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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 Sure, you could say it's their fault for having an outdated business model, but there's a problem: these sources are where A LOT of the content for your PVR comes from.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.
[PA]
Aren't there bears "outside?"
[/PA]
--- Do you believe in the day?
How about this one:
What about not thinking yourself better than others because you don't choose to partake of a particular form of entertainment they might enjoy?
You smug, self-important assclown.
PBS, digital movie channels, HBO, etc...
We pay a premium for these already because they braodcast with few or no channels. This is a non-issue sort of question because the niche for non-commercial TV is already filled and doing fine.
** Sig-a-licious **
I don't. And I haven't found my life in any way worse off. In many ways, I have found life without TV a big improvement, in that I can now think.
www.tvturnoff.org is a good place to start if your interested in unplugging from the Plug in Drug.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
You're starting to see these now and they range from something like having the actors do something like their laundry and the show shrinks onscreen to display an advertisement for a particular brand of laundry detergent. This was recently tested and had great results. I'm sure you'll see more of this. We'll also probably see much more branding in the actual shows as well. Something like all the characters wearing one brand of clothing.
I think this may provide some hope, but I think without traditional commercials they'll be in a tough spot to make ends meet.
scott
It's the same for weather forcasts. It's quite funny to ask somebody who has just seen the weather forcast what the weather is going to be like tommorow.
It really makes you see how sedated you are when you're watching telly.
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..
The magical "any day now" video on demand is here. On ATT Broadband in Atlanta I now have a certain selection of movies that are on VOD. It is $2.99 for an older movie and $3.99 for a newer one I believe. The coolest thing is that you can fast forward, rewind, pause, and stop and save for viewing later.
I believe TV shows can fall under the same model. Maybe the first show (the pilot) is free and each show afterwards is some cost. The cable companies can of course run package deals and such (50 shows a month for X dollars) and the cost may be pretty low if many people watch.
Interestingly, this model bypasses both TiVo's and commercial television's revenue models.
Brian Ellenberger
Ad placement is really the only option. What's the point of commercial skip if we end up sitting through unskippable 30 second spots?
If it went to a pay per show type system, people would end up watching a whole lot less TV. Think about it. How many shows do you watch just because they're on?
Less viewership means fewer eyeballs. I think THAT'S what they're really afraid of.
echo $wittysigline;
If each channel encrypted their signal and got a licensing fee from each local provider based on each subscriber the had enabled to receive their signals, then they would be making money. The real problem about this way of making money is that it would actually give the networks a concrete metric of how many people are actually using their service. The high-paid news anchors, Nielson, and high residuals to voice and screen actors would go away. There are a lot of side-industries that don't want to see this happen.
Now that we are in the "information age," it is possible that the interests of the general public have changed. I personally don't find a lot of stuff on TV very interesting, so I don't have cable. This may be because of the increased amount and length of ads, or the lack of content networks can air now. (Yeah, we can't offend these religious idiots, so we have to make everyone else suffer.)
Maybe TV won't be around that much longer. Who knows.
A different business model is shure to creep up, should ads realy get the stake.
So what would the face of culture look like ?
We'd be swapping content ? Would it be freely available ? Would we have to pay for everything, because some Orwellian boneheads got their way ?
It isn't unlikely that P2P would be big and that product placement would take off in popular shows. Live streams via the net is another possibility, with analogue recordings to digital VCRs at the very least.
So I'd say the playing field will just move elsewhere and so will the ads. Watch shows when you want, how you want, as often as you want, but see lots of product placement. Perhaps TVs will be only up for rent :).
Tony
it's nice to see the IBM ad on the page about this topic...
Slashdot! When you need a nice shot of DB2 in the morning!
I get 75 channels, of which I pay a monthly fee to get about 60 of them. Gee let me think, what business model would those other fifteen channels have to adopt if commercial revenue disappeared? Could it possibly be that I would have to pay a monthly fee to get them? Am I the only one who thinks that the question in this post was answered oh about twenty years ago?
stipe42
I had to pay for tv.
Oh and last time I thought Id watch it there was an infomercial on.
So I pay the station that is being paied by advertisers wow looks like being the middle man could be nice.
The PVR just made this a little easier than what VCRs, and VCRs have been doing this for YEARS. Here we have a technology that's barely got 1% of the overall market, and people are screaming and yelling like it's the end of the world. Where are these same people when it comes to VCRs?
Charge us for it (cable TV, premium channels), and/or have the characters use specific products in the dialogue. Besides, whenever I see a character using a 'real' product (drinking a "Pepsi" rather than a "generic made for TV cola") it makes the show seem more believable. Rewrite the dialogue so the characters will actually mention the products they use -- unconscious advertising!
Product Placement is already huge. Anybody remember when the kiddies on survivor who were f'in starving did this big challenge and won wonderfully nutrious Mountain Dew and Doritos?
As for commercials, I don't see them going anywhere soon. When TV goes digital, there will prolly be a new encryption or something or other that makes them unskippable to the general public. The general public, having never bought a TiVo in the first place won't notice any changes and it will return to buisness as usual.
They have to produce quality television, or people dont support them. Maybe public broadcasting's business model needs to be looked into.
Or some other plan - pay $5 or something a month for a cable service and then subscribe to the channels that you want at flat, low monthly fees. Of course, channels would then have to respond to consumer requests because they are now reliable on comsumer mmoney.
This
and this is a bad thing why??? we have been bombbarded with excessive commericals recently, for example, Star Trek, the original TV series was a half hour show orginally, now when they show reruns, its a full hour, why??? half and hour of comericals have been added in the begining.
As viewers we have no contract nor obligation to watch what broadcasters send out. They already (despite some rather inane quotes from a few) know this.
So any method that they use to show ads, is going to be in such a way that it's more trouble than it's worth to circumvent them.
For instance:
There's the having an ad spot within the actual show itself,
Rachel: "Oh no! Ross I'm pregnat!"
Chandler: "You should have used a Trojan."
There's placing advertisments in the lower right hand side of the screen. (Picture in picture sort of thing)
There's also things that PVRs do themselves (which I'm sure broadcasters will try to make use of) For instance, when you pause your ReplayTV it will ocasionaly bring up an advertisment for the Rio mp3 player.
Needless to say, that's a brief look of what's to come.
Ultimatly though, any method that trys to use "user interaction". Like you picking out what ads you're going to watch, or what not, will *never* work.
Anyway, I'd be willing to tolerate commercials for things I'm interested in. That'd be computer hardware (But no Dell, Gateway or AOL commercials) and never EVER under any circumstances Old Navy commercials or commercials for feminine hygene products. The PVR is the perfect platform for launching such endeavors. Just keep a cache of commercials that fit the profile and play them during the commercial breaks. PVRs such as replay TV could probably also replace commercials with their own (if they wanted to get sued again...)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Outside? Outside What?
Do you mean the big blue room?
I am a bomb technician, if you see me running - try to keep up.
I saw a thing on TV guide once about it. If commercials do die, they may just charge more for TV. I don't remember offhand what the exact number was, but I remember that it really was not all that high.
Of course there are also product placements and such. TV companies can also scroll things in front of your TV screen.
The other day on TNT I was watching some movie about a secret service agent and a cheerleader ran across the screen with a sign advertising the start of college football. I sure hope that does not catch on, because it was annoying as hell.
So basically, there are other ways of making money...some more annoying than others. Personally, I hope that they will simply charge more for TV, it would be much better than dealing with annoying adds. I would also like it if you could choose all channels
ala carte instead of paying for over 50 channels that you don't watch, and 10 that you do.
TV programming has gotten so polluted with Ad's, product placements, and other marketing garbage that it is becoming unwatchable except for viewers already brainwashed by the commercial producers. The end result is that TV is only good for putting money in the pockets of big monopolies and maybe for special interest propagandizing. The best thing for everyone else is to just turn it off.
Pop-under ads... Sure, they will ruin the ripability of a movie or program for those wanting to record and share... But, I would much rather have a show or movie continue with a little ad in a corner than have it interrupted with something that's going to cause me to change the channel anyhow.
Depending on what you're watching and what station its on, the commercials may be as, if not more entertaining than the program you are watching. If you are the demographic that they are targeting, they are usually very good.
Especially during superbowls, when big timers like Budweiser step up and unleash a whole new wave every year at this event.
Back in the day (as you kids say), a company would pay the production costs for a show (this was the sponsor). This is where we got the "Texaco Playhouse"; the advertising value was just the connection to the show.
The idea of "product placement" goes back to these days as well. If you watch the old kinescopes (check your local video store for these), you'll see the cast perform the commercial right in the middle of a scene. "Wouldn't you like some fresh Knudsen milk on that?" "Oh, yes Knudsen makes the best milk." The cast of "I Love Lucy" was required to smoke during every episode; they were sponsored by Philip Morris.
What I want to know is this: why are they running commercials at movie theaters? And how long before your pay-per-view will include commercials as well? I'd much rather they raise the price and let me pay for what I want. I hate being whored out to Coca-Cola without my consent.
But what really ticks me off is that I'm paying for programming (Direct TV) and the paid programming has more adverts than the 'free' network channels. Then the MPAA has the gall to cry foul when I skip their commercials. "You're ripping us off!" Excuse the fuck out of me, but I paid for this programming already. Feel free to eat shit and die you greedy bastards.
When all else fails, run.
Produce an ad that is so good, that you actually want to see it. This is tricky but I can only think of it as an incentive for ad producers and media houses to work a bit harder in the problem.
Something that comes to mind as an example is the series of Bud ads. Certainly there are other examples.
Just my 10E-3 cents...
ah the sweet irony of a pasty geek telling couch potatoes to go outside and play..
Make the ads uncuttable- plant them sublinally in the shows themself! You know, single frame ads, cleverly concealed slogans (yvan eht nioj anyone?)...
Or, if they wanted to go the 'morally acceptable' route, they could always have an ad bar on the screen during the show- nothing obnoxious, just a small banner... to keep them from being blocked, they could put them on the top or bottom randomly and switch every show.
But I really don't see the problem as valid- it's easy to get music without supporting the industry, but the majority of people that buy at least some CDs manage to support the poor underpayed multimillionaire bands...
On TNT there are pop-up tv ads. Thats right.
You're watching a nice program (well most on Tnt is crap, but they have some nice sports coverage sometimes) and boom, there it is. An ad will pop up during the program. Tivo can't do anything about that. Superior annoyance.
And don't forget about embedded commercials like cbs used during indy converage this year where they superimposed ads on the racetrack. They also replaced the billboards on the track with their own ads too.
It's the same with people looking at their watch. Ask someone who checked their watch what time it is, and see how many have to check again.
It's a matter of getting from the medium what you need. In the case of your watch, it's usually "how long until the next thing I have to do?" Most people don't need the information provided by commercials so that information is quietly discarded. PDHoss======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
Trust me, NBC, CBS, and ABC would love to kill the affilates and be available as a pay cable networks.
Let's kill the local broadcasters and free up that precious bandwidth for something useful. 85% of us get TV via cable or satellite anyways.
Why not have ads scroll at the bottom of a show like MSNBC, CNN, Headline News, Fox News, CNBC, etc do with stocks and news? You'd be definately eyeballs because the person is WATCHING the show, you just have to make them pay attention to your ads instead of the show. This is in comparison with todays commericals during which most people get up for pee breaks, food, etc. As a plus to the viewing public the shows would be longer also since there would not be commerical breaks, you'd get the full 30 mins (of a 30 min show of couse)instead of the 20-23 you get now. Thats about 10% more show.
Visit www.seriouslythough.com
Paying by-channel would be a lot more convinent than paying for the whole service.
I'd pay, say, $20 a month for basic cable (which is $34.99/month) which would give me, say, the TV Guide channel, CNN, the Weather channel, and all the public access channels (PAX, C-Span, C-Span 2)
Beyond that, I'd be willing to pay $2/month for additional channels. Fox, UPN, FX, MTV, MTV2, ABC, NBC, and CBS. That's $20 + $16 = $36 right there. So it's a big more expensive.
Then, if I wanted to watch something else I wasn't subscribed to, charge $0.10 an hour to watch that channel on top of the regular subscription rate. That'd add up to $6 a month for 2 hours/day. THIS is where the distributers would make their money -- people who don't subscribe to channels, but want to watch say an hour a day of a channel they're not subscribed to.
People would click the "accept charges" button, switch off to another network...it'd be maybe $0.20 to $0.50 a day...but even at that amount, if you watch 2 shows you're not subscribed to 10 times in a month (easily doable) you've got a monthly channel subscription right there.
Not only would this model allow you to customize your cable service to the degree you wanted, because you're paying for the content above the basic service, they could show it with less adds, or perhaps allow targeted adds for a %10 reduction in your monthly fee.
If the local cable company (Adelphia) adopted this method, I would definately switch to it. Simply because I, personally, would end up paying a lot less monthly than already...about $25 instead of $35.
If technologies like TiVo take off and research shows that no one watches ads anymore (at least 20-30 years away), ads will start appearing on top of tv-shows. This is already done for soccer games because there's no time for commercial breaks.
Also, there will always be product placement throughout television -- Charles Schwab halftimes, Nestle "Crunch Time" in basketball, weather reports brought to you by Dewey, Cheetham and Howe, etc etc.
It will be a long time before TiVo devices are ubiquitous, but even then, there will be plenty of chances for companies to market on television. I prefer the HBO business model, but consumer price points will prevent that for the masses.
my blog
Pay-per-view and the associated product tie-ins that follow. HBO is of course the shining example of this: it managed to surivive initially on subscriber fees alone. After taking risks on shows it now has a raft of amazing shows and is able to sell them on VHS and DVD. The Sopranos is phenomenal, and its DVD sales have consistently been in the top 10.
The scary thing is that I just read that mary-kateandashley's latest horrific mind-trip has managed to sell more than even The Sopranos.
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.
"I've heard a few interesting ideas such as: ...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.
*
This already happens. Pay attention during TV shows and movies (which, by the way, we *are* already paying to see) - there are tons of product placement. A few that come to mind: iBooks and iMacs in several prime time shows, and Seinfeld used to have a Klein mountain bike prominently displayed in his apt.
People aren't watching commercials - they either skip them if they have a TiVo, or switch channels. Stations know this and will have to change the way they advertise. It's been said before, stations are going to start playing ads during the show. Think of how CNN and ESPN have news/scores scrolling across the bottom of the screen during the broadcast - it's only a matter of time before this is used by shows for advertising.
MLS does this in a less annoying way now. The score in the corner of the screen is usually displayed with coke, nike or some other company's logo.
There will always be some contigent of viewers that don't or can't skip commercials. Some with the ability will watch some of the ads at least some of the time.
Those without PVRs or VCRs will simply watch the ads or change the channel as they do now.
I don't see a technology that will universally eliminate the commercials, simply lower their value to the advertisers purchasing that commercial time.
With lower revenues, stations do not need to change their business model, they simply need to adjust their compensation to employees like executves and the actors. There is no reason that the cast of Friends gets like $2M per year except that the statation/network has the cash to pay it. If the stations have less income they will simply lower the exorbatant saleries of the actors to be more in-line with what is available.
Lower outlay for advertisements on television will also mean lower product prices, as we the consumers will no longer have to pay a premium for having products pitched at us in commercials that cost $100,000 per half minute.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
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
If the business model doesn't work then they can just do what every other money making entity would do. take on a long stupid court battle. Or even better. Trash the current system and encode everything in some lame DVD type thing that is illegal to even think about and then charge customers for it AND keep the commercials . . . or get the "to skip stuff while recording to anything" patent and shut the whole thing down.
You can't rush quality, but you can fake it.
My VCR must be a hyper modern one, because it has this exact same feature: forwarding through commercials. To avoid missing anything it even allows me to forward while viewing the picture so that I know exactly when the movie starts again i.s.o. having to rely on 30 second skipping.
:)
My computer with TV-IN has the same capabilities, but with the great editing options to remove the commercials permanently from my recordings.
On the other hand: I tend to watch TV when a show is on. It's rare that I tape a show. Perhaps if there are more suckers like me, the commercials will still be skipped the old fashion way: by taking bathroom brakes, and getting a soda from the fridge.
Food for thought - I watched *too* much tv. 6 hours a day.
I threw the bugger our and took up reading crappy scifi and posting on Slashdot. Same 6 hours wasted.
I've substitued one entertainment for another - and truth be told, I'm not more productive for it. However, I highly recomend to others that they make the switch:
After the switch, I've notices several good chainges in myself:
For some reason I don't consume as much goods, I'm less prone to inappropriate emotional outbreaks, and my vocabulary has improved. My spalling has remains attrocious as ever...
One thing that I won't do, is be a snob about it. I've only substitued one vice for another - I diden't acieve enlightenment or anything.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I've seen/heard TV and radio shows from the 1930's in America. Back then an hour-long show was sponsored by an advertiser. So rather than having 10 minute of commecials every 30 minutes you would know that your favorite show is sponsered by some corporate entity. Why couldn't TV do this today? Why do we have to be bombarded by commecials? I think it would make much more sense for TV stations to sell ads in this format.
Advertisers seem to be under the delusion that if you show me ad once I won't buy your product. But, if you pop it up in my face or assault me with it 10,000 times I'm suddenly going to head to the nearest store and empty my wallet. I think we should stop the "ad-assault" and go for a more sophisticated sponsorship model.
How do you learn about new products?
Sales?
Word of mouth, or through a search.
Quoth the Cowtard:
The most obvious alternative is to send your favorite shows to you via broadband and have you pay by the show. But would you pay to watch Buffy, The News, Star Trek? Would you prefer pay by the show, subscribe to a show/network or be forced to watch commercials?
I would gladly pay by the show for the programs I watch, but only if they were commercial and DRM free. However paying by the show would absolutely subvert the point of this article, because the television studios wouldn't want you recording it. And forget about sharing television shows, that would amount to DVD and music piracy (i.e. vehemently gone after and prosecuted, unlike TV shows now[1]).
No, right now the best solution for the consumer and the producers is the ad in the middle of the show. Clearly it does work to some extent, just getting the name out there. And for those who don't care/don't want to watch the commercials, they can "steal" the content by going to the kitchen/bathroom/whatever until the commercials are over.
Sancho
[1] Yes, sites that distribute TV content are still shut down, but not with the force and money that's thrown at the various music and movie sites.
Maybe I'm not in the right neighborhood or I don't know the right people, but none of my friends nor myself own a PVR, so I don't see the automatic skipping of ads as a big threat (for now) to TV stations. Usually, when I watch TV, it's to put my brain in a "don't think too much" mode (except when I watch the news). Ads are just another part of the TV programmation, although one I don't mind missing by going to the toilet or getting a drink.
There's all kinds of hidden data within your television picture... closed caption data, date/time, interactive guide data,v-chip data, and even URLs. This data is transmitted in the VBI, or the Vertical Blanking Interval, which is (loosly) the unused space between scanlines.
Much like spam filters, there are a few approaches that can be taken to apply statistical data and pattern recognition to the VBI data, which could then be used to skip commercials automatically. There are a few hobbyists doing this.
Since time data is also included in the VBI, the TV stations have exact lists of when commercials are to be inserted by their parent networks. This information, if obtained, could be useful when used in conjunction with the time data in the VBI.
Here's a good place to start reading if you want learn about your VBI... http://www.robson.org/gary/writing/nv-line21.html
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Make everything into an infomercial!!
