Slashdot Mirror
How Could TV Survive Without Commercials?
Milo_Mindbender asks: "I'm sure many of the readers of this site know the joy of skipping commercials using a TiVO, Replay or other form of PVR box. I'm sure it has occurred to a lot of us that if someone produced a schedule of commercial stop/start times the PVR could easily make all commercials instantly vanish from a recording. While this would be really cool, if it got really popular it would KILL all the local TV stations and TV networks who depend on ads to survive. Sure, you could say it's their fault for having an outdated business model, but there's a problem: these sources are where A LOT of the content for your PVR comes from. If they die, there's nothing for your PVR to record. My question for this crowd is: 'If the commercials stopped tomorrow, what business models can you come up with that would keep TV content flowing to your PVR?'"
"I've heard a few interesting ideas such as:
- having people pick a few ads from a list and watch them before each show...
- ...giving advertisers a profile of your interest and let them show you a (smaller number) of unskippable ads for things you are really interested in...
- ...ahaving the products show up in the show itself (product placement). For example: Buffy, after killing a vampire, could then slam down a Mountan Dew.
I think most people would be shocked to discover how little spending habits would differ if no one watched commercials...
Mostly, because they don't either. Human brains tend to veg out when the damn things come on.
I pay my TV license fee, I get BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3, BBC 4, CBBC, BBC News 24, BBC Parliament, six national radio stations and a nationwide chain of regional stations. Since none of them carry advertisements, I don't think they'll be much affected by ad-stripping technologies.
It works for me.
Ever watch Soccer on TV.. they have no commericals, just sponsered commerical free times that has their logo at the top of the screen next to the score.. why havn't ad companies thought of doing that for tv shows.. just have the logo of the sponsered commerical free time at the bottom corner somewhere and like before the show starts advertise that this show was brought to you commercial free by BLAH BLAH BLAH... and have the whole ad there where they say like "Obey your thrist, drink spite" and have the sprite logo in a corner thru out the entire epsiode of the show.. if it works for Soccer I don't see why it wouldn't work for other programs.. or atleast other sports..
I've often seen comments from Americans about how stupid it is us Brits have to pay for a TV licence to watch television. Well, that licence funds the BBC, and there are no ads on the BBC channels (apart from advertising the BBC itself). Something to ponder perhaps?
Most americans already pay far more than that for TV. This amounts to a little less than a $13/month increase to their cable bills, and despite the perpetual price hikes from the cable companies, people seem to be just paying the extra. I'm sure you'd find some takers.
I would certainly pay $150 a year to can the commercials. I fail to see how this is socialism-- as I understand it, the British TV license is optional. Don't want to pay? Don't watch the BBC channels.
Here in Britian, we pay a TV licence - about £120 per year. We do NOT get ANY ads on BBC1, BBC2, BBC24, etc. I think paying about £120 per year is a good deal for not having commercials (Not that I can ever remember their content anyway) I spent 6 months in Canada - they had ad breaks every 5/10 minutes or so!! We do have adverts on the commercial terrestrial channels - ITV, Channel 4 & Channel 5. But these do serve a useful purpose - It gives you a chance to get up & grab a beer & sandwich, or make a cup of tea/coffee without missing the program :o)
-- Fuck Beta
Perhaps, during shows, the show's "window" will shrink, leaving space for a "minishow" that is silent and is probably text only describing a product. The "minishow" will appear every, say, 5 minutes and last for 30 minutes. Of course, the minishow should (but probably won't be anyway :-p) marked as a sponsor message.
This is actually based on an advertising concept I am making for an upcoming website that I am collaborating on, with "text ads" in a "text ad article" appearing every so often in a box that is right-indented in an article.
Or, TV's could have springs built in printers and firing mechanisms, and pop-up ads to you. The faster you skip commercials, the faster the pop-up's come. ENTROPY! (AAAAGH)
Karma: Excellent (fuck, even in the future moderation doesn't work!)
Speaking of paying a premium, how about this strategy: Would you pay one cent to skip a commercial?
Have an account linked to the PVR and subtract 1 cent each time an ad is skipped.
Of course, having an account implies a link to a credit card and a unique identifier. This allows for some detailed profiling.
There should be an option to turn profiling on and off, with various benefits to the user if they turn it on (because the profiling is valuable marketing information.)
When profiling is turned off:
Skip an advert: subtract 1 cent from your account
Don't skip an advert: do nothing to your account
When profiling is enabled:
Skip an advert: subtract 1 cent from your account
Don't skip an advert: plus 1 cent to your account.
The people with profiling turned on would have some interesting powers too. For example, if the profiling revealed that 90% of people are willing to pay 1c to skip the Mazda Zoom-Zoom kid ad, that #%)*&#% 'Buck-a-day' or similar computer sale ads, the Dell Kid ads, etc, you would essentially be telling the advertisers to change their tune.
What they need is a gigantic digital library of every TV show and movie ever made, with new shows and movies added when they become available, with a charge of 50 cents per hour of programming downloaded from the library. With so much programming available for a reasonable price, no one would ever bother to record or 'pirate' anything, and you could watch what you want when you want. It would need a powerful search/navigation system.
