Tivo, that doesn't happen anymore. You can skip commericals with no risk of missing anything.
Think of it like a timeshare deal, where you get the free weekend for listing to the sales pitch. You might very well go there with no intention of buying anything, and you may well leave without spending any money. The point is, you can't skip the sales pitch. Everyone gets to take their shot since you took the offer. Same with TV. The advertiser won't spend money if there's no change of people watching his commercials.
Over a two year period I considered how commercials on TV affected my buying. During that two years, I spent $6.81 because of having seen commercials.
Have you ever noticed that the things that are advertised on TV are usually things you should not buy, if you care about spending your money wisely?
We're all thieves in content providers' eyes. The best way to put that thought into motion is to strike at any technology, reguardless of it's non-infringing uses, and nail it to the cross and say "Look there's proof!"
How is this different than those VCRs with a built in commercial-skipping feature? My guess is that the VCR is an analog medium. Kinda makes sense when you think about it.
When you have content in perfect digital quality, it makes it hard to improve on perfect, and they know this. So what do the content owners do? That's right, slam any piece of technology that can: copy, reproduce, and store digital content of any kind.
In their eyes we're stealing from them because that's how TV Broadcasters make their money. They rent TV airtime space to advertisers and get a kickback which finances their operations. I can understand this. Suppose if everyone in the US for starters, all had PVR's and know how to use them? What then? How would they continue to exist? I definately can see that.
Their needs to be a balance here. Why not revert back to the business model of: "you pay x amount for ad free tv" AND STICK TO THE DAMN MODEL. If they did that for cable when it first came out, this would not be an issue.
Kinda funny to see how shit like that comes back back to bite them in the ass.
A penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
If you get a Satellite PVR, you're probably getting a TiVo, American DirectTV PVRs are TiVos, I would guess BSkyB's are too. TiVos do not have a 'commercial skip' feature (30x to skip add breaks in a few seconds). The networks specifically negotiated it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If you pay for cable or satellite TV, then only a small proportion of the money goes to the company that produces the programmes. Most of it is sucked up by administrivia.
Here in the UK, the "TV Licence" that so many USians seem to just not understand pays for something like 6 advert-free TV stations (two of which are on analogue UHF, all six only being carried on digital TV) and a couple of dozen advert-free radio stations. Now, there's a side effect to this - in heavily commercial radio and TV the programmes are just a vehicle for the adverts. In other words, any programming is just there to fill the 10 minutes between ad breaks. Remove the need to be commercially competitive, and the quality of the programmes goes up - the incentive is to make something that people want to listen to.
£130 well spent, I think...
There are already 4+ pages of pissed off people..
And there will be more. It's easy to attack people who trade mp3s, because for the most part those are just college students and geeks.
But got to the average Joe and Jane American who spent $300-$1000 on something they consider to be as benign as a VCR, and call them theifs... It's going to piss them off.
Just wait until this story hits prime time CNN... oh, wait, never mind.
The Internet is generally stupid
This must be their new business plan to recover from their 54 billion dollar loss from last quarter. I guess classic business models don't work anymore; have to accuse millions of a crime that doesn't exist.
"It's not our fault we lost 54 billion! They didn't watch the commercials!!!"
One thing that they seem to have lost track of reality on, is that nothing *guarantees* them the *right* to keep on making money the way they always used to.
They (the networks) choose to make a gamble in paying content providers (or paying to produce it themselves) and that they can recover their costs and make a profit in the process. You do not get the payoff without taking the risk. They have no more "right" to expect the models to work forever than I have the "right" to expect a guaranteed job forever from my employer.
If times change and they can no longer do this, then they had better find a another way to make money.. Here's one.. Find out what the consumers *actually want* and be the best to serve their needs rather than choosing something cheap and nasty and attempting to ram it down their throats and force them to like it.
Viewers are not the property of the networks. If times change and the old media models no longer work, then they had better start thinking of new ones. Actually listening to people instead of trying to "capture" them would be a good start.
.. he does have a point, in that commercial TV is supported by.. surprise surprise, commercials!! Commercial advertisers pay money to networks with the expectation that people will see the commercials. If that doesn't happen then the advertisers don't get a return on their money. The advertisers aren't paying for a commercial to simply run, they're paying for a commercial to be run and for people to see it. That's why networks charge more for a timeslot during the Superbowl or during popular programs. Sure, they know not everyone watching a program will see the commercial, but they can be sure a good percentage will. For a device to come around that makes this truly common.. now that's when it becomes dangerous enough to be attacked. The RIAA never cared enough about a few people swapping .wav files or .mp3's over irc... but Napster, Napster became a threat. Advertisers put up with VCRs, because even with those you're still getting a fair amount of the commercial. But a device where you don't even know what commercial aired? The commercial that is paying for the program? It should be no surprise advertisers aren't thrilled about that. And if these devices become popular? Should be no surprise again that they go on the attack. Network TV isn't commercial free, it's not supposed to be. Comments about whether or not this would be a good thing aside, the networks and channels like Cartoon Network, Sci-Fi, Food channel, History Channel.. none of these would survive without people actually watching the commercials that run. Or does everyone look forward to every channel running PBS-like pledge drives?
This is the same argument that comes up when people complain about banner ads in websites. Commercial TV needs either advertising, or else they have to become a pay channel like HBO. Slashdot needs to run advertisements to survive or just become a pay site. So does Salon.
All of them are supported by advertising, advertising which requires viewers for it to work. Saying that PVR users are thieves is... a little extreme, and somewhat silly, but to strip commercials completely out of programs is being a little dishonest.
Let's face it, we're becoming over-saturated with marketing, and I think it's losing its effectiveness.
The companies that are placing ads on TV (which seem to take up 50% or more of any show's air time these days) are probably seeing a shitty return on their investment.
As a result, the ad companies are probably complaining that there aren't the same levels of profits, etc., and are complaining to the network execs. Those execs are probably in denial and are looking for a reason that would explain the drop in marketing response, and have become somewhat fixated on PVRs as their scapegoat. After all, it CAN'T be due to the quality of the programming or advertising, could it?
It amazes me that they put such incrediblely shitty programming on TV and yet expect the same returns as with quality programming. Look at adcritic and ifilms to see how quality stuff is entertaining and effective.
Oh, yeah, and I forgot to mention that my PVR is the ONLY reason why I don't ever watch the commercials on TNN... yeah, that's it... it's got nothing to do with the fact thay they have shitty programming and I don't watch ANYTHING on TNN, never mind the commercials.
$0.02 (CDN)
What's next, publishers demanding that table of contents information be removed from books, due to inherent use for skipping sections of already read material? And what about TVGuide, it allows you to eliminate whole shows you'd rather not see.
Come on Turner. This sort of add revenue is used to offset production and distribution costs. Assuming that a person watches these commercials once, Turner should be happy. After all additional views aren't being broadcast, and thus costs Turner nothing. Time shifting is legal, and Turner, I would think, would want people to view Turner shows often. This would raise interest in Turner programming. The more interest in Turner programming the more they'll be able to charge for adds anyway.
Also given that the interest level of the average commercial is rather low (ie, people would rather do something else than watch a commercial, and often do). I would think Turner would look into ways of making commercials more interesting. Failing that, it's actually quite ironic that in order to tape a show "without commercials" one actually has to intently watch a show with commercials in order to cut them out. So Turner actually get's more bang for their commercial buck from people who use a VCR to tape a show "without commercials".