The idea of stretegic product placement "sounds" good, but what about those personal injury lawyers? I'd hate to see one of those become a regular on Friends. George on Seinfeld is already "too lawyery" for me... (I still have images of that actor being the lawyer on 'Pretty Woman')
Some ads could work as strategic placement and others could not... Who on the cast of friends would plug ads for hemmoroid creme? I can sorta see Phoebe doing that... singing "Bleeding butt... bleeding butt... What have they been sticking in you?"
Actually, how about this? Fire all the over-paid actors and let the people who want to do it for free do it!! It couldn't get worse than it already is anyway. There are lots of people who would do TV just for the fun of it so forget about commercial sponsors entirely. We can call it "Open Source TV." Who says there has to be advertisers backing creative works to guarantee quality anyway?
"TV just wants to be free!!"
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!)
This was an interesting article that I stumbled across earlier today, when looking for PVR software:I'm guessing that rags like Advertising Week would have a similar perspective on things.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Series: payperview after evaluation. You are able to watch one or two series as an evaluation. If you like it, you order it and pay it, if you don't your are entitled to a new evaluation (after predifined time). :)))
Movies: payperview
News: they are capitalized already anyway, the one featured in news, pays
I don't care. If the current free TV dies because it doesn't make economic sense, good.
I will pay for decent TV, I rent a lot of movies, because I don't like what is on TV.
If you watch some of the old shows, it's interesting how they phrased the advertising: "The Shadow Knows! Brought to you by Johnson's Floor Wax! Keep your floors sparkling clean with Johnson's Floor Wax!" or some such.
The thing is, the way they phrased it, they made the relationship about who's paying the bills much more up-front, rather than the typical modern "We'll be back after a few messages" (translation: "We'll be back after wasting some of your time"). It's like the people on whatever show don't even respect the advertisers.
It seems like in the old days, people actually appreciated advertisers paying the bills, and responded by trying the product. Nowadays, it's almost an adversarial relationship. People go out of their way to get as far away from them as possible. Maybe it's just because there are so many more advertisers, and the advertising is much slicker. Personally, I think people just don't conciously make the connection between advertiser money and how these multi-million dollar productions get made.
I wonder if there is a way to make advertising a bit more of a "sponsorship" type of thing.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Why should I start paying for the show when I get it for free now? Myself, and probably 99.44% of Americans, will not. Commercials are acceptable because they are a natural break during the program. This is why Pay TV such as HBO is annoying because you are glued to TV for the whole two hours of the movie. Basically this proposal has me paying MORE - I have to buy a PVR to 'pause' (which I get for free now) and I have to pay for the show itself.
And whatever happens, don't go to the PBS/NPR model of subscription drives. Even though they only happen one week per quarter, they are infinitely more annoying than a constant but gradual stream of commercials.
If they ever need to find new, even more irritating ways of advertising, they need merely look at the wealth of ways in use on the world wide web. Banner ads on the top of the screen while you watch, pop-up ads as you flip through channels that you must close before moving to another channel or any of several other equally irritating ideas.
In the long run though, simple things like product placement should do it. This would allow them correct the percieved losses as a rusult of PVR tv viewing (which is a small majority that likely won't be large enough to impact anything for quite some time).
I have to agree. Before slashdot I thought a "troll" was a ugly dwarfish thing that collected bridge tolls from goats. And i never knew what "First post!" meant.
Thank you, Slashdot!
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We don't live in a homogeneous world. Even giving Tivo-like systems the ability to zap out all commercials would not kill commercial television, because not nearly everyone has such a system. Going to the bathroom or getting a snack during commercials hasn't killed commercial tv either, because it doesn't happen enough. If things like Tivo did start hurting commercial tv, what I think they would do is what they already do in low-end markets. They play cheaper programming and sell cheaper ad time. If you want a vision of commercial tv in a Tivo-dominated world, just watch broadcast tv after midnight on a Wednesday in Boise.
I prefer the pay-for-service / subscription model. I pay to specifically have HBO. It's an option, on my local cable provider, that I selected and pay for. I don't have HBO for the movies, or any of that, but for shows like "Oz", "Six Feet Under", "The Wire", and others of their ilk. I find them to be immensely entertaining, and don't have any problem at all paying for HBO.
On that same token, I'd be happy to pay for the other channels that I watch more regularly, instead of having to pay for a "package" that includes channels I don't want. I seldom, if ever, watch anything on TNN, or E!, etc., and would rather pay, individually, for channels that I watch more frequently, like Discovery (and some of its brethren), TLC, History, and maybe even Fox, or whatever stations show Alias and Buffy these days, which are about the only prime time shows that I watch.
If I had to pay for each show, individually, that wouldn't be too bad, except that I'd almost never be exposed to new shows to be addicted to, since there wouldn't be commercials in the shows that I was watching. Perhaps, if a show-on-demand functionality were in place, then there would be ads for other shows, or recommended shows, sort of like an "If you like Buffy, you'll love Angel" kind of recommendation, that I could look at on my "program / menu" channel, or what have you.
Basically though, while ads don't bother me so badly (thanks Tivo), I'd rather not pay for the things that I don't watch, and have more control over what I do pay for. If that's on a per channel or per show basis, I really couldn't say, but I suspect that "per channel" is going to slake the thirst of more people.
-9mm-
At the first of a) pointing out the obvious, and b) getting flamed, there ARE other ways in the world to support television besides commercial services sponsored by advertising.
I don't say you have to like the BBC. I don't say I would like this as a solution in the U. S. I just say, here is an existence proof. Here's one way television can and has "survived" without advertising.
As it says here,
The BBC's domestic radio and TV services are financed by the television licence fee.
The current licence fee (from 1 April 2002) is £112.00 for colour and £37.50 for black and white.
Anyone aged 75 or over is now entitled to a free TV Licence for their principal address.
If you are registered blind you only pay 50% of the full licence fee.
For less than 30p a day (colour), the licence fee pays for:
The television channels BBC ONE, BBC TWO, BBC Choice, BBC FOUR, BBC News 24 and BBC Parliament;
Five network radio services, plus the BBC Asian Network, and new digital radio services launching in 2002;
Regional TV programmes and Local Radio services in England;
National Radio & TV in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland;
BBCi.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Even with my Tivo, I sometimes watch the commercials. Why? Because I'm not really paying that much attention to the TV in the first place. How many people just have the TV on as 'background noise' while they are doing something else?
Even if it's a show I am truly paying attention to, I will occasionally watch a commercial if it looks interesting.
But even if you do get rid of commercials, that shouldn't matter, because I am still paying to watch the programming. Last time I checked my DirecTV bill was around $60/month. If the broadcast channels haven't figured out how to get a cut of that money from DirecTV, that's their problem, not mine. The shows I really like to watch tend to not have commercials anyway -- they are mostly on HBO (Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, etc.). And because they are quality programming, I don't mind paying for them.
No way am I going to pay extra for Jerry Springer or American Idol or any of that other crap. So maybe that means without commercials, that type of programming will go away, and we'll end up with better programming overall.
Yeah, the dumb schmucks already pay $50+ per month for cable (i.e. over $600+ per year) in order *NOT* to pay a $150 TV tax.
Do the math. For $600+ a year, screw the advertisers. They've already been paid.
The clever move would be to offer the content on-demand via the Internet. Include the commercials embedded in the content. No one is going to strip the commercials and put it back up; who'd waste their bandwidth when the program was available on demand in all the desired encodings? (See BAEN webscriptions.net for an example of how this actually works for another media type, right now, today)
Then, rig a number of versions of the download which stash the commercials in different places. Each 30-minute show has at least the following places to stash commercials: Before the title, after the title, planned mid-show break, before the credits, after the credits. Given that each spot can hold 1 or more commercials of variable length, you'd make it relatively hard to archive all of the breakpoints for all possible variations. Especially if the commercials change from month to month.
Folks could still skip the commercials by hand or strip them from their personally downloaded copy, but that's OK... by hand gives you a chance to capture their interest before they skip it just like with the modern remote control. Double the chance really, because with a remote the commercials are usually over before you click back from another station but with a PVR you'll scroll back to find where the show restarted (and scroll back into the tail of the final ad).
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Not being able to make money on TV without ad revenue will be big news to Cable and Sattelite TV providers... Not to mention PBS channels which are typically member/community/government supported. And yes fund-raisers are somewhat annoying, but the channels seem to survive anyway....
wtf are you talking about? The BBC has produced some fantastic programming over the years. Maybe you've been choosing to wathc the wrong shows? You seem to imply that there is no good televison in the UK. There seems to me to be a fairly good mix and largley because we have a non-comercial station which dosn't have to rely on pulling in viewers for advertising purposes. Perhaps you just don't like television?
I'm probably not the only the only tired of paying ~$40/month to be inundated with commercials.
Personally, I only want three channels: Comedy central, ESPN, and History.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
I am saturated with advertisement. They are on TV, on radio, in almost every magazine I read, on roadside panel, on bus, in cinema (the horror! paying to be fed up advertisement ...), everywhere on the Web (unfortunately), ad nauseum. Advertisement make me sick : they are 90% tasteless and mostly senseless, repetive and self-promoting (thats the point of advertising, I suppose). I can do nothing about roadside panel and other invading form of advertisement, but I can do something about advertisement on TV (use a PVR), on radio (I stopped listening to commercial radio a long time ago, I now listen to Radio-Canada [the french-candian public radio]) and on the web (use the "Block image from this server" feature of Mozilla). I am sorry for the content provider, but I am doing an overdose of advertisement; it's a question of keeping my sanity.
... that's what I am already doing ! Poor TV channel, poor advertiser ...
What will happen if the TV die because advertisement money dry up ? I suppose I will rent (or buy) more movie, subscribe to a few specialized news and science channels and spend more time browsing the Web.
Wait a sec
Thinking about it, if I would not have to pay the cost of all this fscking advertisement with every product I am buying, maybe I would have enough money left to actually PAY FOR CONTENT !
:wq
As for you -- I can see that they've successfully brainwashed you to the point of believing anyone who doesn't have their brains fucked is a socialist. Congrats!
I got curious exactly how much money is being made in TV ads right now, wondering if this might be a drop in the ocean. According to TVB "TV Facts", TV ad revenues are at $10 billion per quarter.
I couldn't find how what percentage of total revenues ads make up for large companies like CBS, but note that total quarterly revenues for AOLTW are at $10 billion (i.e. the same as total ad revenue accross the industry). Fox made something like $2,5 billion, Disney made $6 billion.
The bottom line: if anyone doubts (like I did) that TV ads are a very important source of revenue, it appears that the sums are quire significant.
I'll gladly give up free television (how many people actually use antennas anyway) in return for access to the television airwaves.
How about pop-up ads? Oh, wait....nevermind.
If you disagree, you're wrong.
from the Thermian (see Galaxy Quest) archives of Earth's historical documents:
Skipper: "Gilligan, people can't fly."
Gilligan: (flying) "They can't?"
Skipper: "No they can't."
Gilligan: "Oh" (thump)
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Paying $150 a year for being able to use a TV set without being continuously brainwashed?
But in fact the only difference is in who is controlling the brainwashing. So let's see: the British government, or Anheuser-Busch... who do I prefer... hmm... tough call
I would expect this anyway, but watch TV from the 50's - product placement. You see it now to a small extent (most people seem on TV seem to use Nokia phones on Alias, for example).
;)).
You see more of characters saying "Hey, toss me that Pepsi Blue - I love that berry flavor", thing like that.
till, even in the PVR era, I don't see commercals ever fully going away. Sometimes, thats the best part of the show (especially those Nads commerials
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The parent post was a rant, but it did not have a condescending tone.
I enjoy a good TV show every now and then, but I find the TV-watching lifestyle of many Americans, well, disgusting.
I could trot out the stale comment here about how the BBC, funded by lisence fee, has no commercials.
But there's an interesting extra point to TV in the UK. Because there's a commercial-free alternative, the commercials themselves have to work to get viewers.
I've watched commercial TV in the US and UK, and I have to say that the commercials on British TV are a lot better - they're better made, have more interesting scripts and better, more subtle presentation.
This may be because the makers know there's a commercial-free station that the viewer can just switch to if they want. The commercial must thus be eye catching and engaging. We thus get much less of the hard sell than US commercials, and more subtlty and humour.
A PVR viewer thus might have their interest caught by a bank advert directed in the Blade Runner style by Ridley Scott (yes, there were such things). The viewer might not want to watch this every time it comes up, but if their interest can be piqued just once by a well-made commercial competing successfully with the impulse to skip over it, then its probably worth a thousand repeat viewings by uninterested viewers.
Yes, this means networks and advertisers will have to work harder. And that might be just what they're afraid of.
away and come up with a "preimier" ad free network.. oh whats that? They don't have content anyone would pay for... hm
Why don't all the Real Time Dependant (tv/radio) media use thier current tech to come up with other forms of revenue instead of trying to sue new buisness models out of existance? Imagine if monks had tried to turn the printing press into a "hacking tool" and a "Devils Machine, it does the work only a human should!", where would we be today?
It's complely possible for a tv be 100% subscription based, and there is no reason against it. Just because the current model is based on advertising dosen't mean that it's the only way for them to make a buck.
A change in the paradigim isn't bad, and if technology dosen't hurt anything, it's *always* a good thing. People require jobs, so people will create jobs around whatever the tech of the day is, not the other way around. If you worry about jobs when making tech you are hurting humanity.
I live in a giant bucket.
Well, even on /. trolls do have a lot to do with goats (what they collect from them I'll leave to your imagination).
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
First, because this looks so much like one, let me state emphatically that this is not a troll.
My response is good, let it die.
Video games can teach strategy, creative thinking, teamwork, etc. At least they're interactive, require input, feedback. I've no problem at all with those. Television is nothing more than thought-control on a large scale. Let's see, what's on CNN today...
Murder of two girls (affects two families).
A snip about earth summit protestors (what they're protesting will be a foregone conclusion in a year).
Scientist blasts Ashcroft (non-issue).
Franks backs Afghan Probe (hey, we're doing something! No, nothing will come of it. I'll take bets if someone is offering.)
Priestly was released from the hospital.
By UN estimates, 1,500,000 million kids have died due to our embargo on Iraq -- which hasn't even so much as scratched our target, Saddaam -- and Dubya is quite eager to provide us with Part Deux at a cost of 80 billion. Oh, right, almost forgot -- defense budget for 2003 is 773 billion even without this added expense, while eduction is only slated for 50B.
And that's just my rant about the news and it's capacity to turn us into the most hated, docile pricks on the planet. So what about prime-time TV, sitcoms, et al? For that, I can only point to televisions well-documented narcotic-like effects. Wake, work, watch, consume, die. No thanks. Besides, I'd like to live my life instead of living some voyeuristic jackoff existence watching someone else's idea of what it should be like.
The end of TV as we know it? Good. It doesn't help us, it doesn't teach us, it doesn't make us better, it's damaging. There are few things I would want more than to have every television go blank, permanently. So the idea of the biggies losing their revenue stream? Doesn't phase me. You'd be amazed at the looks I get when I tell people I haven't watched since 1994. Some think I'm nuts. Others will actually tell me I'm nuts. So take the thing, bring it someplace safe, and light the !@#$ing thing on fire.
The fact that you won't is the lynchpin in my argument.
My
Limekiller
I think product placement is probably the most effective way to "hide" ads in the show. Look at any blockbuster movie.
Placement is already pretty heavy on TV. HBO's series such as Sex in the City or Arli$$ are notorious. Arlis always has Diet coke cans laying around. The girls on sex in the city are always spouting off high-end clothing brand names, so any woman aspiring to be as "cool" as them will go out and blow a couple hundred dollars on a pair of shoes they don't need.
And since the products are integrated into the show, there's nothing to skip.
MPEG4 has features to allow insertion of "fields", so advertising space on the scenes can be blocked out, and the product/ad can be inserted by the show itself, by the network, or even the local affiliate. So the Atlanta viewing audience would see Coke cans, while someone in North Carolina might see a Pepsi without having to film the scenes twice.
blog
Every time you buy a product which is advertised on television, you pay a surcharge.
Seriously, I watch two shows... and they both happen to be on during the SAME TIME SLOT!
I'd pay $2 an episode to be able to watch any half hour or hour show, any time I want. Oh, I feel like seeing Star Trek. Oh, I haven't seen MacGuyver for a hundred years.
PPV is around $5 for a movie, but the selection is relatively limited -- I've never ordered Pay Per View because of that. When I can get any movie I want in Dolby 5.1, and have it start when it's convenient for me, then I'll pay $5 for a movie.
Good lord, I pay to have 900 channels of crap pumped in, because I don't have much of a choice. I'd pay to get ONLY what I want. And then let me subscribe to the sports channels and music channels.
--brian
Better Commercials!. SOME commercials are actually done with the notion that they should also have some entertainment value. (A number of the "M&M's" commercials come to mind). Make the commercials WORTH watching and people won't skip them. The handful of unimaginative executives who have lost sight of this concept are the ones complaining about how horrible it is that people aren't strapped to their chairs and FORCED to watch the commercials ("What? You mean we can't just throw together any old crap with some half-naked bodies and the product and MAKE people watch it?!?!?...")
"Product Placement" isn't actually a bad idea either. If it's done "unobtrusively" (or in a comically blatant way on occasion) it merely makes the shows more "realistic", rather than distracting the viewer excessively from the show itself.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
there is some good TV programmes on the BBC (and the UK in general) - like there are some good US/Canadian/Australian etc tv shows.
But there is so much shite on BBC (and it's getting worse,) that's it's truly shite I have to pay a license to watch more and more utter bollocks, low brow, wanky TV.
If ads were informative and smart, useful and entertaining instead of the usual offensive, condescending and misleading people wouldn't mind watching them.
/R
It's up to the ad companies to make compelling ads.
It's just like my hosts file. Once I get an offensive or misleading ad on the web, i'll add that site to my hosts file and redirect it. It's not that I mind seeing ads, but ads that make false claims or assume undue control of my screen I won't tolerate.
With WestNile sweeping the nation, no thanks :)
Besides, what's outside anyways. I figured you'd at least say play a videogame, surf the net, or hang out with some chicks.
1. All networks (not just subscriber networks) take cut from cable providers. PRO: TV goes on like we're used to, only without commercials. CON: increased cable bills.
2. Everything becomes pay-per-view. PRO: only charged for what you watch, things seem to be moving that way anyway. CON: casual viewing becomes much more hastle, you may miss stuff you didn't know you would like.
3. Give advertisers personal profile, allow them to advertise to me before show. PRO: I don't have to watch adds for tampons. CON: doesn't seem practical. Wouldn't I be less likely to watch a big batch of commercials at the start of a show, as opposed to 2 minutes of commercials in the middle of my program? Also, I don't like the idea of giving my personal info to advertisers.
4. Product placement. PRO: I'd rather see Buffy slamming back a Coke (tm) for a few seconds as opposed to a 30 second spot for Coke. I realize that in real like people use brand-name products. CON: I don't want to see Buffy slam back a Coke and then exclaim to Xander how refreshing the new XtraClear Vanilla Lemon-lime Coke is. I don't want a product placement that, in any way, distracts me from the story.
Personally, I would like to see 2 and 4 in combination. I would like some product placement to subsidize pay-per-view costs.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
Don't say that too loudly or someone might suggest to the government that your TV watching needs to be regulated.
Ok, so here's my idea. Which is a total 180 from everyone else I've read here so far. How about a channel that shows ONLY commercials? Hell, how about a DOZEN channels that show only commercials?