As a European, I am shocked by the amount of advertisement on US TV. It makes me wonder whether the broadcasters are killing their own business model by saturating your TV experience with commercials.
I guess the European reaction to adverts is more muted becuase we have so much less advertising - most commercial TV stations here show at most two to three blocks of adverts per 90 minute film or one to two blocks per 30 minute show, (in addition to the blocks in-between the shows themselves).
Now, maybe this is subjective, but I've also found that a lot of European adverts seem to be higher quality (specifically in the UK, the Netherlands and Scandinavia), possibly as a result of the competition for the smaller amount of advertising space available.
With that combination - a reasonable amount of higher quality adverts - I would pick advertising-based commercial TV over most of the other formats (even the BBC's licence-based funding model, which reduces the power of the viewer to vote economically when TV quality goes down, as the BBC's has recently).
DS
I watch a reasonable amount of TV, maybe 3 or 4 shows a week that I routinely watch, and then stuff if I'm just bored.
I do watch a lot of European Soccer, particularly English Premiere League. Soccer's a great way to show how to work around an advertising problem: The game is played for two continuous 45 minute halves. No TV Time-outs like (american) football/basketball, no injury time-outs. It just goes for 45 minutes, then stops for ~15 for half time, then goes again for another 45. So Advertisers have a few problems: no commercial breaks in-game, and the big-ol' 15 minute break in the middle is enough time for me to go grill myself a hamburger, grab a beverage, go to the bathroom, change the oil, etc. (although not at the same time).
So there're a couple of strategies employed. First, the obvious, that "this game is brought to you by so-and-so: slogan". You'll also find that the score display in the upper-right of the screen is "brought to you by so-andso", who just display their logo under the score constantly. Then, of course, the teams have logos on their jerseys, something which I am amazed American companies/sports teams haven't jumped on.
But as I ramble, I come to the ACTUAL idea. I started noticing that company logos are displayed in the center circle and corners of the field, in a manner that makes them appear to have been mowed/rolled into the grass. Of course, it isn't mowed/rolled in, it's digitally added, which makes it appear as though, say, budweiser has mowed the center of the pitch, when in reality it was simply added in later.
Let's take a couple of examples, which would be wildly easy to insert:
1) The friend's appartment has some poster on the wall, which, say changes week to week. Maybe it's a movie poster this week, maybe a pseudo-vintage coke ad.
2) The TV in a scene is playing some sort of advertisement. This would be especially amusing.
3) More mention of stores, and in particular, cars. Outside of the Seinfeld Black Saab, and Joe Suburbs shining up his vintage 60's muscle car while chatting with his neighbor, cars don't get a lot of play on your average sitcom or drama (knight rider/Viper excluded). For example, I know that in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia drives a Chrysler Sebring, but that's only because I'm a geeky car guy. She never mentions it by name, but does indicate an attachment to it and how cool it is. Why not a few exterior shots as character X gets into his new Subaru, or as Jane Doctor on Medical Drama Du Jour pulls up to the hospital. Car Geeks like me can identify the car by the look of a fender, but if the public knew that Jane Doctor drove the new Toyota Camry, maybe that's a good motivating reason for them to own it. Heck, they make the Acura NSX look cool as hell in Pulp Fiction, and they don't ever even tell you what it is.
So, to summarize: product placement, but in different methods than are currently used. Instead of a stupid pepsi billboard, have the characters order a pepsi at the amusement park's drink stand. Instead of a commercial about the new Buick Rendezvous, make it obvious that the wholesome soccer mom love interest drives a Buick Rendezvous. Instead of "movie guy" telling us in 30 seconds about X-Men 2, make it seem that X-Men 2 is so cool that Joe Cool-Character would want to have the movie poster in his apartment. Creative integrity isn't really spoiled, instead of a character at the bar saying "lemme have a beer" he says "gimme an MGD". What's changed? Nothing really. Frame up a shot so that Suzy is walking toward the screen, with the rear of the new BMW Z4 visible on the right side and Suzy on the left. What's changed? One camera angle, which an assistant director would likely have taken care of anyway. Then maybe dump a solid five minutes worth of advertisements in between shows, so that people watching it "live" still catch some other ads. Not exactly a 'problem solved' but it does implement the ad in a different manner entirely.
AAAAAAAA freeking MEN!!!!
:)
I used to watch some TV while living at my parents' place -- Peter Jennings, local news with Paul Linman (of exploding whale fame) and Steve Dunn, and then Jeopardy. Now I'm in my own apartment. I have a small TV and a tuner card, but reception is crap so I don't even watch that anymore. I've found that it's FAR quicker to read the news I'm interested in on the Internet than listen to those guys blather about things I'm not interested in, not to mention the commercials. I do miss Jeopardy a little, but can live without it.
Those things aren't worth $9.99/month for basic cable. I do kind of wish I had regular cable for FOX News and the Travel Channel. But $40/month for that is OUTRAGEOUS. No thanks, at least not until I have a roommate and/or more of an income.
$45/month, OTOH, for cable Internet is a no-brainer.