And last thought. Why does Turner even care? After all they charge for commercial time based on viewership numbers estimated by third party polls. These polls don't take into account estimated numbers of people who recorded the show for later viewing. View the show later and skip all the commercials you want, Turner still got it's money and gains viewer loyalty in the process. Sounds like nothing but a win for them to me.
Taking a piss during the commercials, or going to the kitchen to make a sandwich, is theft, too, with the logic Ted Turner is suggesting. What the PVR is probably doing is formally defining it and as a result, advertisers demand discounts on the basis of percentages assumed from sales of PVRs. More likely he's pissed off that business models are changing and he's past his prime in coming up with new business ideas to make money in the new ways.
And about this contract. I never made such an agreement in writing, nor have I ever seen even so much as an announcement of such at the beginning of the shows, such as "By continuing to watch, you hereby agree to view the commercials in the following programming, and not go to the bathroom or kitching, or fast forward". Is it really any different if I don't watch the commercials during the time of broadcast, or when the program is played back later when I get home?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Ted Turner has a good point, adverts as an advertising medium haev passed their sell-by date. What a shame his company will go out of business because he'd rather bitch about it than get a new revenue model.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
If this argument applies to broadcasted content - that not watching the adverts constitutes theft - then the same argument must by extension apply to other mediums. Thus buying a newspaper and not reading all of the adverts contained therein also constitutes theft. I hope you have large prisons in America.
==========
Error in module creativity.dll : Unable to create witty comment.
Abort / Retry / Ignore ?
Actually, what Ted doesn't realize is that I use my Tivo so I don't miss any commercials. When I leave the room to get a snack that I saw advertised in the previouse commercial break, I can pause the signal so I don't miss any valuable and high quality advertisements for useful goods and services! Its the people WITHOUT PVRs that are really costing them money.
So, basically I think the networks should make it mandatory that everyone have a Tivo and buy them for everyone. Of course, those of us that already have them would get a credit for a big hard drive.
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
I sometimes fast forward over the boring bits of a show. (Say some silly romantic in Star Trek) Does this means I can no more?
J.
The same broadcaster runs movies without any adverts in them - they're all played before and after the programme when nobody is watching. Sounds like they don't give a shit whether the ads get seen or not...
When the MPAA says anyone attempting to break the encryption on DVDs is a pirate, it can be difficult to explain to the laymen how innacurate such a statement is. One could go into depth about fair use rights, the definition of "pirate", as well as region coding... and on and on. However, noone is going to need any kind of geek to layman translation of this bull.
All of a sudden I'm entering into a contract when I hit the power button on my appliance which converts electromagnetic waves into pictures and sound!? Um, I don't think so. Nope, no matter how much the dictatorial corporations try to push this concept on the public, ain't noone gonna buy it.
The Replay TV 4000 series of PVRs does this too. There have been stories about it on Slashdot before, they shouldn't be hard to locate.
I was under the impression, though this could be incorrect, that they aren't looking a special signal exactly, but rather just a silent, all black, frame at the start and end of the commercial breaks. If there really was a special signal, the networks would just stop broadcasting it and these things would all break. I have a friend who has one of those VCRs (not sure if it's a Hitachi or not) and says it works quite well, so obviously it hasn't been broken by the networks yet. Although even with the black frame thing, it still seems like they could break it pretty easily. There really isn't any reason I can think of that they have to broadcast anything that would give commercials away this way, I'm thinking they do for mostly historical reasons, like the hardware all their local affiliates and cable companies use isn't capable of completely removing the black frame or the special signal or whatever it is before sending it out over the air. Maybe it's even just an aesthetic thing, but either way it will probably change eventually if this kind of recorder becomes popular.
Soon they'll say that if you don't watch enough of the programming you're paying for they'll force you to pay more; to cover their extra costs.
If you watch US television for long, you will start to understand the obesity levels. Stuck between 10 minutes of inane rubbish featuring potentially beautiful but dangerously starved people, you are subjected to 5 minutes of carefully crafted manipulation inviting you to go further into debt, then pig out on sugered drinks and ultra high fat junk.
Simply by increasing obesity, TNT's advertising is responsible for more deaths than heroin. See this. One could argue that it should be banned entirely, like heroin. Personally I think dangerous and destructive things (like adverts or heroin) should be regulated rather than banned outright.
One valid argument against legalised heroin is that sometimes people's choices harm others. For instance, if I end up having to foot the medical bills of heroin users, then it *is* my business what other people do in the privacy of their own homes. So, along with legal drugs I would also support education to warn people of dangers.
It would seem a bit off to me if far more effort went into trying to persuade people to take heroin than was being spent telling them it might not be such a good idea. I don't believe in stopping people from doing stupid things, but I do have a problem with relentless propoganda telling them that stupid things are a good idea.
The existence of adverts on TNT effects me adversely even if I don't watch it. For instance, the advertising for PizzaHut leads to increased obesity, the additional burden on medicaid and welfare which increases my taxes. I would be willing to pay money to educate people about dangers of eating high-sugar high-fat diets because education is cheaper than cure. By the same token, I would be prepared to pay extra not just to avoid adverts myself, but to avoid your exposure to adverts.
In general advertising leads to increased consumerism: more roads, driving, shops, stress and pollution. In fact, it leads to what is hilariously called "progress". The direction it leads people in has only got the faintest association with this idea of "choice". The only "choices" proposed in adverts are ones which will make the advertiser richer.
The desires of humanity are being manipulated and shaped by those with a short term money making agenda. If you want a purely capitalist solution, you need to somehow calculate the true costs of advertising. So, by all means: persuade people to buy that new BMW or pizza, that is perfectly fair - just make sure that the full cost of the extra death, pollution, congestion, noise, road accidents, etc is paid by the advertiser.
In summary, PVR's should be subsidised by extra taxes on advertisers, and TNT can go fuck themselves.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
So they are just going to set the stage. They will use a process similar to what political parties do. Repeat something often enough and the general public will believe it.
It is no secret AOL/Time Warner is in a mess. Hence they are bound to do anything which will possibly allow them to setup a future lawsuit.
Think about it. Who has PVRs on the market? Hmmm
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The mice trying to get cheese without having their heads snapped off are thieves too! How are the mousetrap makers supposed to make a profit if the mice won't follow the contract they clearly agreed to by sniffing the cheese? I think we need a "Darn Mousetrap Circumvention Act" making it illegal for mice to figure out or discuss how mousetraps work or, worse yet, making their own cheese. Otherwise, all the mousetrap makers will go out of business and the world will be overrun by mice, causing the earth to implode from the sheer weight of mice upon it.
So...am I stealing if I just get up, walk out of the room and make a cup of coffee? What if the phone rings and I choose to answer it during the ad breaks?
Utter nonsense.
Cheers,
Ian
When you make commercials that are at the very least entertaining, I'll consider watching them.
That means I if I see one more 'less-than fresh' commercial, or any friggin adds in the corner of the screen while I'm trying to watch a show, I'll go right back to resentfully skipping the commercials.
That's right, as a matter of fact it's because the commercials disqust me so much that I feel obliged to skip them. I refuse to watch a 'fear factor' commercial where someone bites a bug and it squirts out at the screen.