Seriously, I'm sure advertisers would love to pay people to watch their 30 second films. And you could choose which "kind" of commercials you wanted to watch by special interest, language, product type, etc.. I have found that the better commercials tend to be a lot more entertaining than your average Friends episode (I'm thinking best commercials in the World here, not just North America).
There might be some weird splash-over of people watching commercial for products that aren't available in their area (watching a stylish commercial for a Europe-only car or a funny Japanese toy commercial, for example), but the programming becomes REALLY simple when all you are doing is showing one 30 second spot after another... this might mean we now need Ad Jockeys (grimace).
The purpose of these channels (which could actually be fun to watch), would be to pay for the non-commercial channels bundled with them. So, if you watch x commercials, your cable is free (or cheap, rather).
Don't want to watch the commercials? Just pay the difference. Poor white trash? Make a little money while you sit on your ass. Everyone is a winner. Or not, as the case may be.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
Imagine that. People buying things because they want or need them, rather than being psyched into buying it with every brainwashing trick in the playbook.
Heh.
Having just come from the cable tv business (don't ask, started in the ISP business and suddenly found myself doing cable programming contracts...) - I can tell you a little about how that world works. Basically when you pay your cable bill somewhere around half goes to programmers - i.e. 10 cents for foodTV, $2.25 for ESPNx (the most expensive), $0.60 for Disney channel, etc. Most cable programmers get around half their revenue from these subscriber fees and the other half from advertisers. So ad-free TV will just cost you about double on your cable bill. OK, maybe not double - assuming the cablers agree to lower margins but the same gross dollars per connection - but at least 50% more... (like that'll happen!)
Of course, I don't think this would happen overnight. Instead there will be a continuum of gradually increasing programming rates as PVR penetration increases and other ad models fall short. The industry is scrambling because they don't believe consumers will pay double on their cable bills ($56-72 basic cable anyone?) so they are talking about ads filling the bottom third of the screen, product placements, volunteer ads, and everyone's favorite - 'broadcast only flags' enforced via dubious laws and technology.
There is another issue with ad-free TV that will significant. Today the broadcast channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, WB) are free to cable companies - this is due to some high-priced negotiations carried out via bought congr^h^h^h^h lobbyists and finalized in the cable act of 1992. Something about the broadcasters getting spectrum and the cable guys having 'must-carry' rules - blah blah. Anyway - in an ad-free world you would have to think that another $5-10 would plop on your cable bill ($66-82 basic cable anyone?).
(How unfair to the broadcaster you say? Well - they get even by using the free content rights as clubs to force the cablers to take other (ABC-->disney channel, fox-->fox sports, etc.) expensive basic channels, but that is another story...)
Satellite customers are on the same basic model. For the remaining 15% or so of people who aren't cable or satellite customers - I'm not sure of the endgame. Perhaps they are cross-subsidized by the cable and satellite customers and the cost is eaten to maintain broadcast licenses. Or maybe the broadcasters have to find a new model or maybe the stars of 'Friends' will just find themselves making a lot less money... One can only hope...
The PVRs work by jumping ahead 30 seconds. What if each commercial was a different length? So instead of 6 30 second commercials in a row, how about a 17 second commercial, a 42 second commercial, and a 74 second commercial? Sure, you could still visually fast forward, but you'll catch something. (the mute button and the dreaded "Channel Up" button have been around for years to "skip over" commercials, but they're still advertising on TV...)
:)
Or instead of having 7 three minute commercial breaks an hour, what about 84 fifteen second commercial breaks? The break would be done before you could reach the remote.
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
What about quickly releasing every show on DVD?
I don't watch much TV, and I would prefer buying the shows I like than paying a monthly fee for cable, which I use at most 20 hours per month.
They should release Enterprise season 1 now instead of waiting 10 years after the serie has ended. In 20 years it will be too late, I'll have already been tired of waiting for years and will just download all the series on a napster clone
Same thing for the Simpsons, why is it taking so long to release each new season?
There I am in the middle of my mid evening TLC. (the learning chan.) Enjoying some junk yard wars or something of the like, when, in the middle of the show, this icon appears on the bottom right of the screen, ok no biggie, it's about 2 inches the same size you see on comedy central or cartoon network, then it expands to 5 inches tall (on a 25 inch tv) and there's two people pantomiming an advertisement for their new designing space show or something like that. Even though I was into the content on the show i was watching, I couldn't concentrate on the show for at least 30 seconds while these two dorks pointed at a sign listing their show and time. I decided right then and there that there was a snowballs chance in hell that i'd watch anything with that advertising tactic, worst thing is this is a cable channel I pay for this!
nast advertising technique, it's inescapable, if you turn it off in the middle you loose some of the show.
puts me in mind of those flash and dhtml ads that popup on the websites each unique visit.
Advertisement are needed so they can pay all those greedy sitcom actors. Why not just give them all a big paycut? That would save on the amount of commercials we'd have to be subjected to in the first place. Some of these idiots are making hundreds of thousand of $$$ for barely 20 minutes a show, 5 days a week. How many hours does it really take to put a show together anyway? Especially when using the same sets over and over again. Give me $50,000 a year and I'd be happy to be the idiot in front of you for a short time each day. Of course the obvious solution was mentioned first. Just get rid of the freakin' TV.
Good ideas, but you're assuming consumers need to patronize commercials in order for entertainment to survive. I don't agree.
There are so many proponents on slashdot for open-source software...but what about "open source" books, or music, or theater, or visual art? There are thousands and thousands of very talented people, who have hobbies they are passionate about. I'm sure they would be thrilled to be showcased (i.e. televised).
How many more sitcoms do we need? Professional-scale budgets have produced so many programs...haven't we pretty much seen it all? Think of all the crappy movies and tv and music coming out lately...are they crappy because there are no talented artists anymore? I doubt it. I think we've exhausted most of the possibilites...and hollywood is getting bored with itself.
Ideally I'd prefer to see television be completely flattened as a media. Something that has not 200 channels...but 20,000....a tree-hierarchy of interests(like usenet). So if for whatever reason I'm interested in tv.alaska.wildlife, I can goto the appropriate domain and see hundreds of stock programs about the subject....some amateur(free), some professional(paypal), some in between. The point is, if I decide that amateur content is "good enough", I'll watch those things for free. If I want professional content, I'll pay for it.
This could happen if every home in america was equipped with 100Mbs. It's just 1 or 2 generations of upgrading, but once it's in place...would we really need any of the old content/media companies at all? 250 Million amateur directors, musicians, poets, authors, artist is a lot of amateurs...if just 0.001% of us was good at just one thing. We would have more than enough fresh and novel entertainment to go around.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
In the late '70s, the local cable company in my hometown sent people door-to-door to sell the benefits of cable television. The biggest benefit that they touted was that there would be no commercials on cable channels since the networks were collecting money directly from the consumers. Within a year all the channels were showing advertising, except for the "premium" channels that only show their own (and affiliated) advertising. No matter what business model is selected, advertising will always be a guaranteed source of additional revenue. As a result, it will never go away.
Either we pay through taxes, subscription fees or commercials. Skip the commercials if you want, the push model is outdated anyway. Today we want to look for the information, not get it down our throats during the favourite soap opera. The trick for the operators is to go IP TV. With IP TV an up channel is enabled to the end user so s(he) can interactivelly choose what to look for. Click on the car (in the movie), a soap (in the soap opera) or the celebrity to be transferred to an information site (not advertisment site!) about the topic. If you don't care you don't care. Also ordering pizza from a nearby restaurant, movies on demand, on-line gaming and instant news about your favourite war will convince some people to pay.
Pushed ads is an outdated business model!!
TV and any other media source can survive without ads. Just look at HBO, which only has ads for other HBO shows. HBO also runs ads on other networks to bring people to them, but I guess that could be replaced by word-of-mouth and free trial periods.
What does have to change is mostly a salary issue with some of the people in the entertainment industry. Now, first of all lets make it clear that I appreciate and to an extent "love" these people. I grew up with the crew of A-Team, McGyver, etc... and quite honestly I can say that in a way, they were good role models.
Now we have shows like Friends for example. I don't watch TV all that often anymore, but I've seen quite a few episodes of Friends and I enjoyed them. But then later I find out that they get payed like 100K or 1M dollars for each episode or some other absurd amount of money. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but the question is, are WE willing to pay for it?
Right now we pay for TV in a myriad of different ways. The products we buy because we saw an ad on tv is one of them. The cable bill is another. The ads themelves do nothing to pay for TV, but they send money over to companies that will eventually trickle down to the studios. There is no way to say how much money the ads really make. I know a little economics, but when I took the class my freshman year of college, it seemed more like a whole lot of statistics and predictions on what people WOULD do, not what they really did. For example, if hamburgers cost half of what they do, people buy twice as many. Yeah right.
All of this leads to something similar to a pay-per-show system. Each episode of Farscape costs me $5, so for a month of new shows I would be paying $20 (for example, with one new episode a week) and then "free" replays of all the past episodes during the other days of the week. The question I have is this: For this model to work, how much would we have to pay?
It would be really informative if someone that knows how much each episode of Farscape costs. This means the salary for the actors, but also all the other stuff, like animators, catering, key grip boy and everyone that makes the show happen. Then divide by how many viewers the series has, and that should give you a number. I'm pretty sure it will be much more expensive that what we are all willing to pay. I guess this means that bad shows would just die off. But then, how would new shows get started? It's like any business I guess, and if the studio shares the equipment, would be much cheaper. It all comes down to the actors asking for insane amounts of money for doing what they do. Oh and not just the actors, but everyone in the chain. What amount of money should entertainers make? More than a doctor? Or an engineer? Or more... than a teacher? After all, Sesame Street taught me a lot, but I doubt they taught me more than any of my school teachers. Why are THEY not making 1,000,000 a year?
Hmm I guess after writting for a while, what I'm trying to say is that greed messes everything up. It is not enough to make enough money to live comfortably now. You always have to make more, and more. Money itself is not evil. It just represents goods, like apples and oranges. But when the pursuit of money becomes distorted, maybe because of an overgrown ego, a feeling of being so important that you actually convince yourself that you are worth an infinite amount of money, then societies crumble. It has happened time after time, and it will only continue to happen.
> In many ways, I have found life without TV a big improvement, in that I can now think.
If you can't think watching tv, you probably can't think without one, either. Get a grip.
People who categorize all tv as evil or stupid are guilty of stupidity themselves. There's _plenty_ of well-done, educational, and inspirational programming on tv (if you count cable channels). Shows like West Wing, Buffy (despite the lead character & actress, this show is amazing. Easily among the best writing around.), and others. When you toss in shows on PBS, channels like Discovery, History Channel, hell, even the Cartoon channel, you've got a lot of great stuff available. It's not all 'Full House', and hasn't been for many years. No matter what you're into, there's something, probably several somethings, somewhere on a cable channel for you. Now, that said, is it worth the money? Depends. Basic cable, or expanded basic, is a great deal. Pay channels usually aren't. Sure, they show uncensored movies, but considering how many times they repeat the movies, I dunno. Most movies aren't worth watching more than once, to me. I'm more likely to watch things on Turner Classic Movies than I am to watch the latest thing on HBO or Showtime. I'm not really into HBO's "original programming", so it's not a big draw for me. I'd be willing to pay for channels like BBC America, though, if it were offered here in Kansas City (which it isn't), and the same goes for Sundance Channel and some others.
Use encryption. Broadcast the first segment of a show in the clear. Then at some random time during the first commercial break, announce a one or two digit code. Make the announcement so short that fast-forwarding would miss it. Then broadcast the rest of the program encrypted. If the viewer wants to see the rest of the program, they have to enter the code into a remote.
Of course the encryption can be broken - or you call a friend for the code, or just try all of the possible codes until one works. That's not the point. The point is to make skipping the ads (and missing the code) more annoying that just watching the ads.
Maybe you could sign up advertisers to sponsor the decoder hardware in exchange for logos on the remote. Also, maybe offer a premium cable version of the programs, available without encrytion (but still with ads) for a monthly fee.
The downside of all this from the network's point of view is that the programs have to be worth watching beyond the first commercial break!
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
BRAVO Mr. Milo Mindbender. I congradulate you on your new internship at some pathetic marketing company. I know the economy is tough right now and finding a tech job is hard so you had to take what you could find. But please, passing on your research and marketing work to /. to figure out for you is pretty lazy. I know you need to fast track your way up in the company to pay your bills but maybe you should have payed more attention in college (assuming you went to college) and learned to think for yourself and use your own thinking skills to come up with a good way to make people pay attention to annoying commercials. Your question sounded like a troll to me and I reply with a troll. Your move.
Obviously part of the sponsorship includes ads on TV, but it also includes changing one of the show titles from "Cheat" to "Cheat Pringles Gamers Guide", and changing the actual set of the show to include Pringles "stuff". The show home page [g4tv.com] on our web site (for this show) is also part of it.
You get exposure even if you fast forward the commercials.
All these people posting that they want to pay more and more money for their cable.
I mean, i pay $40 Canadian a month, just to have cable TV in my house. That's for 2 tier cable, which provides a certain number of specialty channels. I also pay for 4 movie channels, which don't have ads [except for themselves].
If some fatcat, decides that advertising isn't working, because people keep changing the channels when their ads are on, and decides therfore, to charge per-show, ontop and above the regular cable charges, than i'm going to have to just throw out my TV. There isn't a good enough sitcom, to justify +$120/month.
The problem with todays society is however, that if this idea were to go thru, you'd have all your AD free TV, that you're paying for, but you'd STILL get to see "Buffy Slam down a Mountain Dew" after every Vampire.
TV and Cinema are in the same boat. It's when we start getting Commercials half way thru movies, that i'll stop watching moving pictures altogether.
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i dunno if this is completely on topic but i would like to see *all* tv, movie, video content made completely copyright free after some *reasonable* period, like 6 years..
people would then pay for the distribution/storage costs but pay nothing for the content..
that way you could end up with a kind of library universalis of any show older than x years... just name the show, or find by actor/director etc.. and bang there it is.. Prisoner, in color.
why not? is my question
Instead of paying 45 bucks a month for 60-70 channels of crap, I would rather spend that same 45 for fewer channels that I personally select (Comedy Central, Sci-Fi, Cartoon Network, TechTV, etc.) but with no ads. Your cable bill would be determined by how many channels you wanted and a set rate per channel. This would seem like the best solution to me because I don't pay for crap I don't want, and don't have to watch Country Music compilation commericals during Adult Swim.
1) Product placement.
Look at the placement in movies, and look at the old-time radio shows. This way, you cannot edit out the advertisements--they are part of the entertainment.
2) Split-screen ads.
Notice how Oxygen puts a black bar at the bottom of the screen during the movie? It allows them to advertise at you while the show is playing. Once again, the ads are part of the broadcast.
3) Make the ads entertaining.
This is really product placement on steroids. Start with an ad and add enough content that people want to watch it. I remeber seeing an infomercial with Danny Bonaducci (sp?) that I loved watching, because he was so caustically entertaining. [Unfortunately for the advertiser, I no longer remember the product, but that's not the point.]
I would not be worried about the advertisers. They will find ways to get their product/crap/treasures in front of your eyes.
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
TV is not compulsory, you know.
When I lived in Houston, broadcast TV reception was incredibly poor. To receive more than about two (commercial-filled) channels with nothing on you had to pay Time-Warner about $40 a month for the privilege - or almost $500 a year. That's over THREE TIMES as much as the TV license in the UK for a fraction of the quality.
So - $150 for good quality TV that's worth watching, or roughly $500 a year for a bunch of crap? BBC tax or Time-Warner tax?
I'd rather have the BBC tax than you very much.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
During the last two summers I worked in a company that makes software for TV companies. One guy there believed, and I agree with him, that the future of television advertisement is in-show advertising, tought it would be more subtle than having Buffy drink a Montain Dew and saying "After a slay, there's nothing like a good Montain Dew, right Xander?"
Basically, television sets would have access to the internet and producers would define hot zones in the video where the viewers can click to get info on some item on the screen. You like that top Buffy is wearing and would like to see your girlfriend in it? Then just click on it and you will be redirected to the website of the company who makes and sells it. You can then buy it. I can't tell what would happen if you actually clicked on Sarah Michelle Gellar tought... Never have you been harassed to buy the product. Everybody is happy. You found something you wanted, and they've found a customer.
It could easily get out of hand (maybe Steven Speilberg had this type of advertising in mind when he made Minority Report and has made sure his movie would be friendly to the future technology), but it's definitely an interresting idea.
Apart fromt the fact that the BBC isn't (officially) controlled by the government. It is as independent of goverment interference as any other broadcaster.
if those that produce entertainment embraced the technology, they could sell the damn shows individually. want friends? it's a buck an episode. want x-files? it's 2. want Simpsons? $1 an episode.
and then there's still product placement in the production itself. without ads, placements would just go up in demand.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
When I think of shows like Sinefield and Friends, do TV actors really need to make $100,000 an episode? Perhaps if their salary was reduced, my $40/month I pay in cable might be worth something.
Just like in movies... "Hey, I know its a tough life as a cop... how about a delicious Dunkin' Donut's brand doughnut?"
Or then they can just do the computer overlay ads... like what you see done on ESPN Classic.
"Hey dad! Reggie Jackson is wearing a Pets.com hat!"
I think it will just make the shows even that more annoying IMHO.
What is music when you despise all sound?
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
Maybe I'm missing something, but I actually like watching commercials! Sometimes, I do find them to be insulting, especially the ones that treat me like a child -- however I also find some commercials to be humorous, entertaining, or thought provoking. I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way, right?
It can work that way with your wallet, too. I once wondered if I needed to go by the ATM on the way home, so checked my wallet.
About 30 minutes later, I wondered the same thing, and checked my wallet again.
About 30 minutes later, I again wondered the same thing, and was about to check my wallet, when I remembered that I had already done this twice, and also remembered that between now and the last check, I'd passed an ATM and not stopped, and so deduced that I must have decided last time that I didn't need to visit the ATM.
I don't know what this means. I suppose it is pretty bad that I kept forgetting what my checks had shown...but it's a good sign that I still had the mental capacity to reason around the problem.
It is a question of choice.
:-P
Do you want to get brainwashed by the government (british or any other), period, or do you want to choose between a Anheuser-Busch or Time-Warner brainwash? Heck, you're free to take both! It's the same choice you're making when you select your newspaper. And don't tell me newspapers aren't just as opiniated, politically as well as commercially, as broadcasters.
The problem, in Denmark at least, is that there is no such thing as choosing to pay or not to pay the TV-tax. Only excuse is not owning a TV-set. No such option as hooking up a dish and sticking with foreign, commercial programming.
The socialists wants everybody to watch government TV, that way they can control what the people see. Liberals and conservatives don't think that way..
Fact: Socialdemocrat party in Denmark during the years 1985-1988 opposed the launching of an alternative, partly commercial station in Denmark, because they did not want the people to see commercials. They failed to realize that dishes were coming and soon most everybody would watch danish programming broadcasted from the UK. Ha!
Since the entire reason people skip commercials in the first place is because they dont appeal to them, how about just simply allowing people to check mark what interests them and have commercials personalized to them. I own a TIVO, i've used it for nearly 3 years now. It's probably the best invention in quite a long time, however, I *do* watch commercials that interest me. When I am skipping(fast forwarding) them with my TIVO, I often stop and watch something that catches my eye. Be it movie trailers, new computer ads, or the latest BMW advertisements. I suspect other TIVO owners are doing the same, and simply NOT just skipping everything like some might think. We're watching those ads, but only the ones that interest us and are GOOD. TIVO can see what commercials people watch, and where they pause and rewind them. Chances are, most of the pausing and rewinding is when a Brittney Spears commercial airs and she bends over to show a ton of cleavage. If advertisement companies can get that info, and realise that most guys want to see cleavage, then I really doubt anyone would be fast-forwarding through commercials for TAMPONS as long as it has some high profile gorgeous female celebrity talking about them while wearing a bikini while bending over for the camera. It's simply really.. Why is this a big issue?