Tumbleweed writes:
...have to do with bitching about television? By reading this website am I obliged to assume some median mindset and interest pool? This is entirely ad hominem.
:)"
"By this argument, the same thing applies to movies, so great films, like, say, Casablanca or City of Lost Children, do nothing for you - you're just sitting there, doing nothing. TV and movies can also stimulate the imagination. I get great ideas from movies, and even if I didn't, what's so bad about being entertained? It's not a dirty word, you know."
Funny you should mention City, it's probably my "favorite" movie (I have about 10 of them, one for each genre, really).
I don't agree and it's because of magnitude. Television is specifically programmed to have a "walkthru" effect. One show sort of segues into the next and tries to have a gradual transition between demographics. When a movie is over, it's over. If you're talking about watching a movie then another then another, yes, you're right.
"That depends on the book, and upon the reader. I enjoy lots of tv, but I'm also a writer, photographer, and several other things."
Well, here I think it's getting unnecessarily personal, and I'll even take the blame for it. I'm not criticizing those that watch tv so much as pointing out something that people may not want to admit.
Consider this paper by the Journal of Cognitive Liberties.
" I find it interesting that someone on Slashdot, of all places, is bitching about tv. Methinks you need to take a long hard look at yourself."
I don't follow. What does reading Slashdot
"I'd say that more likely, the reactions are those of people who realize you're an extremist, little different from, say, someone on a macrobiotic diet. As the saying goes, "Just because noone understands you, doesn't mean you're an artist.""
This is "apples to orange" and I'll explain why. With a macrobiotic diet, you can reasonably assume the person -- unless there is some compelling reason -- is "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." In other words, as you said, they're an extremist. However this doesn't apply to a person who watches no television at all because you'd have to argue that there is something on television that is more worthwhile (or, to keep in the same vein, "mentally nutritious") than doing whatever it is that I want to do. With your example, it's scientifically demonstrable that they're "losing out," with tv it's merely a matter of opinion.
"Yep, I do think that's crazy. Not as crazy as burning books, but it's certainly within the same mindset. At the very least, sell your tv to someone else.
Nonsense! Burning books was done to censor and quash freedom of speech. I'm not doing anything of the sort by burning my own TV. You have the right to speak, I'm not obliged to listen to you!!
Besides... Which position really is more extreme? Extremism is in the eye of the bell curve. From my perspective, it's mighty odd that I don't know a single person who does not watch TV. Not a single one. That's extreme.
To you, I'm a bigot. To me, habitual television viewers are addicted by the very definition. The difference is that your position is an opinion, but my position is scientifically demonstrable. I'm anti-addiction.
My
Limekiller
I work for a company, whose parent company incubated a small project originally dubbed "TAB" for "Targetted Advertising Box." The idea was basically to build a website where customers could sign up, choose their preference in advertisements, and then they would receive a set top box that would intercept the cable signal and replace commercial with those targetted advertisements. Since this box would be just like a cable box and contain account information, you could also click a button on the remote to e-mail you some more information about a product, or to show more ads like that one. What was the payoff? They'd pay your cable bill. I would not mind a system like that in the least, and with digital cable boxes already containing broadband functionality (tv listings, ordering PPV without a phoneline, etc.), it would seem to work reasonably well. Thoughts?
you know those 'news tickers' that cnn display at the bottom of the screen. Why not turn those into commercials that run during the show...
(at least, I didn't see it modded up anywhere)
;-)
Why not buy TV content the same way we buy music and movies? At the video store. I don't see a reason why there need be advertising involved. The real question is: how do we support the creation of the content consumers want to see? The answer is pay for it. I refuse to support television in its current form, so I don't watch anything (except for Enterprise, which I usually download cuz I miss the timeslot).
But I will happily pay for stuff that makes me laugh or smile, tweaks my anticipation for the next installment, etc. What I expect for the service is to either receive a DVD in the mail with the show every couple of weeks, or be able to tune in to a server on the internet and download it either directly to my PVR (which I don't own--yet) or via my cable box. If there's advertising, I want it to offset the cost of the show, and be tuned to my interests, and NOT be in the middle of the show. It ruins the flow of a story and destroys all the suspense and tension that might be built by a good story.
The way I figure it, as a subscription-based model, you'll see fewer shows being produced, but those that are produced will be of higher quality and greater depth. People would be highly attached to the stories, reminiscent of the radio serials of the 1930's-50's. Life would change. Channel surfing would cease to exist; regular TV would be useful only has a news-delivery mechanism (this is a Good Thing, as local stations can barely do that well); people might be enticed to do outdoorsy things that are free, rather than stay inside and be advertised to constantly. Best of all, shows could very well be targeted towards more mature audiences with fewer complaints from the puritanical extremist groups. A little nudity hasn't hurt European audiences any.
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
Okay, so ... 50 ads a day, times a penny, 50 cents a day, times 30 days in a month, 15 bucks a month for commercial free programming. Why not just pay the $15 and forget about the marketing dorks?
A solution to the problem with music today
I'd gladly cover the lower fifth of my TV screen to get rid of commercials (that is, if i watched television at all anymore). If only it were that easy!