All I've got left to say is this: It's their own faults. Commercials used to be a part of our culture. People would ask 'did you see that commercial yesterday'? Now there are many more than ever before, they are far more annyoing, disgusting, and we're subjected to them constantly. Something had to give, and now they're merely having to sleep in the bed they made.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
And here all this time I thought I was paying for what I receive by sending Dish Network $121 (I get pretty much every non-ppv American oriented channel they offer) each month for my subscription.
Personally, I view commercials as conveniently spaced 30 second pee and "grab some food" breaks. I'll start intently watching the commercials when Jamie Kellner starts paying my aforementioned Dish Network bill.
Although I gotta admit, I do like the Mountain Dew commercial where the dude has the fight with the long horn sheep...
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
How long until we see overlaid adverts during shows? Captive audiences. There must be one of those screen corners left to show a rotating Coke can during the kiddies' cartoons, or enough space along the top to scroll some translucent pictures of MacD's latest offering...
Or maybe it's already here. I dunno, I don't watch a a great deal. And most of that's BBC.
The reason that PVRs are perceived to be different from VCRs is because VCRs are more established and more socially acceptable. VCRs have been around for at least 20 years, most people know what they are and that they're "okay" to use (even if they still don't quite know how to use them :-)). PVRs, on the hand, are a relatively new invention. Most people aren't aware of what they are and the fact that they are an electronic device lends them an even greater aura of mystery to the average person. I personally find it disgusting that the "content industry", as it's known, is using this ignorance to deliberately misinform the populace about these devices, in order to "indoctrinate" them to their point of view (eg. "file sharing is stealing", deleting commericals from recordings is stealing", "watching ads is part of your contract with us").
Ads are a way for studios to generate revenue to create content (though the cheapness of RealityTV(TM) means that most of this money just goes to the pockets of execs), but they are not part and parcel of the viewing experience. Sorry, Mr Turner, but there is no "contract" and it is part of my fair use rights (not that I expect you to give a flying fuck about that, given the previous behaviour of your colleagues in the industry) to delete commercials from recordings that I make for my personal use. And if I don't watch ads, it's my right. It's bad enough that you try to equate file-sharing to stealing...
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
I suspect that the theory that enough people actually buy the specific product to make the ads pay for themselves is not right (at least in most cases). For example, why am I seeing ads for "International Paper" or IBM or SUN? Will my grandmother buy SUN servers because she saw the ad on TV? Come on!
I think that, just like Web banner ads, TV ads are not particularly effective, but unlike Web ads, it's impossible to measure effectiveness of TV.
This carpet bombing of people with advertisements makes everyone immune to the message after a while and as a result the ads do not have the desired effect.
A new model for marketing is needed and making people watch TV commercials is not it. Unfortunately I don't know what the new model should be...
...richie - It is a good day to code.
It's interesting to note how much of what he says can inflame people. The facts are that
1.) No person ever signed a contract that says they have to watch commercials. (Legally, none of us ever signed or had a verbal "agreement" to watch commercials.)
2.) The amount of money spent on programs by commercials is irrelevant to the public. If john q. Business man pores money into advertisements and theirs no return then he is taking a risk and is suffering the consequences of the "risk". Equally, if he spends money in the stock market, he is again "taking a risk."
3.) From a functional point of view there is NO difference between a vcr and a pvr. If a vcr is permitted then a pvr should equally be permitted.
4.) On top of that Turner reserves the right to NOT accept business from companies such as DirectTV which provide and support PVR units such as the integrated DirectTV and TIVO unit. Yet instead, you go to Best Buy and there in Big Ads are all the Turner channels on DirectTV. Why?
Because they want the money.
5.) Ultimately, its an issue of money. They just expect to get more revenue from TV ads then they do now.
So here's the BIG THOUGHT OF THE DAY. I wonder if he is making such a critical CLAIM just so that they GET more PUBLICITY and encourage people to buy TIVO's? After all PVR sales are really not doing that great and maybe this is a way to PROMOTE them. (ie-...by saying they're bad..people will want to buy more of them.)
This shouldn't be a surprise coming from a network built by a man who made his money in billboards.
Maybe Turner and the rest of the TV distributors will get mad at their customers and decide to withhold their precious "content" from us. I can't imagine anything nicer than turning on the TV, seeing nothing but 600 channels of no signal, and going outside to work in the garden.
Does that mean that if I change the channel during a commercial, or even get up to go to the bathroom, then I am breaching some mythical 'contract'???
I'd laugh at this, if so many of the uninformed didn't believe this crap.
If only tv ads were really informative about a product I might actually consider using their product - as it is they're 90% useless, often offensive fluff just trying to jerk your emotions. If I could NOT block all the ads for hyperactive bladder (gotta go! gotta go!), all the quack medicine and sexual dysfunction miracle cures, I wouldn't watch TV or listen to radio at all!
In fact, most of the time an ad comes on and I try to imagine the demographic clientel it's targetted for, I realize I just don't belong here!
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I was thinking the exact same thing in referance to VCR's. This fucktard obviously has never seen my l33t skillz of fast forwarding through all of the commercials and hitting "play" right before the show comes back on. Oh yeah, I tend to tape almost EVERYTHING I watch for the explicite reson of skipping commercials and if I am watching something live, I'm the fastest MUTE button clicker in the MidWest. These morons just dont get it.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
I have just submitted a patent application for the following invention:
Make commercials shorter or longer than 30 seconds.
Then when those PVR thieves skip forward 30 seconds, they'll end up still in the middle of a commercial, or they'll have missed the exciting first few seconds of the actual show! The 30 second skip will be forced into extinction!
Once my patent is granted, I promise to license it to broadcasters on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis.
Every time this comes up I ask the same question.
How is this different than a VCR?
My 1990 vintage VCR allows me to fast-forward through stuff I didn't want to see, my 1998 VCR does as well. I do not see a difference in functionality between what my VCR does and what my Tivo does. They both allow me to fast-forward through things and "jump back" to compensate for reaction time.
I does seem from the article that his main bitch is with the ReplayTV-like "skip 15 seconds" function. But haven't VCRs had that too? Perhaps they see a logical evolution of the devices (to be able to automatically delete commercials? I thought some VCRs did that too!) and they want to stop it before it becomes well established.
I'm not even going to get into his "contract" comment. I certainly didn't sign anything that said I had to watch Turner or any specific part of its content!
Milalwi
<sarcasm>
Well, it had to come.
*smirks* Why, just the other week, my neighbor stopped in during a game and noticed that my great new remote let me quickly change channels during TV commercials.
He of course pointed out that it was theft to do so, and that "when the revolution comes" I'd be hung for it.
Strange, I'd never noticed it before, but come to think of it, he does have an AOL email address at work.
*sighs* To think of it, all this time, when men get the "itchy remote finger" during commercials (don't worry, I know we all do), we're being bad little thieves. Now this, this I like.
</sarcasm>
Am i robbing every other station if i watch PBS?
The cliche for PBS is that you're a thief if you watch and don't contribute. Nice twist.
But what about people who actively boycott sponsors because of show content? Another free-wheeling use of the term 'terrorist'?
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
I know the site is not /.ed but does anyone have a mirror, or an alternate source, for this article? My company's internet filter is blocking me.
In summation, an idiot...
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
If these people would work with the technology and not agaist it they would lead more relaxing lives.
Tivo (Not sure about any others, don't have 'em) can track what you watch and each button press. Remember the Super Bowl? Tivo was quick to disclose the most rewound commercials. Isn't that a useful technology? Want a better idea about what shows we like? Thumb up or down. This is extremely usefull and accurate information. Much better than Neilson (sp?).