The advertisers have already made changes: The commercials are getting to be more and more entertaining. Those of us who have been around a while, and watched television in the 60's, can tell you how terribly annoying many of the ads were.
Now, for example, you have 'Target' ads with decent music, cool designs, and pretty women, which are often more entertaining than the shows themselves.
They are just going to stick a banner on the bottom
or top of the screen. I've already seen some
stations do it. Try skipping that with TIVO.
I love finding out about new products.
I don't think ads sway if you have a preference for something. For example, I will never find coke to taste better than pepsi, or water, no matter how much advertising they do. However, I was intrigued when Saturn and a couple of Truck companies introduced the "third" door, and I think that it is worthwhile for TV Networks to show off new shows, because I might be inclined to watch them. (CSI or Witchblade come to mind
So I do think that ads have their place, I just wish there was some sort of opt out, or way of indicating no interest, like in the case of femine products or adult diapers. :)
Didn't the Iron Lady manage to make socialism impossible in the UK?
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
I am sick of commericals, if I want to skip them I will and I don't buy anything on TV.
I have had the advantage of living in both Africa and the USA, and I can say straight off that the question misses the point altogether.
Commercials are not required to keep TV going. I know this because I have paid for TV, and got lots of stations with very few adverts. These adverts were only shown between shows, and there weren't very many. Mostly there were musical interludes, or a screen counting down to the next show. (I think this is changing, but that has more to do with greed than anything else.)
I would love to be able to buy cable TV with no adverts and specify exactly what channels I want. Remind me again why I should have 200 channels of absolute shit? I'd much rather have 5 channels of decent viewing.
The current model in the USA is one in which channels sell viewer's eyeballs to advertisers. Period. You as a viewer get no control over what shows should be on. You get to watch ridiculously short shows because of the 20 odd minutes of adverts rammed down your throat. In fact, the shows are only there as fillers between the adverts, and wouldn't be there if advertisers could figure out a way to get around it.
TV in the USA will continue sucking until the viewers actually have real control over the money that goes to broadcasters. Until then, they are just eyeballs.
I only have experience of four countries, but the USA TV model is by far the crappiest P.O.S. I have ever encountered. So bad in fact that I got rid of my TV.
How much does it actualy cost to run a station? Somehow I get the feeling it doesn't have to be as much to do with COST as much as PROFIT. As long as consumers in the USA can be convinced that they should sit down and be forcefed crap because there is no other way, this will continue.
There is another way. It works well, and it's been around for ages. It just involves the USA media cartels not having the power and money they would like. It also involves the "consumers" learning that they way things are done now has nothing to do with necessity.
I've never understood this fetish for advertising. Hopefully it'll one day just be a short entry under "insanity; greed; wasting others' time" in the history books.
---
The rules state "If you use or install television receiving equipment to [b]receive or record television programme services[/b] you are required by law to have a valid TV Licence." - emphasis added.
Well, I'm sure that the CNN news crews are (officially) free to say anything that they want. Even if it is about AOL TIme Warner.. Just as MSNBC can say what they want about Microsoft..
all commercials must be in the form of haikus!
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.
This is how you make money with commercials. Commercials are not going anywhere, I assure you. If you think about it... there is one time of the year that MANY people WANT to watch the commercials: The Super Bowl. They are notorious for being original, funny, and captivating (although, not so much in recent years). What is going to have to happen is that advertisments will need to appeal to people. This really is not a new concept. In fact, it is the appealing commercials that generate revenue for the advertised product(s). No longer are there going to be those STUPID, repetitive, and non-original commercials that make you want to change the channel immediately. No my friends, now they are going to be forced to actually do their jobs. You can't put any old crap out there anymore and expect it to fly. You're going to have to make people WANT to see your ads. It's going to be a FIERCE competition... and as a result, we should see some REALLY funny stuff. Who knows... maybe this'll even make tv finally more liberal. As liberal as reality itself; I am tired of the television serving up what THEY think is appropriate. NEVER limit my choices on ANY product. Throw everything you got at me, and give me a way to make my OWN choices on my end of the medium. PS: I HATE almost almost all car commercials with a PASSION!!! I've rarely seen a good one.
Wherever you go, there you are.
I don't know about the US, but here in Europe there are several TV shows that show the best/funniest/strangest commercials from all over the world.
I love to watch these shows. Many of the commercials are even by the usual big companies that just don't run these commercials in my country.
Hell, even _these_ shows are interrupted by "local" commercials, but it is just fun to watch.
Most of the ads that are presented to us by the companies' local departments are just plain crap. Either crap, or they are running far to often. I hate to see commercials for the very same product four or five times an hour. Worse if it's crap.
Marketing droids: Just make better commercials. This doesn't have to cost more. But most of what you produce is just.. well...
42. Easy. What is 32 + 8 + 2?
For $20 Netflix subscription I watch all the movies I want without commercials. It is two times cheaper than cable and no ads :)
I dont need news, I have enough of my own problems to hear about other people problems and there is always CNN.com.
A State-owned TV that is paid for by the taxpayers. This works fine where it exists (outside of the USA).
It's not, technically, a tax. Money the government makes you pay to them is a tax. Money the government makes you pay to somebody else is not a tax. Or do you consider compulsory car insurance or employer's liability insurance to be taxes?
Have anyone ever read 'Contact', remember that the multi-mega-millionaire got that rich because he had invented a system that cut down ads, it was based on the sound level, because during the ads the sound is turned up a bit (or *Quite* a bit).
My preference as a UK citizen would be (a) keep the BBC funded by a license fee because then there's less commercial pressure and better output, and (b) have all other channels charge a subscription fee. Obviously you could choose whether or not you wanted a certain channel.
The trouble is it wouldn't help. Why? Well the evidence speaks for itself: We already have subscription-only channels available by satellite and they show MORE adverts than the normal free-to-air channels. Even channels such as UK Gold and UK Play, which are part-owner by the BBC, routinely show 8-10 minutes of adverts in a 30 minute slot.
(Apart from making you question what the subscription fee is for, this ruins the flow of a show and creates a feeling that these channels are just adverts with programmes thrown in occasionally, instead of the other way around.)
In an ideal world TV would be free. In a plausible world we'd pay a reasonable subscription fee and not have to put up with adverts. Realistically, though, whatever happens, we're going to have more and more adverts thrown at us, whether we pay or not.
But I still don't find ads half as annoying as on-screen logos...
The UK Campaign for LOGO FREE TV
Why would we need TV?? Honestly there is absolutely nothing on TV that can hold my interest. I do watch DVD's sometimes and thats about the only thing that my TV is usefull for. All the media (news, infromation, research) I need I get from the internet. Internet has replaced TV completely in my case.
I do think that todays non-interactive TV format is ancient.. I can picture us sometime in not too distant future wondering how in world did we manage to just sit there watch that TV BOX that constantly fed us whatever Media Bosses wanted us to see.. The greatest thing about the internet is that you controll information the way you want it. Whatever you want to research or do is available 24/7. So to talk about how to keep TV content alive without commercials does not make sense, since TV as we know it will die soon and will be replaced with someting else more interactive and meaningfull. I am sure I am not the only one that made complete switch from TV to internet?
Yeah, but $150 TV tax gets you the BBC channels ad-free only!
Every other channel has ads just like the American ones.
If you never watch BBC channels (I don't) then that $150 has been STOLEN from you for a service you never use! (Admittedly, I listen to BBC Radio 1, but you don't pay TV tax to listen to the radio!)
mogorific carpentry experiments
I think what we need is a new sort of Visa card that has a $1.00 (or equivalent) maximum transaction amount. This would be used as a password type access to paysites , and premium content at news sites, etc. The $1.00 max transaction size should be coupled with a one daily transaction limit, and NO recurrences. That means that each transaction should have to be OK'd by the owner of the account. This would allow people to pay for that content that they USE, like MP3s, ($1 not that unreasonable), instead of subscribing to a site that will bill recurrently until an act of God stops them. Free content is expensive for the provider, and we all know we should pay for some of it. We also need to be able to trust the providers. Since we can't blindly trust everyone, we have to have a method of diminished risk to pay for small transactions. Your gold Visa is not a good choice. Would you be willing to sign up for a bankcard type account like this if enough content providers signed on to this method instead of monthly subscriptions? Your Cable company ( or sattelite) could use a similar method to allow people to skip commercials if the customer paid for the content value (about 1/2 cent per viewer per commercial or so- depending on timeslot)
Only if I'm lying.
But the BBC is part of the 'establishment'. It's not a separate company that is bound by all of the same rules and regulations that all other British companies have to live by. The BBC is basically a part of the 'State'.
Paying the TV tax to the BBC is no different than the way you pay your state taxes to the state you live in and not to Washington. The BBC is part of the establishment, so I consider it a tax.
And keep car insurance out of this. Car insurance is a good thing, and if we didn't have it, millions of people would get severely burned financially in crashes etc. Getting rid of the TV licence would harm no-one except ITV, since the BBC would, undoubtedly, steal some of their advertisers.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Sure, these channels provide much better TV (well, for me anyway) rather than the commercial channels, which broadcast the same average bull as the US channels do.
I think there are several questions you might ask yourself when creating a business model. What can TV do for its audience?
Once, four of the 8 commercial channels here in Holland, who own the best watched soap opera, announced that they would go behind the digital decoder. They made a gamble that people's addiction to this soap would force people to accept the new system. But what happened, a smaller national channel announced that they would never go behind the decoder and they owned a soap opera which was less popular, but still. So in the end, nobody went behind the decoder.
So what is TV for people? Education? Entertainment? There's one little problem with TV : forcing the customer to do anything that they're not doing now and which costs them more money will end-result in a competitor giving the same service without the force. People want freedom, not watching Buffy does not mean you're gonna die.
Just simply thinking of a business model is not enough. There's enough TV around anyway - you must have a good reason for me to watch your stuff.
By the way, both education and entertainment have substitutes: go to a theatre or a concert or perhaps read a good book. No TV does not mean no fun.
I guess you really have a problem.
Bizar technology?
...for me at least. I got too disgusted by the ads 8 months ago, so -- out went the TV. The only way I'd consider getting another one is if I could pay $ to subscribe to a limited set of commercial free channels.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
So - $150 for good quality TV that's worth watching, or roughly $500 a year for a bunch of crap? BBC tax or Time-Warner tax?
I'd rather have the BBC tax than you very much.
Ah, but consider that you have to pay the BBC tax even if you don't watch the BBC channels!
I can get a basic Sky digital satellite TV for about US$15 per month, and I'd get about 20 channels in that. That's less than what the BBC charge me for the 'pleasure' of receiving their *TWO* terrestrial channels!
The BBC is a ripoff, and it should be privatised and charge people for access, just like any other network.
mogorific carpentry experiments
The ads for BBC programmes are between shows not ever 10-15 minutes, so you can watch a show without interruptions. Which is very nice when the BBC runs movies on BBC1 or BBC2. I can't watch a movie with ad breaks, it ruins the experience. So I pay for premium movie channels like HBO.
I use to get a kick out of American shows on BBC, they would insert "signs" like "end of part 1", "end of part 2" so that the pause in the footage, designed for commercial break, still worked. I think it also helps timing, but that is secondary to the viewer.
CBC in Canada use to be commercial free, but without a TV license, their budget was too small. So now their budget is still too small and they have commercial. Mainly to afford to buy cheap American sitcoms and movies.
I watch less and less "commercial" television. When I can, I prefer to go to an independent cinema, and watch an independent film. On average, I am fall less disappointed with indie films, see a broader range of cultural material (not just sitcoms from LA and NYC), better stories, and save money. I mean I would far rather see Amelié or 8 1/2 again than Blue Crush.
One of the great advantages of having no ads is that there is no concept of ratings. With no advertisers you can concentrate on the providing quality content, as opposed to stuff that is meant to please the advertiser.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Jim Lehrer has very modest production expenses, and is running on PUBLIC TELEVISION (read: TAX DOLLARS) and not real business-television. Unfortunately, I've noticed a bit of garage-sale attitudes here regarding content. We GPL type people would obviuosly like everything to be available. Connie Chunk (sic) makes her living on television. She sells commercial airtime for a living. You try to run 200 150kW transmitters 24 hours a day on your budget sometime like ABC and CBS do- You'll see that advertisers only pay for EFFECTIVE advertising.
The question is why would we want to put "free" tv out of business?
Regardless if you think that their business model is out of date (which it isn't), millions of people rely on local tv for news, severe weather alerts and the like.
It seems quite selfish for PVR owners to ruin television for those people too poor to own such devices. If they choose to not watch commercials, great... but there is no reason to kill my local stations who bring me free programming.
The sick thing is this: Cable TV shouldn't charge you for channels, many are commercially supported. The only thing you should pay for is HBO, etc (actually, they should charge only a modest amount for those Comedy Centrals and etc., although we pay out the ying-yang).
What is bothersome is when you pay for something and you get commercials... other than that how can my local NBC station collect money on every set out there with rabbit ears? Exactly! they can't!
Really, it's like web sites who provide information or entertainment but don't sell a product: how can they expect to survive? Donation? Give me a break.
Get your Unix fortune now!
You have to prove that you don't watch *any* broadcast TV, not only BBC. If you have a VCR, you have to have the tuner removed from it to avoid paying the licence.
I work for a large, multinational marketing research company. In the US, our main income is from testing TV ads.
To all the naysayers: Yes, TV ads DO work. Over time, there is a direct correlation between TV time and sales revenue. A couple of years ago, I saw a graph of Sega ad $$ vs. Sega Genesis sales. it was a direct line. Reduce ad time (and $$) and sales went down.
If BurgerKing or McDonalds were to stop advertising, they would be severly down on sales within the year, bankrupt within two. How is this, you say? *Everybody* knows about BK. Well...you are far more likely to go to the one you just heard about. On TV (or radio or wherever).
Take away ads, and the only other option is complete pay-per-view. Maybe as part of a package deal, but still the same. hmmm...isn't that where cable is now?
Companies will *still* need to get their product name out there in front of people somehow. The standard 30 second ad, product placement, pop-ups, whatever. But ads will stil be around because they work.
Who else is sick of these self righteous bastards bragging about how little television they watch? The Unabomber didn't watch TV either. .
One of the great advantages of having no ads is that there is no concept of ratings. [...] you can concentrate on the providing quality content,
You can provide content which will please the programmers. You will, however, have little indication of what pleases the public and honestly little reason to care. Stuff like that tends to carry fairly esoteric material, aimed to a narrow subset of the public (not nessecarily your subset!), instead of widely popular content.
Buying into "brand" loyalty is a great concept for extremely high precision devices like cars or jet engines (at least, if you are buying based on reliability history), but brand of cereal? Toothpaste? Come on. Try your alternatives. Advertisements are not altruistic informational messages.
In the six day stint I worked at Best Buy as a young'n they told us that the ultimate goal of a retail corporation is to be associated with a picture/logo. They hope to one day have nothing but the big yellow tag in front of the stores without any letters. I suppose that is to corporations what being called Cher or Madonna is to entertainers...
You US guys just live in a sad world. If you visit Europe some day you might realize that TV that you can actually watch and enjoy is possible. High quality. No or very few ads, but only *between* different features. Features that last two hours or more, without interruption. The idea behind this is, that a civilized country not only has a public interest in an army, infrastructure or a space program, but also in culture. An one part of todays culture is television. At least outside of US. (e.g. www.arte-tv.com, in French and German)
Product placements (I've never seen numbers to know how much these bring in), and commercials that take up an arbitrary chunk of the screen would be effective still, if they played while the tv show is going on.
"...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... "
I haven't seen an ad for something I was interested in for years.
Advertising must die - if it brings television with it on the way down, like a house of cards... what can we do about that? Ah, anyone remember when they said that the lower 25% of the screen were to become an ad even during programming? Death to ads!
You mean like that Xbox episode of Will and Grace?
Product placement is much more insidious and subtile than regular ones. They're also more effective and harder to get away from.
Can you imagine product placements in social satire like Futurama or Freaks and Geeks?
Two words: Pledge Week
Public television is supported by pledges...so someone must be paying them. Therefore, use this method for all channels.
How about NOT forcing people to watch repeating information that is not healthy.
It would be prime to see networks (non-profit too) that produce quality drama, comedy, educational, and reality programming and have people VOTE on what they want to watch. In order to VOTE, you would have to watch commercials that provide support for the programs. Commercials are unsolicited spam in video format. Using an email registration system and an onscreen voting system, they could doubly spam the hell out of everyone. Maybe force you to find a word in the email to renew your ability to vote or something that requires interaction.
I haven't time to list most of the ideas I have and I don't really see what the dilemma is.
How about making commercials so interesting that people DON'T want to skip them? Anyone ever think about giving people stuff they want along with the crap they are trying to force feed you? Fine art, MUSIC VIDEOS, hot babes, educational information, etc. There is lots people want to see and lots that people find helpful. I rarely find such content in commercials. No wonder people want to skip them.
bj@ossf.org
It's already been discussed on Slashdot - advertisements will be incorporated into the scenes of each TV show. It will become impossible to separate "ad" from "show" without blacking out large portions of the screen...
Personally I'd love to pay by the show - after all I only consider about 1% of the TV we pay for (~200 cable channels) worth watching. But the studios would probably balk at this because they'd have a hard time introducing new shows...
The fact is, companies advertise because they actually want you to buy their stuff; they want your money, they don't want to give you theirs. So, if TV stations relying on advertisers is an "outdated method," then other companies relying on people, you know, actually finding out about their products so they can buy them must also be outdated.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
Offer contests to those that watch commercials.
Everyone that calls within a 10 minute time period after seeing an announcement in an ad gets entered to win.
Make commercials entertaining.
Better production, dramatic vignettes, serial storylines.
Offer compensation for watching commercials
For 5 minute of commercials you watch you get 30 minutes of pay-per-view TV. Require the person to respond to random prompts during the commercials.
Federally mandate a "Commercial Hour"
Nothing is offered on any station except commercials for one hour a day. As everyone knows, people will watch anything if they want to veg in front of a TV.
Allow folks to voice an opinion.
Offer viewers a system where they can interactively rate a commercial. People will watch just for the opportunity to say "You Suck"
And what great TV has come over the american airwaves recently? I haven't seen much, in fact I've taken to watching reruns of M*A*S*H, Bugs Bunny and Simpsons. Other than that, there isn't much good on TV here,ecept Who's Line Is It Anyways (oh but wait that's a british show).
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I don't know if you've noticed where you live, but in Los Angeles, the ads during the middle of the TV show are getting out of hand. The full bottom quarter of the screen is being filled with some animated ad for another program, and I'm sure ads for products are coming soon. I've just about given up on TV all together. Talk about annoying! You'd think they'd be smart enough not to do it when there is text on the bottom of the screen the viewer is trying to read. The Discovery channel is especially guilty of this. Try watching an interview with a famous french scientist and not being able to read the subtitles because there's an ad for the new HotRod racers show blocking your view.
The only problem now will be that TV shows will have to fill the whole 30 to 60 minute time slot, due to the lack of commercial breaks.