I'm not sure if the other Tivo users remember this but a many months ago I got a message in Tivo about a new contest. Watch these 3 car commercials either in Tivo Showcase or during these shows. Then go to the web site answer a few simple questions about the commercial and maybe win the car. Did I do it? Yes. To support Tivo. . . and maybe win a car.
There are numerous other ways Tivo can be an advertisers best friend and keep the viewer happy. I think they are trying a lot of cool things in the second generation Tivo.
So fellow Tivo geeks. Turn on your tracking. It's a small price to pay. And maybe the Networks and others will stop whining.
-- No Comment
This is at least as relevant today as when Heinlein wrote it about 30 years ago.
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit. That is all."
- Robert A. Heinlein ("Life-Line")
There's one here in the states, too. Only people who watch TV here pay it to a cable company. Which is why the audacious stupidity of the Turner weenie's statement amazes me so. I could just as well say that inserting commercials is theft because their customers pay for cable.
OBDisclaimer: I don't have cable. I refuse to pay for TV that contains commercials.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Wrong. Cable-only channel providers do get money per head from the cable company. The amount varies (I heard somewhere that the Weather Channel gets something like 20 cents per connected household per month; others are higher).
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
We're seeing an increase of law abiding citizens being treated like criminals in so many parts of our society. Every day we are being combarded with copy protection technology, security screenings, identifications, background and credit checks, etc. I really wonder if someday someone is going to do a study and find that the psychological effects of going through most of life not being trusted is causing all sorts of issues, like incrased stress, depression, family problems, etc... At the very least, one has to wonder if being treated like a criminal would start to make someone act like a criminial.
_______
2B1ASK1
If your kid was crying or needed attention during the commercial would he be an accesory to the Theft?
E
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
We're living during the transition time between media technologies, where the computer is coming in and disrupted familiar business models, replacing them with something yet unknown and raising fear in the feeble-minded. This is not unlike the transition to the automobile, where some countries legislated that a person waving a flag has to walk ahead of a self-propelled vehicle which is limited to 4 mph. Sooner or later even the thick minds at TV networks will realize that the era of advertising as we know it is over, and they'll have to come up with new ways of making money. Meanwhile we'll be stuck with the metaphorical flag-waving man in front of our PVRs.
If I go out of my way actively to avoid an advert, what exactly are the chances that I would buy the product if I'd watched it? Quantify your answer, please.
Advertising is a crock, an utter crock. Advertising is something you spend between X and Y% of your budget on, because that's what market analysts expect, and if you do something unusual, you're high risk. The only people who pretend to believe that it actually does anything are advertising executives and the people carrying the adverts. Note: "pretend".
Oh, sorry, let's also include in that delusional group "e-advertisers". Because god knows that click-through adverts have really being pulling in the revenue, right?
Once again for luck: overt advertising doesn't work! Actually, even advertisers know this, which is why they are so keen on product placement (place the product with the content, or place the content (e.g. of Britney's brassiere) with the product) rather than trying to actually sell the product on merits.
I'm quite happy for the delusions to continue though: I mean, it's paying for this great free ride that we're all enjoying right now. But for anyone in the industry to actually claim that it matters that we watch commercials is crackpot delusion, pure and simple.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
A lot of new TVs have picture in picture now, which makes channel surfing a breeze. I guess all those companies are just aiding and abetting. I'd love to see the end result of all this being that all remote controls become illegal in the USA. At least that's something that Joe Sixpack can really get up in arms about. "You can take away mah freedom, but you nae can take away mah remote!"
I'm sure it won't take Turner and his slimy little friends long to come up with an even more obnoxious advertising method than the one he currently employs.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
So I skip ALL of his commercials.
BTW, can someone put up "The Osbournes" on Hotline?
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
why can't I find and download my favorite Got Milk ads for free?
The shareholder is always right.
I don't know about all of you, but if I record a show to watch it later, I'll fast-forward through them when I'll watch the show. It's quite easy: you spot the time elapsed since the beginning of the show, press fast-forward, and when it's about to turn to 3 minutes you press play. Check your local commercial breaks for the exact duration.Of course you actually "see" them, but if you don't already know the ad there's almost no chance you can guess what product it is for. And if you absolutely don't want to see them, press stop before fast-forward and you'll skip them even faster!
Same thing on rental videos. There's usually a couple trailers for future releases at the beginning, along with a warning from the FBI. Press that same button on the remote, and they go away! I heard that some DVD players, in coordination with the actual DVD, prevented you from doing that, though.
Software Wars
When we subscribe to channels, we agree to pay them a set amount of money per month, and in return they allow us to watch their programming any time during that month.
What Turner is forgetting is that we don't just subscribe to one channel and leave it on all day - so there is never a guarantee that I will watch the advertisements that companies paid to put on the stations I subscribe to. If I choose to "time-shift" the programming I subscribed to, then I can do that. If I choose to empty my bowels instead of watch the latest overproduced Pepsi spot, then I can do that. If I choose to talk to my friend during the commercial, or see what else is on TV, then I can do that.
Kellner (the CEO) does say it's OK to go to the bathroom during commercial breaks. His problem is that the 30-second skip neatly coincides with the standard advertisement length. Well, there are two options that he can pursue without whining to the government (is it just me or does it seem like "content providers" are just fighting technology with government now?)
- Make your programming so compelling that viewers would rather tune in and watch your shows "live," thereby rendering the 30-second-skip feature useless. The benefits to this are the stations don't have to give soft money contributions to government, and their rating go up because their shows are that much better. The downside is that the stations need intelligent, semi-talented people to crank out this programming, and they can't rely on the government to provide guaranteed income (like what Communism was supposed to be like).
- The second solution is to change the length of commercials. What would happen if Turner sent out a memo to all of its advertisers on all of its stations that it is now accepting 40 second commercials? First, we'd get a lot of commercials with ten seconds of junk thrown in (not like the first thirty seconds weren't junk anyway). Then stations could start charging more money for ads. The upside is that this solves Kellner's problem from the 2600 article -- the "Skip ahead" feature is only there to skip the 30-second commercial. It may slightly de-value that feature for the time being.
But I was just looking for a solution that would solve what he claims is the problem - the "skip" button lasts as long as a typical advertisement.The downside is that it would be completely ineffective. I have a DishPlayer 501 which includes this 30-second-skip feature, and since sometimes 10- or 15-second spots are thrown in, it doesn't skip exactly. I end up hitting skip-skip-skip-skip-skip, back-back and watching up to ten seconds of the last commercial usually because after each skip, if I see a commercial I hit "skip" again. If I see programming I hit "back" until I see a commercial.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
I didn't get a copy of the EULA with my TV!!
AOL Time Warner is in the dumper, so they send the guy with the supposedly most independent and legitamate voice (the head of their independent news organization) to float this.
They're big in cable, maybe they'll add it to their terms and conditions.
Hey, AOL, you're losing money because you suck, not because I'm a thief. I resent the implication that I'm a criminal because Steve Case doesn't have more money than Costa Rica.
My father is a blogger.
CW: Have you had any pressure from advertisers?
JK: Our business is so much better this year than it was last year--it's remarkable. Rates are higher.
Doesn't this pretty much nullify and credibility in the whining about how people who skip through ads are hurting the industry? What's very annoying is that they don't "get it": when I'm fast forwarding through the ads, either on the VCR or PVR, I'm scanning to know when to let go of the FF button. I'm paying MORE attention to the ad (albeit in time-compressed space) than I probably would be in real-time.
For example:
"Ad, ugh, where's the remote, , car ad, tampon ad, Miss Cleo, whoa what's that? check out ad, back to fast forward, grow more hair ad, lose unwanted hair ad, Miss Cleo, dog food ad, ad that made no sense and I doubt I'd do better in real-time, Jordan's Furniture ad - stop hafta watch, FF again, car ad, stop for Dean's Home Furniture ad? I doubt it!, Miss Cleo, back to program...
There's probably MORE brand name recognition among VCR/PVR users than the people who have to suffer through real-time ads. If I were in advertising, I'd definitely do a study on this - actually I'd exploit it by making an ad that looks great while fast-forwarded (or one that mimics it in real-time - you'd get 60 seconds of content in 30 seconds!)
If we boycott, it will have the same effect of not watching the ads, so how would they know we're boycotting?
I don't watch TV as it is, so how can I boycott?
Better strategy: WATCH the commercials. Make a list of who's sponsoring these shows. Write them letterst stating your position on PVR, Fair Use, your "obligation" to watch commercials, and the corporate use of public airwaves, which is supposed to be licensed by the government for the public good.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I signed a contract with a cable company where I pay them for cable access to tv shows I don't remember paying for comercials
http://Lenny.com
4 great justice!
some VCR's do use the lumance detection.. and what i saw on one refrence design was that a vcr recorded a seperate subaudio tone on the left audio track during the recording phase for every time a fade to black occoured. then upon playback it sutomatically skiped the segments that are 30 seconds apart.
these do not work all the time as you notice that sometimes commercials do get through.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Source: The Judge in Life-Line
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Ads are useless. I haven't bought a product based off an advertisement on television since I reached the age of reason. I never watch the Ads now, I either click over to another channel or get up to go do something for the full five minutes that they run this crap. Do they really think that anyone on this entire planet gives a damn about 1-800 rates, the latest in skin-care products, or what new car they are going to buy this year, all based on television ads? All telephone rates are roughly the same. Skin care hasn't changed in a thousand years, you wash it you don't have problems. Stick to auto-enthusiast magazines for your car info, you'll get better information.
Lo and behold, after fifty years of being inundated with this crap, we developed a way to remove the ads. You know what they'll be doing next? Overlaying the advertisements directly on the picture, like CNNfn does with the stock ticker. just what I need to keep me interested... a constant stream of inane bullshit streaming across the face of the show I'm interested in watching.
I say, let them. We'll create PVRs that zoom in and completely ignore the banners. Move the banners and windows around, we'll develop PVRs that can track the real content and we will still avoid the advertisements. Every trick they can devise can be countered with a technical solution. You can't rule these devices as illegal, because they do nothing that IS illegal. There are no contracts to watch advertisements, and nobody would watch any television if there were.
Let these assclowns go back to a subscription model. You create a channel that has content that I actually WANT to watch, and I'll pay you for it. You can leave the useless ads out, you'll get your money, and everyone will be happy except the advertisers. Good, fuck them. I hope there is a special place in hell just for them, right next to the telemarketers and email spammers.
I have very serious doubts about the ability of the television industry to actually create anything that even remotely resembles quality entertainment. I've reached the point where I frankly have zero interest in watching any television. If the show is that good, I'll buy the DVD releases, ad free, and they can get their money that way.
Or better yet, I'll keep my damned money and go to the library. There's more entertainment in one single Neal Stephenson novel than there is in an entire year of television, even if you count the content from every single damned station.
Someday the artists of this world are just going to have to start giving everything away free. After a few years, when all the big media companies go bankrupt from being unable to compete with the independent media, things will be back on track again.
This is like fighting some kind of fucked up war.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
not anymore. with most advertising houses now using AVID for spot production stereo ad's are common and requested. and now that the digital insertion equipment is the de-facto standard... well let me do a correction.. GOOD quality digital ad insertion equipment will insert in stereo. (Seachange for example) there are some really crappy digital insertion system out there, (Cough...starnet...Cough) that can only handle mono because the hardware is from the 1980's and they cant design anything that is current)
I can tell you that in the DMA that I have knowlege of, all spots, including the local cable ad's, are produced in stereo. now if the optimods and other audio processing equipment farther down the stream butcher the stereo audio... i am not 100% sure.
BTW, the absolute best sounding ad's come from the Manhattan transfer production house.. those guys are awesome at audio production.. we recently discovered that they have some GM ad's that are 5.1 dolby encoded!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Not only are we not in a contract with them, it is in fact the opposite.
:(
From the time of "public airwaves", broadcasters have gotten a LICENSE (unfortunately not shrinkwrapped) for the privilege of using a public resource.
They routinely violate their license conditions, but nothing ever happens
My certain amount of tolerance of overreaching entertainment industry executives has been breached long ago.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I don't have a PVR. But I still choose not watch most commercials, except during the Super Bowl. In addition to choosing not to watch commercials, I will be choosing not to watch the following:
TNT
TBS
CNN
TCM
and (ouch) The Cartoon Network.
For a list of all the things I have added to my "list of things not to watch" today, visit http://www.turner.com/
- Dan I.
What you say assumes that the only function of advertising is to make a direct sale, when in fact it is more often to gain mindshare. The public quickly forgets about a product and advertising is used to keep it in the forefront of people's minds. This is why McDonald's still advertises, even though everyone knows who they are and what they do. (as an aside, McDonald's is really in the real estate business, but that isn't pertinent to my point)
Advertising actually does work, but not in a reliable way. A common marketing mantra is "I know half of my advertising budget is wasted, I just don't know why half." Consequently, they try all sorts of thing, akin to throwing mud on the wall and seeing what sticks. Everybody knows it is a crap shoot and the advertisers and media who sells advertising aren't as naive as you make it out to be.
The fact is that there is some return on investment for advertising or else they wouldn't do it. It may be the case that advertising doesn't work too well on you, but they have already factored in this loss.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
You're stealing oxygen you haven't contracted to breathe so you need to drown in your own kids' blood.
and you have a nice day too!!
No problem, the networks will push for product placement over the traditional 30-second spots.
I dunno about you, but product placement B_L_O_W_S
I'm a 2000 man.
If the advertising-supported-broadcast business model is obsolete, good riddance, although I expect it to go down kicking and screaming. We're drowning in ads and crappy programming as it is, and paying for them in the process.
Who knows? If people actually had to pay directly for TV, they'd probably expect a lot more from it, and consume a lot less. Which could mean less programming in general, but much higher quality. With other changes in distribution (built around PVR time-shifting and satellite/digital cable bandwidth) the broadcast model could become nearly obsolete, replaced by something more akin to the magazine and video market.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
and installs 'blipverts'!!! Wouldn't surprise me if they did... but will TechTV follow suit?
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Below is an excerpt from an article in The Economist about television:
So how is it that commercial American TV can come up with such funny, clever output? The first explanation is HBO. "Sex and the City", "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under" are all made by this cable channel, part of AOL Time Warner. "HBO's achievements have had a dramatic impact on the entire media culture; creatively, it's put its rivals to shame," comments Peter Bart, editor of Variety, a Hollywood industry newspaper. HBO owes its achievements to a potent mix: stable management under Jeff Bewkes, who has held one or other of the two top jobs for the past 11 years; savvy, blanket promotion of its shows; and a business model that relies entirely on subscriptions rather than advertising. Curiously, a channel that did not originally chase ratings, because it did not need to, has ended up grabbing them anyway: on Sunday evenings during the summer, "Sex and the City" often beats other network shows. All this enables HBO to take creative risks, which itself draws talent to it. Alan Ball, who writes "Six Feet Under", had previously won an Oscar for the screenplay for "American Beauty", a successful movie. Writers love working there. "On most network TV, once you have a successful formula, you have to stick to it for ten years," says Michael Patrick King, creator of "Sex and the City". "With HBO, we have complete liberty to take the story wherever we want."