1) Remove TV license. They're stupidity on a platter. I'm so pissed of at having to pay a whopping $160 a bloody year to NOT watch the total crap they send on our government paid channels. But they don't care if you watch it or not, the price is to pay for the privilege of having paid $1500 for a TV set in order to watch DVDs like they're meant to be watched.
2) Make all channels pay channels. Want to watch it? Then pay the monthly/quarterly/yearly fee to do so.
3) Result? Channels sending what people actually want to watch for the people willing to pay to watch it. No more having to pay for the 10 people in an isolated part of your country getting x% of the total programming dubbed into their language and crap like that.
Does it work? I don't see the movie channels going bankrupt (not sure about the rest of the world, but over here movie channels are 100% ad free).
If you can prove that you don't watch any television channels, you do not have to pay. If you watch television channels, but never watch the BBC, you still have to pay for it. So it's illegal to watch TV without paying for the BBC, even if you hate the BBC and never watch it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Per house. Oh, and if you've got a portable TV that runs off batteries, that's covered as well. And any video recorders, TV cards or other goodies.
It's not a lot of money. You get 8 ad-free channels on digital TV, and 4 channels with ads. However, the ad breaks only last about 1 minute, and only happen every 15 minutes or so. Compare this with Sky 1, where the ads are about 2:30 every 10 minutes.
Though it's unlikely anyone will have the chance to read it considering how far behind I am.
With the new digital technology out for broadcasting, combined with integrated technologies (tv meets web browser), one could do something similar to the product placement, however, far more subtle.
First, I'd like to show off a nice already existing example. When people by those magazines that are 85% ads and 12% articles (the remaining three percent includes picture layouts, context, covers, etc), there is a distinction in what people are interested in. A full page advertisement showing a dress gets attention, but no matter who's in it, it doesn't get too much pull from people that would be interested in it. However, when an article shows some model coincidentally (or so one might think, atleast) wearing clothing, be it the same dress, or jeans and a shirt) and she's doing whatever the picture and article relate to (growing her own herbs, for example), people are more likely to attempt purchase those items, as well as gain interest in their own indoor herb garden.
Now, expand this concept to television. Imagine the set having capabilities of many dvd systems, with a moveable pointer and what not. With extraneous data being streamed in the digital image identifying objects and people within the show, the broadcast really has three parts, objects&locations, image and sound. With how extensive much of modern production is, this would include a lot of stuff! Now, when you're watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and you see this nifty retro-eighties lamp in The Magic Box, you can either activate and move the cursor to that lamp, or wait until after the show, go back to the scene, and move it to the lamp and select it. You'd probably get a "research now or bookmark for later" option. When you finally choose "research now," you get what it is, whose it is and where you can get one, along with all the buyer's research data you'd be interested in. Chugging down a Mountain Dew wouldn't look right, as most people don't make sure you can see the product label, but selecting whatever was being drunk (or theoretically being drunk/represented) would be far more desirable.
Random thoughts for random people.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
If you're a government, and can fund your programmes with taxes (that you can force all television-owners to pay even if they never watch your channel), it's not too hard to survive. But that's not exactly a "real" business model.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I've there's such a thing as an ad schedule (I was thinking about that once), it means you can separate the program from the ads...
Sometimes, I like to take a break, so I'd be interested in hitting the AD button on my PVR remote, and I go have a leak or whatever while the other viewers enjoy the ads.
And as a child, I loved watching ads, so I'm sure some would like to watch all the ads of a program at once!
Now, the question is, would enough people watch the ads to make it still acceptable to advertisers?
... should have a morbid obesity tax.
It's not, technically, a tax. Money the government makes you pay to them is a tax. Money the government makes you pay to somebody else is not a tax.
Maybe I should check my facts more thoroughly, but the position as I understand it is this- the license fee is for right to own/use the equipment, not to receive BBC TV.
The British government give the BBC some money. (Not) coincidentally, this is about equal to the license money collected- but legally, the government could allocate it to resurfacing the Houses of Parliament with Nutella instead. Or whatever.
Of course, this is just the legalistic point of view- no-one except the most pedantic cretin would deny that the license fee funds the BBC- but I'll bet it's convenient for the government (got satellite TV, but can't receive the BBC? Tough! No refund).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
It's not as bad in the theatres where I am now, but I've seen it VERY bad in bigger centres.
It not only pisses me off, it makes me want to get a gun and have a chat with the theatre manager.
The worst ones are of course the brand new megaplexes that are sprouting up.. It wasn't uncommon to see 4 or 5 commercials before the trailers in the last one I used to frequent. Insane!
Cheers,
Backov
In the law there is no overlap between theft and copyright infringement whatsoever.
There are non-free channels that have no commercials -- HBO, etc. Only if you don't want them, you don't have to pay for them.
On the other hand, the BBC makes everyone who owns a TV with a receiver pay for it, even if they don't like the BBC and never watch it. Good way to make money, if you can get it, but not exactly a fair business model.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I see it differently - we already had Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini amd Franco, right. You have Bush. Excuse me - if I have to choose between the culture that gets selected by professionals who are paid by the state and the "culture" that gets selected for you by some ad-dependent multimillion dollar company I will stay happily with the one that is not crap, thank you very much. But after a while you probably get to like that kind of tv not unlike you got used to thinking that what McDonalds and Co serve you is actually food. I would have no problem with that if your country wouldnt insist on imposing all that bullshit on the rest of the world.
I pay what I consider an exorbitant monthly fee for my digital cable access, considering the number of actual programming hours I watch - and then I still have to deal with fscking commercials.
Here's the deal: Commercials are good, and should be there. TV really is different than renting a movie, and always should be. Yes, you can PVR your favorite stuff, but where's the fun in that. Live shows, your favorite sitcom, the local news, etc are all best enjoyed when they're actually on, not when replayed at will. Without the commercial breaks, when would you get up from the couch to move the laundry to the dryer, or step out for a cigarette, or grab a bag of popcorn?
The problem is that they've gotten greedy and made too many commercials, to the point that they're just stupid and annoying wastes of my time. They need to go back to an "intermission" model. Raise my cable rates about 25% higher than they currently are - use a lot of that revenue to replace lost ad revenue instead of lining the cable company's inefficient pockets - and cut waaay back on commercials. I think an appropriate level would be one 3-5 minute commercial break during a half-hour regular TV show, and one 5-7 minute commercial break per hour during a longer item like a movie or major event. People would pay the extra cable bill to cover it - and product placement covers some more. If that's not enough to cover it - well then there's too many talentless worthless people in the entertainment industry with too much money, they can take the pay cut.
And yes, they should send commercial marker signals, and PVRs should skip them. The commercials are for live watching, not for recording. And of course it should still be illegal to rebroadcast or sell your recordings, but there's no sense in trying to use technology to enforce that.
11*43+456^2
True, government commercials suck and are ineffective on average. That's because government doesn't have to increase its profits, but it likes to increase its costs. So the incentives to choose effective advertising campains is low - and thus we get stupid ads and ineffective policies.
The future is product placement, my friend. Only with product placement can commercial content get to viewers without such interference from pesky technology. Law & Order Classic, 2004:
"Before we investigate and inevitably arrest the prime suspect, why don't we relax and enjoy the soothing, refreshing taste of a Vanilla Coke?"
"Your honor, I request a recess so that we can try the new Subway Select Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich, only $2.99 for a limited time."
"The jury is hopelessly deadlocked, your honor. Half of the jury believes that the the defendant's beverage tastes great. The other half is convinced that it is less filling."
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
I thought you were allowed to use those old school attennas to watch tv for free. Good ol' bunny ears how I miss the days of having my little cousin hold em up while I watched the simpsons. ;)
It is my position that consumers should pay for that which they consume, and remove from their selection that which they do not. I'm not sure that I like the current business model for the simple reason that it requires me to spend on something I do not wish to use. That being said, I also believe in the "public" airwaves which used to exist, but in their current form have such poor reception in most areas that a cable connection is almost always needed. I believe that an amalgam of user-fees for the private airwaves, and public contributions for the "free" could result in an essentially advertisement-free business model. This would not only suffice in eliminating the ubiquitous product solicitations some of us wish to avoid, but it would actually improve the product (e.g, the better channels would survive; the lesser ones would not). Further, if one is concerned with the absense of product visibility, it would certainly be worth a try to use product placement (E.T. eats Reese's Pieces), or non-obtrusive ads (NASCAR, or the banner at the top of soccer games). In a utopia, it could work.... But it won't because advertising executives would balk, network executives would balk, corporations that create the products would balk, etc. So much for a more "viable" business model.
Here's the real problem - there is no such thing as a free market of TV. ESPN and MTV can claim millions of viewers, but they have millions more (like me) who pay for the channel via cable but never watch it. Yea, like I really wanted to fund Pat Robertson's family channel..I mean Fox Family..I mean ABC family. And yes, I really like funding Fox News, don't you?
The only choice I have is to either get those channels I don't watch, or go without what I would consider quality TV (TLC, Discovery, BBC America, and so on).
I'd pay the same amount now that I pay for cable for 1/2 the available channels if I could choose what channels they were.
This seems to work for the HBO/Showtime/Cinemax channels, and they even get in a good deal of original programming as well, so there's proof a method like this would work.
You know, a certain number of advertisers almost always promote their products on TV...if they are pushed out of television, they're going to have to find other avenues for advertising.
This means for you....more spam, more banner ads, more radio commercials, more billboards, and whatever new and unusual methods of advertising they can think of. (The cell phone shills in bars from a previous article for example)
I don't deny that TV commercials need to be toned down...but if they're gone entirely, that could make the rest of our existance get overloaded with ads.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Thinking about this, we want this.
Because then the sheep will become the targetted market.
If you are not a sheep, you win. If you do not purchase the desired products, you do not meet the desired demographics, you fall off the radar.
Just don't get trapped. Don't be sheep.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Granted that in 'libertopian capitalism' protectionist measures of this sort never never exist, just like libertopian capitalism itself. But in the real world the US today has heaps more protectionist measures of this sort than the UK has - the $190 billion farm bill, the steel tarifs and the trillions spent on military boondogles like Crusader, Start Wars, etc.
The comercial driven US model of network television is entirely a creation of government. As Ithiel Pool noted in technologies of freedom the US government got control of TV by controlling access to the airwaves. The network TV model suits politicians because it allows them direct access to their constituents in TV adverts. Individual politicians don't have campaign ads in most countries for a simple reason, the TV systems are national, the coverage areas are too large to be used for an individual politician's campaign.
Fortunately the network model is already collapsing under pressure from satelite and cable. Cable TV in theory offers the possibility of targetted local ads but in practice this only works well on the older analog systes with a small number of channels. When we had AT&T cable the 45 theoretical channels became 8 in practice once you eliminated the home shopping channels, religious channels run by child molesters, Fox NAZI news etc. So a politician could still get an audience with a buy on a small number of channels. With 100 odd channels that gets harder.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
We all pay for television because the cost of the products we buy includes a price for advertising that product. It follows that if there was no TV advertising, we'd save (on average) at least as much as it costs to produce those TV shows because all the products we'd buy would be proportionately cheaper.
Ideally, adverts would cease, products would get cheaper - but we'd have to pay to watch TV. A simple pay-per-view model with encryption would be simple to create when digital broadcasting becomes standard.
However, Joe Public wouldn't like that (because he's irrational and doesn't understand numbers) so we'd have pay for TV out of a sales tax raised on the kinds of products that used to be advertised. Since without adverts, products would be cheaper, raising the tax should have no economic effect on society as a whole.
We ought to be able to save money overall because the cost of filming the adverts is significant - and that's an expense that just doesn't occur in the new world. Of course without the adverts, we'd need more content-per-hour but you need that if you are advert-skipping with your PVR anyway.
Advertising is just a *huge* drain on everyone's resources - it should be illegal. Just *ban* in. The constitutional right to free speech in the USA should NEVER have been extended to companies - it should only apply to individuals.
If there was no advertising whatever in the world, we'd all be MUCH better off. No TV interruptions, no ugly freeway billboards, no SPAM, no cold callers, no popup ads. Cheaper goods, more broadcast bandwidth. Products would have to be sold on their true merits instead of their advertising budgets. Small companies could compete with the big guys on an equal footing once more. More choice, better quality.
You could still find out the best products that are out there (if you really NEED to know which is the better soap powder) using a model similar to online book stores where you have reviews of the product written by the general public. That gives you the TRUTH and it's genuinely an opt-in system. If I'm going to buy a car, I'd much rather read the reviews written by people who own the car than watch pictures of it driving along improbably twisty roads or splashing pointlessly through mud. As a male dog owner, I wouldn't even need to *know* about the existance of things like Cat Litter and Feminine Hygene products...Hooray!
You *might* still allow companies to have *strictly* opt-in advertising - like their own web sites extolling the virtues of their product - or opt-in email bulletins about new products that their customers might be interested in.
Death to All Advertising!
www.sjbaker.org
Hell, I'd be happy with having commercials JUST between shows and not in the middle. I hate it with a passion when I'm getting into a show and then it switches to martha stewart trying to sell something. It's just a killjoy.
Much as some ads are annoying, they still serve a purpose. They help the station generate revenue, which ultimately reduces the amount of money you have to pay.
So what should happen is people should have choices between ad-supported stations and ones for which they have to pay extra.
Granted, ad-supported stations will face (pretty much) insurmountable difficulty with new technologies which allow people to skip over ad sections. The solution to this is to make ads people are interested in -- targetted advertisement.
This means more than just breaking people down into groups; i.e., everyone who watches FOX NEWS must be interested in The Wall Street Journal, so we'll put advertisements for it there. What's needed is for targetted advertisement depending on the person. A person's machine monitors what shows (s)he watches, and a person inputs information on what type of products he'd be interested in, and can rate ads...this can allow a system in their device (w/o any privacy concerns, b/c it'd all be in their device) to target ads to them.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
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?
uhh its called cable, and we would pay more for it.
or they would change their methods of advertising to counter the technology that lets you skip them. Its hard to tell the difference between someone giving a quick news headline versus a commercial product pitch.
I can't decide whether I'd rather watch TV shows with commercials or read the articles with "Comments" on Slashdot.
Mindless drivel vs. um, mindless drivel.
I think I'll stick with TV and commercials. At least with TV, I'm not tempted to waste even more time responding to the mindless drivel.
-Rick
Such a deal, and no late fees! I just finished Bridge on the River Kwai, Godfather Part 1 and tonight? Matrix or Lawrence of Arabia.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation - http://www.abc.net.au/) is entirely taxpayer funded, and according to their old slogan, costs each and every Australian only 8c a day to run (maybe it's more now with inflation, I don't know).
For that, we get a TV station, multiple radio stations, and an internet site with broadband content.
Doesn't seem like a bad deal to me, of course I doubt the thought of a government run TV station would go down so well with the "Libertarian" bent of slashdot. Still, the ABC is the least biased source of news and current affairs in this country...
I'm stupid enough to pay a wad of cash every month to my local cable monopoly to feed me a bunch of useless programs I don't watch. If you're in the States, odds are your payin' someone, too.
Bear in mind that commercial TV is just that: commercial. From an economic point of view, it is an advertising and marketing medium for the sponsors. They'd run white noise if we'd watch it.
The best way to change television's "business model" is to turn off your set and cancel your cable or satellite subscription.
Personally, I'd opt for the UK's TV license fee scheme. A lot of Brits don't like it because it's mandatory and enforced, but the programming is better.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
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...
I like to see advertisements...
Even the ones for maxi pads cause they got cute girls in them.
I liked seeing the Dude Your getting a dell dude... for maybe the first 10 times... but then I started changing the channel when their adds came on.
I think every citizen in the US should get a slice of the bandwitdh, and be able to put whatever they want on it (maybe 10 minutes every week or month... or an hour each year... or some combination... of time sharing and or very narrow slices of bandwitdh... (more ideas in my head)
Anyway, then people will have to pay cost of their brodcast (witch should be rather low)... and may have to team up with other TV show fans to get thier show seen... maybe sign over their time to a network (they can revoke their time even durring brodcast in my model, however it comes back at the end of a combined period)...
And then people would need PVR's to combine the 10 minute segments of time that people have donated...
And then to pay the studio...
Open Accounting (my site is down, sorry),
Community Commissioned artwork, with abundent good accounting information being required.
(I might like a show enough to pay 100 bucks for it if nobody else wants to watch it, but then if evreybody wants to watch it... I don't think the producers should get more than 1000 dolars for it, so I'd pay 1 dollar... etc... To commision the NEXT epidode, for public domain release (GPL style).
So it would be like an auction... with more complex rules.
Producer asks for 100,000 dolars minimum for a show, 200,000 max usable (really up the quality with better special efects, live more luxuriously etc)...
Joe bidder really loves the show, and would pay $50 to see the show if it was his own thing...
he thinks that the show should get the full 200,000 bucks.
his pledge would be for 50 bucks if less than
100,000 dollars are raised, 30 bucks if less than 120,000, 20 bucks if less than 150000 10 bucks if less than 180000 1 dollar if less than 200000, 20 cents or something like that if greater than 200000 bucks are collected.
I think this can work.
Please use [ informative / summarizing ] SUBJECT LINES
Flame me here
I don't know about the rest of you, but there are commercials like. I know I'm not alone, as millions of people surfed AdCritic.com till it bombed.
The ads don't bother me. If I don't have to pay a license fee to watch TV, and I can see all the shows I enjoy, I don't care if there are ads.
I make the choice to pay attention. I have control of my TV. I can change the channel if a commercial really annoys me.
Obviously, the people commercialing will then have to deal with paying to commercial on the TIVO boxes rather then with the networks (well in conjunction), and then the networks in turn will make the people who make the TIVOS pay them a cut to provide the content. Thus recycling the old model once again, until something new comes along that can remove the new ads from the ad removing tivos hehehe.
http://www.vanillaafro.com - take me seriously and I will shoot you
"Poor white trash? Make a little money while you sit on your ass."
Advertise to people so poor that they have to endure commersials and thus can't afford any products?
OK so we all know we hate ads. Because they typically don't lead us to what we want. Thats no secret. I personally don't need a cure for that ED, but some people do (and theres nothing wrong with that). But some ads do work for me.
We all buy stuff off the internet. Most PVR owners do as well. TIVO has this "if you watched this and gave it thumbs up" system for taping random stuff for me...and Amazon likes to try to sell me stuff that relates to what I've bought in the past. Why not take the information out of the corporation databases and put it in the box? If I could shop (and I meen really shop where you look at stuff and compare features and prices and all that sort of stuff) from my TIVO simply...now theres something. And if it would recomend thing that I might like (and if it learns from the scorn I give it when it blows it) then this sort of advertizement might work.
Show me ads when I want to buy something. Let me do some research on what I need...if that is a Pizza to get me through the Buffy marathon...then show me who's got pizza I like and on sale. If I'm bored and need a new game show me the ads for the ones I might actually buy.
This won't cover the "gee...I really feel like drinking that last Frapachino in my fridge" ads that are also out there, but it does get the ads I might want to se to me in a more targeted way, without a central registry of what I like.
So how do the networks get in on this...how about having some of the spare bandwidth for the new digital TV go to allowing the PVR to catalog whats advertized on that network and download the interesting ones for me to use if I need them.
I don't know if this would work or not. I'm not sold on it...but its an interesting twist from the way we do things now. Would it be used or simply ignored...of course that depends on how good of a shopping interface you can get to with only tens of buttons.