The full text of the article is here
Amazing magic tricks
It's nice that we aren't allowed to potty anymore. We'ce entered into a contract that says, "It is illegal to potty". Oddly I don't remember agreeing to that. I have a solution, however.. Government subsidized toilet TVs. Because, "Everybody Loves Raymond While They're Taking a Crap."
I happen to think that it's illegal that EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL PUTS THEIR DAMN LOGO OVER EVERY SINGLE SHOW. I'm extremely disappointed in the Discovery/Science channel for this. Their logo often blocks important information on the episode. And those damn Nigel's Wild Wild World ads that they run during the show. I think that is breach of contract right there. Discovery is by no means the only culprit, MTV is by far the worst. I think that if you're going to put that damned logo over all of your shows, the FCC should require that you put it over the commercials too.
Most of the time in high school, we turned the sound off during the commercials so we could talk about what was just said in the "news" reports.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
So, does this mean that every time I delete a piece of spam-mail I am stealing too? I had always thought it was them who were stealing my time and resources, not the other way around...
Posted from the wireless couch.
when will the insanity end? arresting whole populations, doesn't, uhm, scale well.
in this particular case, there was NEVER a contract. show me my signature, please. therefore no wrongdoing is ocurring. the stations put on 'free' broadcasting and they really thought thay had us nailed. we now have a workaround and their pissed. well, maybe its time to find a better business model! remember the story about the buggy whips and how, when cars became popular, the BW companies had to find a new business? same thing here. no one is willing to watch commercials (given a choice) and you can either legislate/force people to watch the stupid things or - well - update your business to modern times.
personally, I'd be very happy to see all commercials go the way of the buggy whips. if you want to watch tv, pay for it (eg, cable, satellite). but of course, once we pay for it, let us record and watch the way WE want to.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Don't get so riled up. IT's PR spin, nothing else.
Ranting about it here is preaching to the converted.
They know it's not illegal. They just want it to be, and if big important people get up in the big media and start saying it is, believe it or not, lots of Americans start to believe it too... which curbs the behavior, which is what they want.
So... I somehow signed a contract when I put up that TV antenna, that I would watch the commercials? I don't recall signing anything... And what about when I skip out to take a bathroom break, or make a snack, or whatever, during the commercials? Am I a thief, then, too?
From 7 to 9PM every household member must be fastened into the new TV chairs. They must be restrained so they cannot reach the mute, volume, or channel buttons on the remote. They must use the bathroom and finish eating/drinking at 6:59. They must be muzzled so they cannot drown out the commercials by speaking loudly. They must have toothpicks inserted under their eyelids so they cannot close their eyes. Be happy, and remember; Time Warner is your friend.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
let me interrupt this topic with this excellent product:
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Well, I've been stealing TV shows for the vast majority of my lifetime then, taking bathroom breaks, refilling my drink, grabbing a snack, taking dirty dishes to the kitchen, cheking my email, or whatever else I feel during breaks in the show. I suppose I'm also stealing when I fast-forward through commercials if I've taped a show I wasn't home for.
Besides, a lot of commercials are really annoying, and sometimes outright insulting to me. And these commercials only end up making me boycott the product/service/company involved, so not seeing commercials in my case should usually be good for the marketing guys, and hte networks should be happy that I am not boycotting advertizers' stuff due to watching my favorite TV show on that channel.
This is all based on the NTSC standard, I have no idea about PAL/SECAM...
It works (like mine did when I watched the tube, gave that up a few years ago due to being an immense useless time sink) by looking for the signals the networks use to indicate to the affiliates "hey here comes a commercial" which is encoded in the "back porch". That's the area of the signal when the CRT beam is repositioning itself from the bottom to the top of the screen. During that period, there is a fair bit of information sent. The "Commercial Advance" VCR's just rely on the idea that for the networks and affiliates to change their codes would take so many bucks that it's not likely to happen.
Some of them also look for black screens around the time of the back porch signal; that can fool them into cutting into the program content on the leading or trailing edge.
And when it's not networks but others, the ads are still encoded with the signalling and the equipment still generates the signal; once it's the standard it's easier to have all cases covered.
Got Wisdom?
I'll watch your commercials when you fill the space between with something less insipid.
Do not touch -Willie
Sorry, but you're wrong. Perhaps some advertising doesn't work in your cultural group, but you can't just say that no advertising works.
My wife runs a newspaper ad every other week to promote her new business (she's a doctor). At least half of her patients answered "newspaper ad" on their new-patient surveys, and many have directly told her that they decided to come to her because her ad seemed professional and she looked friendly in the picture.
So, we have overt advertising, and it's working! I don't pretend to believe this means that all ads are effective, but if you believe that no advertising does its job, then you're absolutely, provably wrong.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I've watched the Victoria's Secret commercials plenty of times!
They should have made a fortune by now.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Comments about whether or not this would be a good thing aside, the networks and channels like Cartoon Network, Sci-Fi, Food channel, History Channel.. none of these would survive without people actually watching the commercials that run.
I work in TV. Wrongo.
These are even newer models. These stations would have never survived if they didn't have a base that would have requested that those channels be put on. That is a totally different captive audience... and a totally different model. Specific cable channel viewers are much more active. Just look at Scifi channel watchers. I call my friends when I want to catch them right after Farscape... cuz I know where they are.
Advertisers put up with VCRs, because even with those you're still getting a fair amount of the commercial. But a device where you don't even know what commercial aired? The commercial that is paying for the program?
Actually, advertisers should like VCRs. They helped the Cable boom, which really helped advertisers.
(More channels? More need for VCRs... more channels? Less programming you can catch on a fixed scchedule, need to get VCR... Full market saturation with VCRs and cable? LESS YOU PAY TO GET TO YOUR TARGET F*N DEMOGRAPHICS! Also, the more likely they are to change their viewing habits to your real-time advertising.)
Commercial TV needs either advertising, or else they have to become a pay channel like HBO.
Well, how bout a TV channel that runs at 4x speed or better and has a box to decode shows without ads in them and charges a nominal fee? Like a dedicated Tivo channel? Would that be so bad? YOU KNOW SOMEONE HAS THOUGHT OF THAT. Look. All we're saying is that we are not going to pay for them to come in my house and force me to do anything.
THIS KIND OF LEGISLATION IS GETTING OUT OF HAND.
One of the problems we've had in defending Fair Use rights is the difficulty of framing the issues in "Joe Sixpack" terms. Use it as an example of the legislation Hollywood wants to purchase (the point can be illustrated with a demonstration of a DVD that has fast-forward lockouts, if you have one available).
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
...the reason why we don't watch the commercials is because there's so goddamn many of them. In a 30 minute show, there's usually 3-4 2 minute commercial blocks. That means nearly 1/3rd of the show is commercials.
Perhaps they should take their cue from Japan. If you've ever watched fansubs (or even some DVDs) of anime, you'll notice that there's only 1 commercial break, right in the middle. Hell, on the fansubs, I watch the commercials 'cause they're funny as hell.
Less commercials means we aren't desensitized, and ad executives can charge more per commercial, because they're a rarer commodity. Think about it.
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
- "Theft" (of something that cannot be stolen)
- "Breach of contract" (without having a contract in the first place)
- "Piracy" (which is often confused with fair use)
I find it absolutely amazing to see how any unprofitable situation is caused by "illegal" behavior, and the only solution is more laws & government intervention to prosecute the "thieves".The Kellners of the world seem to have their own laws and contracts that the rest of us don't seem to be aware of. It must be really great to draft your own laws and unilaterally enforce unwritten contracts on billions of people. Could we skip all the BS and simply let the entertainment/media industry print as much money as it wants?
Your TV Imperiled by Pirates
Thu May 2, 9:42 AM ET
By Joe Dweeb Slashdot World News
WASHINGTON, April 29
Network executives were caught scrambling Wednesday as news broke that many commercial advertisers were losing revenue as their audiences fled for the stalls.
"It's a shocking development and terrible problem!", said one vice-president who declined to be identified.
"Our biggest advertisers have been on the phone all night, asking if I had any idea how extensive this problem was."
"I had to tell them that I had no idea. I believe that most Americans are patriotic and have learned to `hold it' until the end."
"Our advertisers rely on the contract we have with our viewers to watch commercials. If the viewers violate that trust by running to the bathroom between shows, then we won't be able to foot the bill to support all of the programming that America has come to love and respect."
"It's a tragedy! My congressional representative was brought to our headquarters at 7:00 am this morning for a three hour ten-on-one meeting to be briefed about the severity of the problem."
"We're proposing legislation requiring a technological solution to the problem that will be transparent, convenient and easy to use."
"All toilets are to be fitted with electroshock devices to prevent their use in unauthorized ways that are in violation of the EULA to which TV viewers are implicitly agreeing by "click^H^H^H^H^H watching through".
"We feel that this will provide an agreeable solution that should meet everyone's needs for the preservation of high quality programming on television."
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Because he sounds like an idiot! First off, PVR's time shift. They don't remove commercials in real time. There is value in the first viewing, after that it loses it's value. If I wait two weeks to watch the commercial, a good chunk of them (like sale commercials...) are worthless. At least the show still gets watched, and it'll make the user more likely to watch it the following week.
Secondly, it proves that he's unwilling to adapt his business model to new market conditions. they act like it's a super difficult problem to look at ads, but it's not. It will be though, one day, because they're trying to place an ad everywhere we go! If I were dyslexic, I'd be going nuts in downtown Portland. The problem is eventually going to spread to the point that there'll be more ads for products than there is money to buy them. Think about that for a moment. Ads just won't work that way.
Third, my life is busier. I'm sure it's busier for a lot of people in the last 5 years. I have a shorter attention span. I can watch a show in 22 minutes instead of 30. That's quite a time savings! I can watch 3 shows in an hour! Why not cater to my short attention span needs? What about extra channels? Cable can support what, 125 channels? I'm getting maybe 60 right now. Why not take the Scifi Channel, and then add another Scifi Channel that does nothing but their TV show marathons? If I get bored watching TV, and I know I can find something at least semi interesting on this other channel, I'll head over there sans PVR. Ooops more commercials that way! But it's okay, since it's something I want to watch.
So yes, I'm glad he said this. It illustrates exactly why the Television Industry doesnt need their hand held by the government. With any luck, anybody who listens to him sees it the same way I do. And if they do, the Television Industry will either fall, or they'll revolutionize.
"Derp de derp."
It's never failed when recording any channel off of DirecTV satellite.
I don't know if it's the same technology but here's what it does: records the show, and after it's stopped (or powered off by the sat receiver) the VCR travels back through the tape and marks the commercials. It may not be using cue tones, but whatever it is (alien mind-rays?) it's worked perfectly every time I've recorded anything. On UPN, FOX, TLC, WB, ABC, etc.
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
I would much rather pay for programming out of my own pocket than suffer through that idiotic shit from advertisers. Aside from the issue of wasted time, it really becomes a health issue at some point, because my hatred for them gets so intense when I'm assaulted by some fresh piece of shit that reaches new lows.
Some say that broadcasting could not stand on its own if it werent't for advertising. I think I'd be OK with that.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Did you hear about the new bill in Congress? They're going to require that every consumer television set sold in the US comes with those Clockwork-Orange-like toothpicks to hold your eyes open.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Slashdot Readers: "Turner CEO is an Idiot"
last I knew I paid Cox to let me watch TNT, and TBS and CNN, and TCM, and um... jeeze... shut up moron. is turner suddenly hurting for cash? last I heard Ted was able to give away billions to the UN. they suddenly can't afford for me to fast forward through a commercial as opposed to what I usually do, get up and get a drink or somesuch thing. do people in the tv industry really think that I watch their commercials? in that case lets outlaw PIP and the "last" button on remotes. morons morons everywhere.
-
If you calculations are correct then the answer is simple. The programmers need to get rid of all ads and charge much more for their programming. The only way this would work, of course, would be to go to a pay as you watch model, not even a pay per channel model. Say you want to watch Friends. It comes on a particular channel, but you're not necessarily interested in anything else on that channel. So, it would be unfair to charge you $10/month just for that channel (no ads), but it may be fair to charge you $2 for the few hours of original programming that you watch per month on that channel (figure four episodes a month, $0.50 per episode). So you have 100 million people watching Friends each week and they all are paying $0.50 per episode, so that's $50 million per episode. If they can't product one hour of programming for $50 million then there's something wrong (and it would have to be a full hour since there are no ads, not the 30 minutes or so that is actually in a one-hour program now-a-days).
I'd say it would be fair to pay 50 cents per hour of TV that you actually watch, if there was no ads at all. Figure you watch 3 hours of TV per day, so that's a buck 50 per day, or $10.50 per week, or $42 per month (avg). That would be fair, in my opinion. It would also tend to cost people who sit in front of the TV all day much more than those that watch a news program or two a day.
However, along the same lines, whenever I play the lottery, and I lose, the state is stealing money from me. After all, it costs me money to buy a ticket. When I don't see a return on that investment, I've lost money. The same goes when I lose in Vegas, or a stock I own goes down the toilet.
Rather than this point of view, how about accepting that advertising is a gamble? There is never a guarantee people are going to watch your ads. There is never a guarantee people are going to buy your products. It is all a gamble on the part of advertisers. Just like when you gamble or play the stock market, there are risks. You could actually lose money!
If networks want to start making more money, maybe perhaps they should rework their business models. Maybe it would help if they did not produce CRAP.
There is so much crap on TV that I don't even have any sort of TV subscription (cable or otherwise).
I pay for the movies and shows (through purchase or rental) I actually WANT to watch when they come out on DVD. It actually works out to be cheaper than cable for me.
Another thing they could do is also cut the pay of all the gibbering idiots that they pass off as "talent." I'm sure the cast of "Friends" would "manage" if they cut their pay down to $1,000,000 a season.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
So we are no longer allowed to close our eyes during the commercials? Am I allowed to blink? No, don't look away at the cat! The baby's diaper will have to wait! Maybe take a bathroom break? Maybe leave the room for the duration of all commercials and come back when I hear the program on? We are slaves to the tube!