Today is a gift. Save the receipt.
Not when they show it on the BBC with no adverts padding it out.
If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?
Sounds like you're insecure in your lack of tv watching. *I* wasn't the person who felt the need to start a just to inform everyone: "Look at me!!! I don't watch TV like a lot of you do!! I'M DIFFERENT!!! Pay me the due I feel I deserve for thinking I'm unique."
I personally find the fact that you judge people based on what they want to do with their spare time to be disgusting as well. Cockbag.
That is your opinion, and you are in the minority. Did you ever stop to think that maybe you might be missing something that others have, like taste, a sense of humor, or the ability to watch something just because it is fun?
The US is the only place in the world that pretty much did not have that discussion. Consequently we have over 1 million commercials pushed in our faces by the time were 18, and still they are finding new ways to push even more: in show commercials, bars along the bottom/sides of the screen...
There are other models. But none that don't conflict too much with the corporate dominated media, and the 'Profit over People' capitalism.
Things can survive without profitability margins. The airwaves are owned by the people. Try that on for size. Or just go back to your university and allow them to sell your thesis for $500, or allow a private company to patent your work.
... educated, lifeless, lurker zombies.
They go bump in the night (and type efficiently in their sleep).
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
You have to wonder. These guys spend gazillions on putting their message in front of people who really don't want to see it. I guess it's just a shame that PVRs have drawn their attention to this, so that they'll no longer fund your favourite show. The question then really boils down to, "How can we continue to kid them that advertising is worthwhile, so they'll continue to foot the bill?" This, unfortunately, sounds like a fairly doomed arrangement to me.
The most sensible alternative I have seen, is pay-per-show. Already, you can go to Blockbuster, and hire a DVD or video of several Friends episodes or Star Trek episodes, or whatever floats your boat. Extending this to TV is entirely possible with PVRs, and if priced well, could be an entirely attractive option (after all, I'm not interested in subscribing to a channel, just in seeing the few shows I want to watch). I know I'd be happier to subscribe to a season of Futurama, than to a channel which may or may not show that season of Futurama. This may not be ideal in all situations. For example, I can see that the current system may work better for music channels, for which I am more interested in seeing a stream of "whatever they want to show me". However, I believe this system could satisfy everybody's interests for more general programming.
On a different note, to all the British posters who have pointed out the BBC's funding model, I have to say, I don't watch any BBC programs, and I resent being gouged for 100 quid a year for a service I don't want. I'm sure that this socialist model of TV funding would *not* be accepted in the US, even if things were centralized enough for it to be possible.
not_cub
PS Last time I said bad things about the BBC, all hell broke loose. Moderators who love the BBC, feel free to ignore that bit ;)
q='echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"';s=\';b=\\;echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"
When there aren't commercials then the stations and networks will simply have to sell their air time to the highest bidder. I am sure that at the right price there is plenty of air time available and without commercials competing the price should be right. Oil companies can produce shows that illustrate how they can drill their way to a better world, politicians can dramatize their idiologies, and, in short, the American television mindshare can be bought by whomever has the cash. One could argue that the sponsors already exert considerable control but at least there is some isolation.
No technology that I have seen has been free of side effects.
Actually, this statement is incorrect. The BBC sold more than one million licenses before its first radio broadcast on 14 November 1922. Its first television broadcast wasn't until 2 November 1936, when there were only a few thousand television receivers. Obviously, the BBC license fee was not created to protect newspaper advertising revenues from TV.
In fact, I would be very interested in seeing any credible evidence that the BBC license fee was instituted as a "crony capitalism protection measure" to shield newspapers from radio.
Up here in Manitoba Canada, we only have one Television company at the time, Shaw Cable... Currently they offer 4 Tiers of Cable packages, plus Digital... Next year, a new Television company is going to start offering cable packages per channel, where you pay for only the channels you want, nothing else... This way the cable company can focus on better content, if they decided to put sponsor logo's on the screen and cut out ad's. I'd go for that.
Your "profit before people" comment goes over the top. In capitalism. one makes money by providing a product or service that people want. If you fail to please a significant number of consumers, you fail in business. It's that simple. Profit cannot come before people, because it is exactly people who purchase your product or service. I am always surprised so many people don't understand that. Unrestrained capitalism, when coupled by a lack of humanity, can be very awful. This situation of power and evil can be found wherever human beings exist. Unrestrained fascism, communism or any other system can be equally awful. Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's the only system that works. Some abuse power and privelege in every country. I just don't know where you get this idea that every corporation has meetings to sit down and discuss how to opress people in this fiscal quarter. The conspiracy mindset continues to elude me. Sure, when Rumsfeld conveniently announces that al Qaida has moved to Iraq, I get suspicious. I think, "maybe it's all getting too convenient.". But I have the right to take up arms. Even against my own country when it goes too far. I am not an unarmed serf working another man's land. Most Americans are complacent sheep. So are most Europeans. America also has quite a few dissidents. That demonstrates a healthy governmental ecosystem.
First seasons of shows would be free to get them going, and reruns would be at a discount.
4Literature - Read, write, and discuss your favor
I already pay for cable/directv correct? Think about this for a moment, who is really benefiting from that money? ABC, NBC? Nope. The cable or sattelite company. I say TV stations need to go after them for money. I already pay for the service, and should include content as well. It's like paying for internet service and being bombarded by ads at the same time on every website you visit. It sucks, I say web site owners that get a lot of traffic should be going after ISPs for some revenue, TV should work the same way.
Product placement in television could prove to be like the movies currently are (*cough* apple *cough).
That along with advertisements on the bottoms of screens during television shows.
If they get creative enough they'll find a way to survive. You can't tell me there's no money in putting on a show without commercials. At absolutely worst it will just be much less free television and more pay for what you watch.
How do airlines survive without subsudies?
And so on.
I think TV will get annoying INLINE banner ads. That's all. Next question.
What I don't like is these awful ads that rich comapnies put out, and the even worse ones on local TV which are obviously drawn up by idiots with a handycam and a lobotomy. Don't even get me started on radio ads...
Good placement is important too - viewer profiling (a la Opera where you can put in your demography and it will only show you relevant ads) is feasible with cable and any future broadband 'TV' - I am interested in some adverts just because of the product, even if I won't necessarily buy anything.
But TV will not survive without advertising, unless we pay much more than we do at the moment; it just need to be less offensive than it is at the moment. I change the channel when some come on - what a poor representation of the company that is...
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
Bugger off. Taxes do not equal socialism. UK programming is better, on average, than programming in the States. As is any TV that doesn't depend on advertising revenue.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
You should have taken my sollution, ditch the day job, then you can watch 6 hours of tv AND 6 hours of /. :)
Profit cannot come before people, because it is exactly people who purchase your product or service.
Running for office, are we?
Reality check here. If is costs a corporation a million dollars to use slave labor in a third world nation to build a product that will create ten million dollars of revenue, you can bet your ass (or, the asses of a whole shitload of slave labor) that the company will jump on the opportunity.
It's called business, and business has been business for a good long time.
The middle mind speaks!
Your grammar isn't anything special either.
Karma: Non-existant. Due mostly to the fact that you smell funny and nobody likes you.
It's also great because (current strategies aside) they don't have to pander to ratings figures, but can afford to be that little bit more experimental with their programming.
I'm no great fan of socialism, but I still hold that it would be a sad day indeed if they disposed of the BBC's state funding.
Reality is the ultimate Rorschach.
Why do they have to air the goddamn things in the middle of shows anyways? it destroys the show, as plots are generally continuous. (and then they further mutilate the shows by forcing producing / writers to desiginate the plot around, and thus for, commercials... disgusting really.)
But, as far as business models go, a publically funded setup would work great. It could show shows like Farscape and whatever else is actually good, and people could donate during fundraisers (it is actually successfully done...). This would also force people out of their homes more often as less people might vegitate for hours on end (or, pro-economy, rentals might maximize).
Not to mention most commercials are obscenely molesting of any human mind, espicially children: sexist often, often terribly circumsizing to the limits of ours minds... What kind of bullshit they must generate in the 'dark' (as in the matter) pathos of our minds!
In print media, you have three business models (as my oversimplification): books, journals, and magazines.
Books are ad-free. You pay once and you get one book. This is a lot like VOD which is just starting on cable systems. VOD is not strictly the same as PPV, because you do get to choose when your viewing starts, and you can pause and stuff like a VCR.
Journals are by subscription and ad-free. You subscribe for a term and you get several different issues during the term, and there are no ads. Journals contain works that would not be practical to put out as books. But journals are roughly like SVOD which may soon be on cable systems that have VOD. The S stands for subscription. You'd pay so much a month to have VOD-style access to a collection of programs from one outfit like HBO. I can imagine one day subscribing to "The vampire channel" to see Buffy shows and related material.
Magazines are by subscription and loaded with ads. The works in a magazine are of various lengths but not practical to sell individually. This is a lot like "basic cable" where you pay $40-$50 for a selection of programs with ads.
Print (and its dead-fiber-source predecessors) are as old as anything. Ads are a relatively new part of Print but the history of Print suggests that you won't see ads going away from TV anytime soon.
The content oligarchy will withhold content from media that are incompatible with their interests as they see them. The content oligarchists are rent-seekers, after all. So the CE manufacturers will have to deliver on some form of 5C or HDCP copy protection that satisfies the content oligarchists, or there won't be TV to watch.
Therefore TV will continue to stratify and PVRs may be something that a few of us enjoyed before they were disabled. And ads will thus stay.
P.S. I acknowledge that the "analog hole" exists, but I think it could become a very awkward hole to exploit under the right conditions.
But compare the quality of the news reported on the BBC and on almost, really almost any, American-based 'news' firm. What news do you view/use exactly?
"The only thing standing in the way of `video on demand' is lack of demand." -- WiReD, 1996
Sure, it works for blacked out sporting events and porn, but that's all it has ever worked on, and that a very small percentage of the television watching market that wants to see Mike Tyson chew someones ear off.
-- Terry
You're missing the best part, amigo.. here in Canada we spend all our quality togetherness time as a family whenever the commercials start. Don't get me wrong - I think "commercial-free" is an admirable goal for some, but just think of the consequences before you advocate for the rest of us.
Cancel your cable/satellite/whatever subscription. Think of the money you'd save if you purchased just the Good Crap(tm) when it came out of DVD instead of paying for it and all the Bad Crap(tm) monthly.
You may surprise yourself by not even wanting to watch the Good Crap(tm) anymore.
Then, of course, the teams have logos on their jerseys, something which I am amazed American companies/sports teams haven't jumped on.
Perhaps one of the best examples in the world of very effective advertising is the way racing cars are painted. If you're seen a NASCAR race, each race car is painted in a different color livery, a color livery designed on behest of the primary sponsor of the car. I mean, who can forget the black-colored GM Goodwrench #3 Chevy race car of the late Dale Earnhardt? Or the rainbow-colored DuPont #24 Chevy of Jeff Gordon? Or the brown and white colored #88 Ford of Dale Jarrett? The color liveries of each race team not only serves to publicize the sponsor's name, but also provides a distinct identity to the team.
This is why I think by 2010 every professional sport in the USA will have team uniforms that will include a visible display of the team's primary commercial sponsor, just like what has been done on the top-tier European soccer teams. Anyway, here in the USA is already happening to sporting goods manufacturers; in the case of the American football the logo of Riddell, Nike, Reebok, etc. are seen on the complete football uniform of each player.
yeah it's a lot like looking at your watch and then someone sitting with you notices and says "oh, what time is it?" and you have to look again because you really weren't paying attention the first time.. lol. that crap happens to me all the time! ;)
Actually, yes. It is well known that poor people normally end up spending 100% of their money. Where do you think all the money McDonald's makes comes from? The Chattering Classes? No, welfare moms.
So yes, advertising to the poor is a very good idea. Especially if you want to keep them distracted and entertained. Opiate of the masses and all that.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
This in an excerpt from a comment made on another discussion site:
I may be an assclown but at least my ass isn't 300lbs and fed on a steady diet of olestra, ding-dongs, pork rinds, and bacteria-and-hormone-ridden meat while sitting stupefied before a mind-numbing television set awaiting the next episode of sad families being humiliated on "Cops."
You're using her as bait, Master!
The real question should be: "Can television actors survive on realistic wages?" The commercials are there to support the outragously over-paid actors, directors and producers. The cast of Friends makes 1 million per episodewhile the cast of the Simpsons will makes $100,000 per episode (the highest paid voice actors ever.) Does that seem a little out of whack to anyone but me? Television stations will not go bankrupt without commercial advertising, they will simply have to find people who will work for less and I for one can't wait.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
But if I get a penny for watching the commercials, I'm going to press play without even watching the crap. I'll find the most ad-intensive programs out there and watch them again and again (with the TV off). I'll probably write some computer program to handle the IR rewind to watch commercials again and again.
That sounds reasonable. I'm not a media buyer, but when an agency buys a spot on TV, don't they pay for every spot? For example, if commercial A runs at 7:00pm, and then runs again at 8:00pm, the ad company has to pay for 2 spots. So that should work in reverse. If you watch the spot at 7:00, then watch it again at 8:00, you should be compensated twice. Otherwise, the ad agency has to pay twice to the network, but the network is only paying you once? I think the ad agencies would be upset about that.
Why isn't everyone up in arms about my remote control? Before I ever had a PVR I "flipped" during commercials. The same thing happens with radio. Am I robbing these folks by flipping to another station for a few moments?? The REAL way that advertising makes money is by gauging how many people are watching the show, not the commercials.
It would seem that some savy media buyers are putting the squeeze on the folks that are selling the time on their venues. Is there really a difference between my "flipping" and my "skipping"? Other than the fact that it is easier to try to figure out how many people have PVRs than deal with the fact that EVERYONE has a remote.
To be quite honest, there is nothing on commercial TV that I am really interested in anyway. I don't watch public (PBS) either. The only thing I use the tube for now is watching DVD's. If commercial TV died I would even notice.
...It's like being proud of no longer reading books, or no longer listening to music, or no longer going out to restaurants or movies.
Nope and nope. Not better than the common man, unless you define the common man as a passive lump that lives to suck down mindless dribble. Nor is turning off the boob tube like denying yourself of those other things. Those things you chose out of many things and only do once or twice a week. TV just rams crap down at you. The less of it you watch, the more time you have for those other good things.
I'm not proud of the fact that I don't waste my time watching TV, I'm proud of the things I've done instead. BS, most of a MS, got an excellent job, and competitive bike riding. Not bad eh? Some of them would have to go if I wasted an hour or two a night trying to get news and relaxation off the tube. I love to tell people that they should turn the damn thing off because I want others to have good things too. How unsatisfying a source of news and relaxation TV is can only be understood after two or three months of not watching it. After a year or so, TV looks like it's broadcast from another planet.
Orwell called it prolefeed and it was for everyone.
In a better world, people will continue to sing, act and entertain each other without the sponsorship of large and small corporate intersts. I'm looking forward to the death of advertising in general. Boycot advertisers when you can.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That is where you are wrong. The BBC was from the very start conceived as a television and radio broadcasting company. Considerable sums were spent on research into television and a substantial amount of the technology used in modern TV was developed by the BBC.
The BBC was formed as a corporation in 1922 and received its royal charter in 1927. The first television signals were broadcast in 1936. The Hansard records of the House of Commons debates demonstrate that the potential of television was fully understood.
It does not take a great leap of imagination to realize the potential of combining the movies and radio. The newspaper barons understood correctly that TV would threaten both their power and their revenues.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
So now that viewers have found a way around the tedious mindfuck that is TV advertisement, maybe broadcast TV will finally die a natural death. Hopefully it will do so before we're all forced to buy HDTV enabled sets.
And honestly, who cares? There is so much else out there to do now. You can reclaim that TV time (books, family, friends, projects, sleep) or waste it even more pleasantly (DVDs, video games, online chat clients, the web, mp3 hunting, sleep).
Don't get me wrong - I'm no "TV is evil; unplugging it will cure all your problems" preacher. But if making broadcast TV tolerable to watch is what kills it - doesn't that mean its been doomed all along? And to put broadcast TV on life support just to keep your TiVO out of the attic for a few more months? Be real. That's like protesting the overall shift to CDs - so that AOL will keep sending you free, easy to reformat floppy discs!
"In a hierarchy every employee will rise to his level of incompetence". The Peter Principle
The BBC model tells me that there IS good programming available. Without it the American channels would have nothing to rip-off.
The amount of content from across the pond that has been morphed into something shorter to make room for the ads and "dumbed down" should make the MPAA and RIAA beg NOT to be taken out behind the congress and shot at dawn like the thieving dogs that they are.
But as long as advertisers hold the reins, you're not going to see anything worth watching for the most part because it distracts from the ads.
I tossed out the set years ago and apart from snatches of sports events caught in the occasional visits to some bars, I'm much happier reading or sitting in front of my monitor.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
>The BBC was from the very start conceived as a television and radio broadcasting company.
Pardon my ignorance, but how can the BBC be conceived a TV broadcasting when
television was not invented (patented) till 1927.
>The BBC was formed as a corporation in 1922 and received its royal charter in 1927. The first televisionsignals were broadcast in 1936. The Hansard records of the House of Commons debates demonstrate thatthe potential of television was fully understood.
Can you provide the link or references to the date of the Hansard records for such debates?
It does not take a great leap of imagination to realize the potential of combining the movies and radio.
Please elaborate on the point of the statement with regards to protecting the newspaper barons from TV.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
yeah it's a lot like looking at your watch and then someone sitting with you notices and says "oh, what time is it?" and you have to look again because you really weren't paying attention the first time.. lol. that crap happens to me all the time! ;)
:-)
you think that's bad. I've got you beat hands down. One day I forgot to put my watch on, and I looked at my wrist five times before I realized I forgot my watch. The moral of the story is I didn't really care what time it was.
That is your opinion, and you are in the minority.
I made a claim: that if an entertaining group is not affected by the opinion of its audience, then they will tend to perform stuff that they like, which is frequently not what the majority likes. Of course it's an opinion, but it's not a judgement call; it could easily be tested. Whether or not others disagree is irrelevant to the truthfulness of the claim.
One example of this may be French cinema; I'm told at one point in time, it was almost completely funded by the French government, and French audiences went to see American movies because few wanted to see the French movies.
the ability to watch something just because it is fun?
It's very hard to make something fun; it's much easier to make it "deep", and "insightful". What do you think that most show makers, freed of commercial obligations, would go for?
I think the only real solution is to change the television industry from a broadcast model to a model more like that used by cable companies, which charge for service. This would, however, increase the cost of cable service because customers would pay for the stations they view.
I'm thinking of those tv's where you can make one channel show up in a box in the corner or something. Basically, 2 things at once. I can see this being something that might be done.. constant commercial free (possibly) shows, with a "commercial channel" in the corner. Since it's on screen all through the show, you wouldn't be able to skip it with tivo and the like. Show producers would pretty much have to start planning around it, so action doesn't get covered up. Now that I think of it, I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.. though I assume such ads would have to be banners - silent movies maybe. Any sound would interfere with the original show.
Really, it wouldn't be so bad. One could grow to ignore it, if you so wished, you could probly get something to filter it and put a black box there.. but you'd gain nothing by it, so why? This is one things that would show even through recordings, with really no reason nor good effect from removing it.
-DrkShadow
Hospitals don't proscribe "tylenol" they proscribe "Acetaminophen" or "APAP", which are both terms for the generic chemical in Tylenol. And they don't proscribe it, but usualy Acetaminophen mixed with codine.