If I'm not interested in the garbage they are peddling, I am under no obligation to look at their pap. I pay them money for the friggin cable access and they are obligated to provide me with a signal. The content is up to them and I will alter the stream to my taste. Maybe I'll sit there and twist the hell out of the cable until every show looks like it's snowing and Christmasy and there will be Christmas specials year round! Will they like that?
Plenty of other things to do in life besides watch TV if that is the tact they are going to take. And the crap they have on the tube these days doesn't hold a candle to good old fashioned low-tech sex, baby!
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
They must be incredibly pissed at Cox Cable, who preempt their commercials to run their OWN commercials, which basically amounts to stealing and reselling their commercials. Don't hear them bitching about that, though. Pssh...the last thing I need is to hear another multi-billion dollar company whining. Go back to cooking your books, you bastards.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Ok, so if I get up and go to bathroom during the commercials or change channels does that also make me a thief? I guess only good comsumers are those that dutifuly sit through the commercials.
Funny that Max Headroom is coming back, in that reality it was illegal to turn your TV off, sounds like what the networks want.
So from now on you are only allowed to watch ONE channel when you sit down for TV time, and can only change channels after you have viewed the program and its sponsership in their entirety. Doing otherwise will result in stiff fines and possiblly being sent to "retraining camp".
First, consider that for non-premium and non-public channels between one sixth to one third of all broadcast time is advertisement. That cuts the length of original content to between sixteen to twenty hours each day right there.
Second, consider that in the US most prime-time drama and comedy show will film between nine and twenty new episodes per season. (I don't know how frequently news magazine shows produce new episodes.) Even generously assuming one special event that co-opts a show's time slot happens once a month, this means that for prime time comedy and drama shows, only one quarter to one half of broadcast time is original content. Three hours of prime already gets reduced from 180 minutes to 120 to 150 minutes from commercials. Then we need to reduce that by one quarter to one half yielding a range of 60 (at worst) to 115 (at best) minutes of original content programming each night.
Third consider that Friends and ER are the exceptions. The vast majority of television shows do not cost nearly as much as high profile prime time hits.
Fourth, one isn't counting syndication of programs from series that are owned by a network.
Fifth, networks pay studios so much for high profile prime time hits because the studios can get away with charging the networks so much. Whether or not Friends would still be made at the same quality (*cough*) and sold for such a high price in market driven by subscriptions is an unknown.
Sixth, your division of money is skewed because many of those 100 channels are repeats of the same network. A network only has to pay for a program once, when it purchases it. Your figures would only make sense if 100 channels were actually making 100 different prime time hit programs. As it is, of those 100 channels 10 are ABC, 10 are NBC, 10 are CBS, 10 are WB, 10 are FOX, 10 are independant and 10 are PBS or community access.
Seventh, the thirty odd channels left are by sucscription only. It should be rather obvious that these channels already find subscriptions are more than adequate for producing or purchasing enough original content to stay in business.
Your entire argument is built on verbal flatulence. You may in fact be right, but your numbers are so skewed as to be meaningless to figuring out whether or not subscriptions service only is viable as the main model of television viewing.
These cry-babies are terrible. What ever happened to the american spirit of entrepreneurship? When your market changes, you alter your model to stay viable! If no one is watching the commercials, maybe the network should switch to a completely pay-per-view model.
The reason they won't is simple...TNT knows no one in their right mind would pay for that crap, so their only choice is to extort money from advertisers. Eventually the advertisers will figure out that no one is watching their commercials and pull money from the networks...oh well I say good ridance!
I'd pay for high-quality HDTV content. Not this watered down crap the industry wants to implement. Just think, instead of giving high-quality HDTV signals to the public they want to divide up the bandwith to provide 3-4 low-quality channels in what should only be 1 high-quality channel...why? Because they can sell 3-4 times more ad space.
If congress won't force the broadcasters to do the right thing, maybe economics will.
-ted
Some people just have no clue. For several years before Replay, I couldn't stand watching tv without a remote with a mute on it. On the other hand, I *wish* I'd had a PVR when the Taster's Choice commercial serial was running --- I missed several of them because I didn't always watch tv when they were on. I'd have programmed in shows and skipped over *the shows* to watch those commercials. As I do for the Super Bowl now, well probably not any more, they put them online and there's no point. Many Volkswagen ads have been worth watching for the humor. But the vast majority are SO inane, it's beyond belief that anyone could think that they will make me want to buy their product. They're definitely better off if I *don't* see those commercials.
My VCR which predates PVRs by several years has a 30-second skip.
I think *all* cable companies do this...
I have TCI, and I can't tell you the number of times I've seen TCI/AT&T cut an off in mid-stream to play one of their own for their telephone/long distance/dial-up ISP/broadband/cable TV services...
TCI is its own best customer.
Commericals always sound louder than regular programming. (The actual volume isn't higher, but quiter soudns are amplified so that they're closer to the peak volume.) A VCR could detect this, though I guess it would also risk skipping out on loud sound effects, etc. during a program. Maybe it could average the sound level for a minute or two, then retroactively apply some kind of mark to the recording taht would later be used for skipping.
As an American, I'm willing to kick in my ten pounds (whatever that is) into the pot.
Seriously, at over $30 a month I would be glad to have it and ditch my current model.
I was not expressing my personal beliefs, I was simply trying to express the position on which I believe the U.S. TV business model is based. I shouldn't have expressed that position so succinctly because it appears to have stopped readers in their tracks, leading them to hitting the Reply link rather than reading the whole post (others are more guilty of this than Xtifr).
As for logic, while I think it's instructive for every person to be familiar with it, I don't think it needs to be adhered to at all times, certainly not here. If this were a debate (which it's not), the goal would be to pursuade others and forming a strong logical chain from premises to conclusion is not the only way to pursuade. In fact in practice it's a pretty bad way to try to pursuade. Really most of us are merely expressing thoughts and opinions to stimulate the thinking of others or just to share. It's nice to be logically coherent but it's not necessary.
I wish someone would give those fallacies new names, latin is so pompous and it obstructs people's learning and understanding of the concepts.
Well prehaps they are encoded in stereo, but check most of them when they are displayed onscreen, someone is downconverting them to mono.
it seems rather silly to do so, but then again i havent seen to many ads that take advantage of stereo(tv shows don't seem to take full advantage either!)
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
This guy, IMHO, has only shown he isn't capable of logical thought let along running a cable network. I, as a cable subscriber, have absolutely no contractual agreement with him, or his network, in any way, manner, shape, or form. I have an agreement to pay my cable service for a package of channels. The cable provider selects the items in the package, pay the provider, be it Turner or others, and it is THEY who have the a contract to provide that for their customers. I am under no contractual obligation to watch this @#$@#$@#$'s programs for 1 second, 1 minute, be it content or commercial. Who IS this turkey? other than, in my opinion and I'm guessing others at this point, a complete laughing stock.
the rural parts of america were producing a LOT of food, still many immigrants were starving.
Yeah, actually I have. I primarily recall a paper (don't have the source handy) about farmers/distributors throwing food in the river to decrease supply, while the starving were pushed back from the river's edge by police. Lots of food available, people starved. Seems to support my point, and I think we agree. Semantics and language seem to have gotten in the way.
The year in which we eliminate restrictions on supply in a given industry (e.g. can endlessly reproduce food), will be the year in which someone steps in, attempts to re-control the supply chain, and creates an artificial poverty.
What's "wealth" if everyone has it, right? (rolls eyes)