:P
If real tylenol was mixed with codine, they sure as hell wouldn't need to advertize the stuff
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, mind you. The only conspiracy is one of stupidity and sheep-like behavior, both for consumers and those making executive decisions in corporate America.
But you originally said that most peoples buying wouldn't change. Now you are complaining about a "Sheep-like behavior conspiracy"... the fact of the matter is most people
The fact of the matter is, thinking about stuff requires mental effort, and just like physical effort, people in general try to avoid it as much as possible.
People might benefit if they spent hours investigating different kinds of soaps, headache remedies, and colas. But they would also save money if they build their own house.
It might not be worth it.
And no, you wouldn't fail. You'd survive, maybe even make a comfortable revenue. You just can't make the outrageous yearly profits that everyone demands, or meet the gov's expectations of economic growth rate.
Average corporate profits in this country are like 5% or something.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Watch EdTV.
Already CNN, MSNBC, and a lot of other news stations have a bottom portion of the screen dedicated to metanews. The answer will probably be that they will periodically take over the lower portion of the screen to show sponsorship information. Networks could work with production companies to find the times when this is least intrusive to the story, since a cognitive disruption damages the brand and the show at the same time, after all.
In my opinion, this would almost be worth it to get rid of commercial breaks. True, commercials would have to lack video, and have to be compelling enough to entice with just words or graphics on a smaller piece of real estate (cough*bannerads*cough), but this might not be such a bad thing...
Kevin Fox
I already pay a cable bill every month. I'm sure they can re-partition that money so the content providers get MORE, as I am sure the already get SOME. I mean, hello? I pay for the shows I want already, I pay to have Fox so I may watch the Simpsons. I don't watch MTV, so I don't pay for it. That's why there are no commercials on HBO etc... The system is already entirely there, the business model is proven, bring on FOX-BO or something where you pay a couple bucks more a month to get it and there are no commercials.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
well maybe as a solution to the question rather than bickering, it's important to realise that surfin' the web is alot like t.v without breaks for commercials, instead of getting a set time of an advertisement, we get a pop-up ad. Now i read earlier on slashdot the up-roar from slashdotters about such pop-ups in t.v, but they've been a reality in australian television for the last 3+ months, usually in prime time programming.
Seriously, this is ridiculous. How do you know chocolate will taste good when you put it in your mouth? How do we know sex causes babies? How do we know providing water to crops makes them grow?
Its all about observed correlations. We do something, we see a change. If it happens over and over, we can assume that it'll make a change if we do it in the future.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Paying per show or per channel won't work, as told by some people here. Why? Because some people still get their TV signals the old fashion way: thru antenna. There's even some regions where cable is still not available (very small towns, cottage country, etc...). As long as the big networks (ABC, NBC, ABC, FOX, CBC, CTV, Global, etc...) transmit their signal thru the air, paying per show/per channel won't be viable. I have digital cable. I pay for extra channels like Discovery and TLC. I don't pay for NBC/CBS/etc... And if they wanted to charge for those, I'd just set up an antenna to watch those channels. I'm sure many other folks would too.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
I live in a city under Eastern Standard time. I've noticed that some networks air identical content for the most part here as well as to PST people but just offset by the 3 hours. So, I'm assuming that it would take one person under Eastern Standard Time who watches TV religiously to hit a button whenever the commercials start and hit another button whenever commercials stop to get the timing for such delayed broadcasts to block out commercials for the West coast people. Now I'm sure we can get even more precise if say 20 people do it and we use a little statistical interpolation of the data to get a more precise time (in the case of some people not being as attentive).
Of course the cooler way of dealing with this problem is my other suggestion. The PVR device tapes the entire show for those who requested it. Now the PVR boxes of those people who are actually watching that channel send back a signal whenever people switch away from that channel (based on the assumption that people change the channel when commercials start). Given that data, and signals whenever someone switches back to the channel and stays on the channel, i'm sure you could get a rough estimate as to when the commercials ended. So that data gets sent out to all PVR's on the network and if the PVR had taped that show, it goes through the process of splicing the MPEG file at those positions.
Some sort of group theory...
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
In those days you had to actually invent something before you were granted a patent. So the patent came after the research and inventing was done rather than after which is the more common model today. Also it was not possible to patent mere notions such as 'broadcast of moving pictures', you had to actually build the thing and demonstrate that it worked.
Copies of Hansard from the 1920s are not online. However it is not exactly an obscure publication, pretty much every university library in the UK has a set.
Or you could just read a biography of Reith.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I'd worn my watch for awhile and apparently gotten used to the magic "information from my wrist". It was embarassing because I'd check it for stupid stuff.
"Oh, what show is this? *glance at the watch* man, I'm an idiot"...
"When is that appointment? *glance at the watch* man, I'm an idiot"...
"Where'd I leave the remote? *glance at the watch* man I'm an idiot"...
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
I'll make this point short and sweet: what happens when commercials are as entertaining as the tv shows? The line between movies, tv, and commercials are being blurred with product placements and more subtle forms of "lifestyle" advertising. I don't even watch TV anymore, I just rip the stuff I want off broadband. If they had more broadband media (and learned how to take advantage of it) they wouldn't have to worry about it because they internet provides a mix of mediums for both advertisement AND entertainment. Now if they'd only learn to do away with the pop up boxes.... "The Medium is the Massage...." (McLuhan)
Happiness is a slider variable
Product Placement. The answer to everyone's problem would be to just omit commercials entirely and build them right into the programming. Product placement is less intrusive and keeps people on that station and in front of the TV.
We need an XML spec that defines the viewer's advertising preferences. Advertising is a way of life for free services. The thing I hate the most is watching Old Navy commercials. If there was an advertising preferences XML standard, advertisers wouldn't annoy me with stuff that didn't fit my preferences. I would be much more likely to sit through 5 minutes of commercials that advertise things I am actually interested in than to tell my Tivo to skip them.
OASIS would need to approve it. It could be kept in a standard location on each type of medium. The server side could pull down the viewer's advertising preferences, and dish out the appropriate ads.
This would benefit the viewer and the advertiser. Ads are a way of life for free services, I would just like to see this help the situation. We can do much better here. How do we make this happen?
--
The Grid Report
I agree - direct subscription on a pure individual show basis is the way to go.
HOWEVER - the problem likely would be initially the producers or distributors would charge excessive amounts - just like to music download companies are doing now. Your $100 for Star Trek is WAY too much.
People have to remember that the average consumer spends maybe $100 a month for entertainment. And that $100 is competed for by ALL the entertainment options including eating out, movies, etc. You simply CANNOT charge more than $5-10 for ANYTHING without the consumer simply dropping it. That's why people are screaming over $9 movie tickets.
So the cost of a subscription to a show should probably be no more than $2-5/month, and less on an annualized basis.
But it should be the way to go.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
They found that with VOD, people might watch a movie or two a month. With SVOD, where you pay a flat fee (say, $10) per month and get unlimited VOD, people watch it like f*cking crazy. And got addicted and never ever EVER left their cable bill unpaid!
The biggest problem the cable companies have is "churn" (customer turnover) and SVOD is a churn killer.
So the cable companies are currently building out the infrastructure to support SVOD.
One simple rule for its versus it's
HBO. I pay them every month, they send my Tivo movies and Six Feet Under, no ads other than the occasional bumper.
You want to watch TV? Pay for the delivery.
You want to not pay? Fine, you're going to watch shows interspersed with ads, or (worse) you're going to watch shows that have ads built-in.
Despite what you think about quality, variety, creativity, & talent, TV production takes a huge amount of money, and that money is going to come from somewhere. Do yourself a favor now, contact your provider (satellite/cable/etc) and list what you like and what you don't. Accurate feedback and customer loyalty will produce better-than-mediocre programming.
I also support PBS.
Most of the discussion so far breaks down into either how to sneak commercials in some other way or how to convert to a variety of Pay-For-Content schemes. However, what seems to be missing from the discussion is that commercials are a corrupting influence on our society and we would be much better off without them. I'm not saying it will save our souls, but just about any PFC scheme has the potential to improve our lives as a whole.
Sure this sounds a little extreme, but readers of /. are probably familiar with all sorts of lies that content providers are willing to tell us because it suits the business needs of their sponsors. Examples abound:
- We saw what happened when an investigative journalism team finally pointed out the dangers of side impact on certain trucks despite years of out of court settlements with gag orders. Their network was nearly shut down, they were discredited and the public was fooled.
- We've seen that the primary late night entertainment shows are just big infomercials for movies and books, but have no real content of their own.
- We've discovered that many shows that appear to be educational or documentary shows, are in fact created as a marketting ploy to make some other product appear better (think of movies like Twister or Atlantis and drugs).
- many many more...
It's not that these folks are necessarily evil, it's just that the business interests tend to pervert the actual content itself to what suits the advertisers rather than the viewers of the content. The result is that the content you see, whether it's pure entertainment, education or news, is distorted and even contains outright misleading information about important things. This cannot have a positive effect on our society even if it is merely the trivialization of important issues.This corruption is not just a subtle influence on our society. It affects the actual politics of the nation. We all know that it's very difficult for an honest polititian to get elected. The popular myth is that it's the money that corrupts politics. This is certainly no news flash, but a polititian without money is unlikely to win against one who does. Since getting money usually entails sucking up to those who have it politics is inherently corrupt. However, it's not really the money that corrupts things IMHO. The only reason polititians need money to run for office is to ADVERTISE so that their constituents can decide who to vote for. Commercials are the source of political corruption, not the money needed to buy them.
If television became a PFC medium, then everything would change for the better. As well as having to produce content that the viewers actually like, polititians would no longer have the option of spending $500,000 a minute to show you how photogenic they are and why their oponents are jerks. Instead, they'd have to actually convice the news media that their ideas are worthy of reporting to an audiece that will be increasingly fussy about the quality of their news because they have to pay for it. Also, that very same news media will no longer have to bow down to the advertizers, who are often the same folks who were paying the polititians in the first place. The news may even find itself under pressure from their customers, the viewers, not the advertisers, to report the political news on it's merrit.
So, pick any one of the many schemes proposed above, just make sure it isn't one of the ones that manages to just find another way for commercials to corrupt us and our world!
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
Corporate sponsored shows. They've worked before, such as the "DeSoto You Bet Your Life" gameshow. Heck, the new "Week in Wall Street" show on MSNBC uses exactly such a format. A few by-lines, perhaps the host discussing the product, and that's it. On the radio, Paul Harvey gives a twist to the in-show advertisements he does. It makes things more personable, when a person is speaking about the Bose Wave Radio or Dial-A-Mattress.
Remember Soap Operas? The very term refers back to when these Radio drama's were brought to you every day by various Soap companies. Could you handle "Days of Our Lives, brought to you by Palmolive! Remember folks, Buy 4 bottles of Palmolive, and recieve the 5th on us. See store for details."
There's something more wholesome about product placement, or sponsorships. If I ran IBM, I'd sponsor Tech Today or some similar show. Get your products showcased. Motorweek pulls the same thing with cars, being sponsored by car care products.
It's not a perfect solution, but it might work.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
I'm amazed. We have thousands of the world's best and brightest minds here, yet no one can come up with a better alternative to fund television than advertising.
There were a few other alternatives suggested, but all were actually more intrusive than commercials -- Buffy the Vampire slayer killing and then slamming down a Dew? C'mon.
"Sponsorship"? That's almost ridiculous -- why would you "sponsor" a TV show when you can't sell your product like you can in a commercial? How many people actually go out and buy a Budweiser because they "sponsor" a tennis tournament? Sponsorship is almost completely ineffective without commercials to reinforce the message.
Paying for the shows? Well, from the sampling here, people are willing to pay $0.50 per show and not much more. HBO was raised as an example of how paying for a network works out, but then again, what, are there about 20 hours (out of 744) of original programming on HBO per month? Plus, how many TV stations would there be if each one cost $15/month like HBO? Plenty of people may subscribe to a pay channel, but how many of you subscribe to 5, or 10 of them? Last I checked, I don't fix my tuner to a single network, I like shows on at least a dozen different channels. $15 x 12 networks is a lot more than I'm giving up now by watching commercials.
Could it possibly be that the advertising format is actually the optimal way for TV to be funded? If there was a better model, wouldn't it have been tried by now? If sponsorship was so great, why did it get phased out in the 50's? If product placement is so great, why aren't all shows stacked full of products? Why doesn't a network eliminate all commercials and use that as a way to attract audience?
Maybe because any other way to pay for the programming won't work.
So does it make sense to selfishly destroy TV as we know it through technology? Sure, we can do it. But should we? Why destroy TV just because we can?
Ralph
In addition to commercials between the shows, they allready embed products into the shows, this is called double dipping. Triple dipping is when the dish or cable forces you to pay for programming that you don't want, ie.. fox news, cnn, etc..
There are plenty of good shows on American TV lately. Alias is one of the most intriguing crime-drama-esque shows I've ever seen, and while Buffy's last season was slumpish, it's still good enough to qualify as "quality programming" (depending on tastes). Angel (the Buffy spinoff), in my opinion has surpassed Buffy as of last season, making it officially good, and there are plenty of other exceptional shows out there too. Gilmore Girls (admittedly a chick-oriented show), Junkyard Wars (the American one too), Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent (better than the original, IMHO), ER, etc., are all exceptional programs, and extremely well-done, whether you like them or not.
Granted, there may be more crap than quality, but that isn't sufficient to dismiss all the programming as crap.
-9mm-
>How about: Turn the fuckin thing off and go play >outside?
Doing something useful is always preferable to watching the idiot box.
(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.
Must be all that Pot. Kills the short term memory. :-)
.
Based on the opinions of the broadcasting representative who claimed that the ability to block advertisements was tantamount to theft, I wonder how long it'll be til they determine that those who do not watch TV, or for that matter, are perfectly happy not owning a TV, are therefore worse thieves? After all, if they aren't paying for the broadcasts flying through the air or cable, and yet not suffering any loss of either entertainment or information, they aren't "paying" for it by watching the ads...
Therefore anyone who downloads a video from usenet with the ads already cut out are adding to the criminal element (in their view), or, as they're listening to radio, or reading a newspaper, they're gaining knowlege without paying for a TV network's budget by watching advertisements they would otherwise ignore ANYWAY... For example, I'm a guy, why oh WHY would tampax ads matter to me? Similarly, I'm not a sports fan, so why would sports ads matter to me, let alone any frigging penile extention SUV ads when I can't even afford a $500 beater Pinto?
Oh, wait, I don't FIT to their advertising demographic, I'm committing theft because I watch their ads without even being able to afford the crap they advertise!...
Does this seem even remotely moronic or outrageous to anyone besides me?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The model I think works best is the subscription model like the BBC and other countries use. This could be used in combination with other revenue models. Look what's happening to radio for example. XM anf Sirius are beginning to make it. Also look at all the original programming on HBO and the other subscription networks (The Sopranos, etc.). This programming is also beginning to find its audience.
The Young Ones
Fawlty Towers
Red Dwarf
Black Adder
Bottom
Just off the top of my head.. they're all classics.. some over 20 years old but they are still better than crap like Friends.
- Chuq
I have always wondered why a major studio doesn't do the following. Any ideas?
Why not produce a show and offer it online for download (or streaming) without commercials to anyone who wanted to subscribe? I imagine this would work best with a show like Farscape or The Dead Zone, whose targets are technically savvy in the first place. If it were a reasonable price, I would think they could get enough money at first to cover the bandwidth and storage costs. If it didn't catch on, well, no big. But if it did, I think it would actaully increase the revenue that came in. It would just be coming directly from the fans, not the advertisers.
I'm more in favor of simply allowing the current, vacuous paradigm of "television" to collapse. The most informative news broadcast on contemporary television is "The Daily Show". Just let it go to hell, and then watch what rises up in its place. It can't get much worse.
I don't really see what the big deal is anyway...television holds a statistically huge captive audience of people who watch, on average, several hours (6? 7? 8?) of television per day. You can't walk down the streets of a suburban community without noticing the gentle flicker of the electronic babysitter lulling the herd to sleep at night. Electronic means of skipping commercials are neat, but the majority don't care. There's no difference in informational content and creativity between commercials and actual television programming, it's just another way for the masses to tune out.
So just let the bottom fall out. Watch the promise of technological circumvention of advertizing create conditioned responses from the industry before its effects are even manifest in large numbers. Let it react it's way into oblivion.
It's an organism now. It's not a group of CEOs or programming directors, or, god forbid -ARTISTS-, its a blind powerful organism that commands the attention of billions of people, and the precise nature of funding or advertising is barely relevant to the conditioned demand and dependancy that you feel humming in your streets and in your living rooms. It won't die without a fight, and most people depend on it to survive.
One guy there believed, and I agree with him, that the future of television advertisement is in-show advertising, tought it would be more subtle than having Buffy drink a Montain Dew and saying "After a slay, there's nothing like a good Montain Dew, right Xander?"
;-)
Actually, according to Faith, slaying "makes you hungry and horny". So instead of soft drinks you could advertise for all kinds of other things, food, and whatever else crosses your mind!
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!
Note to all: I wrote my reply without reading any other comments. I'm sure most of this has been said somewhere here before, but these are my thoughts.
I quite enjoy my Dish Network PVR Tuner. Skipping through the comercials is a pleasure, especialy since I can sit down at the end of my already long day (of which I'm already being crowded by advertisments all day) and watch my hour long shows in 45 minutes a peice. It saves me time.
Comercial Skipping is currently possible in two flavors: 30 second skip, or Fast Forward. Fast Forward will never go away, as we can do this today with a VCR recorded show. 30 skip might dissapear, especialy if the advertisers DON'T find an alternative and argue with the courts that it's killing their revenue... Stupid, but that's life in the New Millenium.
Now, other buisness models? Product placement would never work. You'd have problems with actors who wouldn't want to do a product. And there are some products that just can't be placed as much as they'd like to be: How many shows have scenes in the laundry room to push Tide Laundry deturgent? Not as many times as I see Tide comercials today, that's for sure.
The future is changing. Eventualy, Broadcast TV as we know it will die. Instead, you'll have a Video Interface where you "Pick Your Show". Let's say you want to watch Star Trek - Enterprise: $0.50. Then it's streemed to you, with a single 5-minute comercial break in the middle. Oh, you want to watch last weeks? That'll be $0.25 since it's not a premere. Oh yeah, you can "Fast Forward" through the comercials, but you can't "Skip" them. This is really the way the system is headed, or at least how it could end up.
Now, let's do some math: Dish Network (I pick on them because I use them.) has a basic package which they call the America's Top 50, which they sell after equipment and setup for a monthly fee of $22.99. Now, if I split this montly fee into the number of days in a month (Being pesimistic), 28... we're paying $0.821 for 24-hours of possible vewing time. And that's the low end. Is what you watch on TV worth about $1 a day?
But TV companies make a lot of money on Comercials. The best proof has to be the Superbowl, which proves that the comercials CAN be more entertaining that the content. So, what's a system to do?
*rant* Since systems never like to change on their own, we'll probably end up with some kind of government regulation on TV content to comercial ratios. And the TV compaines will whine. And a few will drop from the listings due to lack of funding. And then the system will be so screwed up, it'll never be the same again... */rant*
Here's what I think should be done: Give people what they want... "Pick Your Show" TV Content. Comercials? Yeah, there will be comercials: Showing what's on while you're choosing your show. While you're sitting there, show surfing in apposed to channel surfing, you'll be blasted by your comercials then. Want to pause the show? Why not hit pause, then it flash up "This Break was brought to you by Dr. Pepper..."? 3 seconds latter, a Dr. Pepper jingle comercial playes.
Oh, and one more thing: Keep a kill button, so you can kill the comercials that are bugging you. That damned Geico comercial keeps popping up, and you're tired of seeing it? Press the Kill key, and next time a comercial happens of some kind, it'll remember that you didn't like the comercial... and show something else! This Kill would be logged anonymously. Thus, the advertisers would have a way to measuring the responce to their ads, which is ALWAYS a good thing to them! Infact, they might pay MORE to do this kind of service.
But, alas, we are talking about the destruction of broadcast TV. You'll still have your PBS's, which are viewer supported. Oh well, any change requires at least 1 generation to get used too.
Pathway
However, it leaves the local businesses out in the cold.
One thing that annoys me is advertising for a company that has no local representation. Hello ... not everyone has a Lowes, Boston Market, or Wal-Mart.
Quite frankly, I don't care about advertisements that I can't shop at. I want to see what Big Bob's Steakhouse is having for their specials.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
Hmmm.
Well if the big networks want to continue existing then they need to change. They need to look no farther then the RIAA to see what it is like to buck the digital revolution.
Myself, I would be perfectly willing to pay for commercial free versions of COMEDY CENTRAL and SCI-FI. The networks can go screw themselves though.
As far as Enterprise? That is an excellent question. Give me the opportunity to subscribe to it for a year commercial free VIA my cable connection to my TIVO and lets see how that works out.
So I guess it leaves a business model like this:
Networks offer commercial free versions for a price.
Subscriptions to particular programs monthly/yearly.
And traditional commercial/free service.
Make a TIVO (or similar device) mandatory for the paid versions and suddenly the networks love my little TIVO as much as I do.
To top it off the networks off season premier, pilot episodes and occasional special episodes for free.
Hey HBO has been doing this for years.
For me this creates a number of problems.
Problem #1: I am already paying $80/month for cable as it is. That is all I can afford for that. I think most people would consider there current cable bill as high as can be. How can they offer this stuff and not step on the cable companies toes?
Problem #2: Traditional advertising. Screw the networks. If they follow my advice they could do fine. What about all the other companies that rely on tv advertising? Where do they go now?
heh, all what pot? it is so dry right now it's ridiculous
I've long harbored a fantasy about a television system that could be tailored to individual viewers. I became frustrated with both my cable company and DirecTV over the way they offer their services. In both systems, customers are offered "packages" of channels with names like "TotalChoice" and "Premium" that are, in fact, not choices at all. If I want to see Comedy Central, AMC, Bravo and the SciFi Channel, I have to also get the Food Network, Home and Garden, Lifetime, multiple ESPN channels and more than half a dozen religious channels. If I want to get TechTV or the Sundance Channel, I not only have to pay more, but I also have to get the Golf Channel, Oxygen, UniVision and TeleMundo.
I want to be able to pick and choose what I watch and not have to subsidize religious broadcasters or channels that I have no interest in seeing. I would gladly pay extra to get only those channels I want and not have to pay for channels I don't want. I'd even pay extra to not have to watch commercials.
I don't think I'm unusual, and I think lots of viewers would jump at the chance for this kind of service. Say you develop a cable or satellite receiver that logs everything you watch in a given month and charges you only for what you watch. Come up with a system of micropayments such as $0.005 per minute (which works out to $0.60 per hour) and people may be more discriminating in what the spend their time/money watching.
If I had to pay for every minute of television I watch, I might not spend so much time in front of the tube, but I'd be much more careful about what I watched. Current Pay-Per-View offerings of heavyweight boxing events or WWE Wrestling spectaculars charge anywhere from $15 to $65 for one to four hours of programming, and regularly make millions. Pay-Per-View movies have proven themselves a viable option for people who don't wish to subscribe to HBO, ShowTime or CineMax.
The business model is complicated because you can't predict that people would watch more TV if they had to pay by the minute, but if the billing system could be designed with incentives like frequent flyer miles where you paid less money if you watched more hours, then I think this could be a profitable venture.
Anyone interested in designing such a receiver? I'll be the first in line to buy one!
People don't like to feel manipulated. Whenever I see a popup window I'm not expecting, I close it before it even loads.
This is the same for everything, how do you feel when someone talks to you or shouts, forcing their own view?
The only reason companies get away with this on T.V is because people expect it, they think it's "Normal".
This is the exciting thing about the internet, there is no point in companies advertising because it is completely voluntrary. If you want to find out which digital camera is the best you go to google and type "digital camera reviews". You don't need to be told about all the cameras available because you can look for yourself.
Honestly, would you go to a website just to look at it's own adverts?
If you want to sell cameras, make a good camera. Other people will make pages saying what a good job it does, so there's your no effort, zero cost, highly targeted advertising.
Some might argue that web surfing is too.
by coke i'm guessing you mean coca-cola, and dr. pepper is NOT a coca-cola product. mr. pibb(or pibb extra as i think it's now called) is the dr. pepper equivalent made by coca-cola. afaik dr. pepper is made by pepsi.
Anybody that claims commercials don't work doesn't have a 4 year old. (or a 14 year old for that matter).
The point is, commercials largely drive the trends of today's youth. For those of you that aren't still trying to fit-in or be a misfit, the effects of the latest jean, shoe, (or whatever) commercials are pretty obvious.
I can't count the number of times I have heard the phrase "ooh, cool, I want THAT" come out of one of my children (ages 5, 8, and 10) while watching TV.
Cable television here is $45 a month. Just to watch TV. I noticed that I've had it for 2 months and yet have never even turned my TV on once.. but I'm still paying for it. All those commercials are going to waste on me, since I'm getting nothing out of it.
The simpsons was the only thing worth watching on TV... now that they suck (horribly I might add)... There is nothing to watch on TV at all. Needless to say I cancelled my cable subscription.
My recommendation to you to get commercial free entertainment... GO OUT AND DO SOMETHING. For the love of god there is an entire world out there full of live entertainment. Things you can do, things you can learn, things that are fun. Talk with a friend, listen to music. There is so much that you can do that involves your mind being active and your consciousness evolving. TV is like the anti-progression tool. Your brain effectively does nothing for however long you let that CRT think for you.
Blah....
It wasn't hard todo. I guess I've caught a glipse of shows when someone else is watching it, but I've never sat down to watch something.
But for all those who complain about TV, you might as well complain about everything you find entertaining. Out goes Internet, books, conversation, games. I think we should all just sit around a campfire and stare. Then we can sleep, and then spend all day hunting. That way we don't have to worry about free time cause we'll be fighting for survival, just like 3 billion of our fellow humans.
Do people watch too much TV, probably. That doesn't make them bad or stupid. It's a choice not an addiction. If it were, I would consider living an addiction. Cause we all have to do something with our time, even if it is deemed worthless. And I know a few people who have thought live as worthless. See if you can't go a week without living. You get cranky? angry even? I know I would if I quite living.
Blah blah blah, I'm ranting cause I'm just really tired. Apologies for the illogical nature of this post.
-- taking over the world, we are.
How do they know you are doing it?
If they don't know that ads are being stripped out of recordings the model still works...
realkiwi
Many of us would like to eliminate television commercials for a multitude of reasons and there are numerous solutions for replacing the revenue streams that would disappear as a result.
I would like to ask, however, what about the advertisers? Sure, some advertisements are more effective than others, and people buy brand A for reason X and avoid brand B for reason Y. Unless consumers even know about the existence or significance of brand A or B why would they have any reason to buy either, beyond random chance?
How many outlets do organizations have for getting the word out on their products and services? Aside from word of mouth, it must be some form of advertising.
Ultimately what this might come down to is the simple fact that companies and industries feel that television advertising is a valuable asset to them. Billboards are great. Spam e-mail is great (uhh...). Television is also a great medium for selling your wares (arguably a little more class in the ads would be to their benefit in may instances).
How many options are there when it comes to advertising?
I've more or less stopped turning on that TV of mine and flicking through the channels. Instead I download whatever show/movie I want to see.
This helps me in multiple ways. I don't have to watch ads, and neither do I have to catch myself mindlessly watching some horrible show and waste my time. And also, I can watch whatever I want whenever I want.
My book-reading is up as well because of this. It's great to just grab a book and go to a local park, sit down and indulge yourself. Feeling the sun on your face.
=-kiOwA-> EOF
TV commercials exist because we didn't used to pay for TV. Obviously, there needed to be a method of making TV broadcasting pay for itself, so the broadcasters sold commercial time, first in the form of obvious sponsorship (i.e. "This fine program was brought to you by Laramie Cigarettes!"), and most recently in 15-60 second spots.
And, let's not forget that a majority of the cable networks don't even have real programming at night anymore, just paid programming (also known as infomercials).
In the 80's, cable TV came about and many people started paying $40/mo or more for TV AND they still had to watch ads. And in many areas, mine for sure, aerial antennas are useless.
Perhaps the $40/mo (or more) we pay the cable companies should have eliminated the ads altogether?
Jory
When cable came out the big thing was that you were paying for HBO or other premium channels so you weren't supposed to have commericals.
Well that didn't last long did it? And the same thing in a movie theater or video rental. We pay for that too and now have commercials along with coming attractions. Now they even run ads on TV screens at the supermarket! And they wonder why the public is running away!
And these advertisers must be doing ads for web pages too. Because damn if it's all the same migrane-inducing flashing, loud (on TV) crap. They were supposed to quit making commercials come up louder (so you could hear them when you ran off to the kitchen). But what they've obviously done is lowered the volume of the program so you turn that up and then play the commercials at the "normal" volume. It's basically a we believe we have a right to subject you to this and will get mad if you try to subvert it attitude.
If you got to watch any of the really old shows you actually heard advertising in the program. The announcer would stop and promote a product, much like they do on radio. Or they would sponser a programs like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I still remember the sponsor...even after all these years. How's THAT for product recognition? If the host was really good, you hardly noticed you were being pitched to. They didn't have to make a desperate, flashy bid to catch your attention.
Advertisers need to look at themselves to find the source of the problem. If you can market a product in an interesting or humorous way, people will stop and watch. Just look at the number of people that tune into the superbowl just to see the funniest ads.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
I lived in an apartment (ground floor) so there was no option for an exterior antenna. I tried one of those active ones too and it didn't really help much.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Says the guy who takes time out to read slashdot each day...
-- Please put this in your sig if you think
This does not lower the quality of television, nor does this mean that only government funded television stations can continue to exist.
What this does is increase the cost of television advertising so that less ads pay for the same product - an arguably better product, because there are fewer ads.
I know that many ads for food depend on the fact that many people already have some in the house. Face it, if that lays add causes you to go grab some chips out of the pantry then you'll have to buy more and will be eating it at a higher rate. Advertisers advertise both to get new customers and to make the old customers more profitable...
Brian
All depends on what you watch. I generally only watch stuff that makes me think. That can be the news, a good movie, a good documentary or a show (read Buffy or Charmed). The last two are great to watch with the wife and discuss with friends in a social enviroment.
I admit that reading stuff on the Web is extremely interesting and can be very difficult. I learn a lot from the web. That doesn't mean that I cannot find a good movie intelectually teasing. I know that watching a movie like Vanilla Sky is not exactly nuclear physics, but I do enough physics during working hours.
-- Please put this in your sig if you think
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
A small button, on the remote control, that skips 30 secs of the video stream is now supposed to be able to kill TV as we know it ?
Allright slashdudes, tell us, how much did they pay you for posting this ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
I'm from Holland and maybe television is still slightly better there than in the US, but I think there are some pretty good shows on TV. You have this stereotype in your head about people oosing in front of the television, where you assume that television does this to people. This is not doing the medium justice. Ofcourse the majority of what is shown on TV is crap, but so is the majority of what's on the web and even the fast majority of books. I read a lot of books, read a lot on the web and I watch a lot of TV. From each I pick what I like.
-- Please put this in your sig if you think
Common sense would dictate that advertising would get people interested in a product. When people do advertise, their sales go up. Common sense would not dictate that hitting you head would make you feel good... other then by killing brain cells.
You can't prove it the same way you can prove that 1+1 = 2, but what would be the point in that? Advertising well almost always yields some results. Yes, there are other factors involved, but no one is going around 'shooting morphine' into the system. Can you propose any non-contrived mechanism that would produce results that would cause a correlation between advertising and sales? One that would work in every case?
Just because correlation doesn't mean causation, doesn't mean it can't or isn't even likely too.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Individual politicians don't have campaign ads in most countries for a simple reason, the TV systems are national, the coverage areas are too large to be used for an individual politician's campaign.
That and the fact that it is illegal most places. The only places where I have heard of political TV ads are the US, Iraque and North Korea, all run the by oppresive dictators...
Ehm. I guess that was a cheap shot. sorry
that's assuming that you know a lot of people who do nothing but talk or post on the weblog the stuff they buy.
Yes. The economic argument would then be: advertising costs money, and is often perceived as deceptive. If money spent on advertising is spent on improving product quality, or lowering the price, or responding to customer feedback, your product will (given cheap, easy, uncensored, and universal access to a communications medium such as the internet) develop a reputation and sell itself (at a lower cost to you than your competition).
As for fake customers, I would take my chances on being able to pick them out myself, or that someone else would spot them and report them. At least you would have a chance to ask the fake customers questions about the product, which is more than you can do with advertising as it exists today...
I think that subscription TV channels are probably a much better alternative than commercial channels. Ask yourself, what are the best TV shows on the tube? For me the best TV series and news are on HBO and my local public television stations. I know that HBO is highly profitable. So why have the networks clung to their old model? I guess it is because it's all they've got. If they were smart they would get the FCC to allow them to broadcast digitally encrypted shows that use decoders at the television. Then they could switch to the subscription model. I suppose that cable networks are somewhere in between broadcast network television and premium channels but they are obviously just as bad as the networks when it comes to intrusive advertising, low quality material, and bugs (the logos and watermarks on the screen that don't go away and usually animate once in a while).
well, this was a long time ago...
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
It's called Alzheimer's ;-)
Karma: none (due to not believing in reincarnation)
Can you think of one that would work in most cases? One that would be present in every single effective advertising campaign ever launched in history?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Well I think it'll be like here, TV will consist of programs about people fishing and singing.
I favour DVDs (And DivX, of course, cuz I'm not perfect or rich) =) over TV.
Perhaps they could implement a cheap pay-per-view model, or just three or four really expensive subscription-based channels sending different genres.
in the last day or so i started a new side project: making my own Personal Video Recorder in linux using perl and my tv tuner. It will simply be something for me to do with v4l, but it will have features that are quite tivo-like: skipping commercials using some time synching methods (COMMERCIALS DRIVE ME INSANE), searching for and recording tv shows based on a topic or keyword (an experiment in getting tv listings from free sources on the web), and of course, pausing live content and resuming when one returns.
Why would i construct this? Well, because reinventing the wheel is fun. Yes, in all likelyhood my little perl project will destroy television and motion pictures as we know them and we will no longer be able to have media streamed to our homes in bite-sized portions. And i don't care. My personal opinions about media and television as a whole indicate that i might make this project to get back at the television, but it's just not true. I'm just a bored programmer that hates 95% of all commercials.
If there was a way for television to make money at the expense of my entertainment, it had better not annoy me at the same time, that's for damn sure. I think the old program Max Headroom had the best idea of the future with Network 23's Blipverts (was it 23?). Deadly, but what do the executives care?
is sponsored by company X (for example after the intro), run the whole thing, don't get interrupted, hey I like that company who helped give me this nice TV series, and I see their name at the beginning every time, but they don't bug me.
I try to activly avoid products that have annoying commercials, I hope you do to.
I fail to see the socialism in the current Labour Party.
If you have a VCR, you have to have the tuner removed from it to avoid paying the licence.
As I understand it, simply ensuring that the tuner is tuned away from any broadcasting channels is enough.
I'm talking to you now from my Utopian daydream ;)
;) or you pay Fox a couple of bucks to record X-Files.
Connection to the outside world comes in the form of a single optic fibre that runs into the basement, where it is split into POTS (or VoIP depending on how advanced the daydream is), TV (higher-res than current of course) and Internet (nice and fast natch) and distributed around the house. The connection comes from local telcos, cable companies, whoever, then the content comes direct from the source. You pay MTV a few bucks a month to get their fine array of bullshit advertising channels (that's how you get ad revenue in a post-commercial world, make the entire channel indistinguishable from an advert
The idea of "channels" needs to die, I want to buy transport capability from my telco/cable provider, then buy bundles of shows from my favorite channels. That way I could avoid the fact that NTL suck the big one and get a feed for Comedy Central here in the UK because it would jsut come over the net anyway.
I will now proceed to dream on.
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
Yeah, they work but pyschologists do know why they work. They work for several different reasons such as having an "expert" support it (even the Doc from the Loveboat recommending drugs works, because he's "trustworthy"), celebrity effect (pathetic, but it works), repetition, catchy songs/slogans, etc.
They don't even have to get your full attention because your brain is always working. In fact, in some cases the commercials are more effective when you're not paying full attention (for instance if there using an agrument as the reason to buy you might not take the time to determine that it's faulty).
Of course there is a lot more to this. I'm leaving a lot out, but I can't recall everything from my social psych class.
Point is, advertising effectivenes is no mystery.
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
If I remember correctly, there's a signal sent between the commercials and the shows already that could be used to skip commercial recording. There was a VCR in the 80's that did this, and it got axed quickly. But even if they've removed that signal, there's still a longer pause of black screen between commercial breaks and regular shows that does not show up between commercials, leading me to believe that a smart coder could coax a PVR deck into pausing during those breaks.
Then again, with the upcoming switch to digital, they might remove this altogether.
Personally, I don't mind commercials when they're funny and non-repetative. Right now I'm seeing the same commercials every break, and that's just plain annoying. I think there should be some sort of regulation on how many times a commercial can play per hour. Also, as a guy, I'm sick of having to sit through Secret and Tampax commercials, because they simply don't apply to me. I wouldn't mind selecting 5 types of commercials to watch, or commercials from particular vendors (most car ads bother me, but I kind of like the VW ones). But that's probably not going to happen as, I think, TV networks are starved for advertisers and don't have much of an option on repeating commercials.
- Cloud
Just curious but if watching TV is this big lazy act of ones mind not working yadda yadda, do you ever go see a play or a concert or movie?
And wouldn't that be just as lazy?
Moreover, can you honestly claim that there are shows on TV that don't teach people things? Jeopardy, History Channel, Discovery Channel, Junkyard Wars (removes that functional fixedness), news...even sitcoms (though perhaps rarely) can bring about personal discussion concerning certain social issues.
I don't even watch that much TV but I think perhaps you haven't been watching enough of it to know what it does or does not do.
I'd keep my TV for the same reason I keep my internet access.
It's a stimulating information source.
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
We have this in the UK - it's called a TV License
We have to pay £107 a year to be able to watch TV, for which the BBC has no adverts as its paid for by the license fee, and the odd corrupt deal I'm sure.
Personally I wont pay it and so I dont watch TV. I dont see why I should fund the coke habits of BBC staff, nor do I see why I should pay for my own mind control.
...then you wouldn't have to be sitting down to eat dinner and have a Vagisil or Monistat 7 commercial come on. They aren't exactly commercials that'll encourage your appetite.
Ah am not a crook! (\(-__-)/)
It sounds like your question is really "How can companies that currently rely on TV commercials survive if TV commercials stopped tomorrow." Product placement is just another type of ad. They don't do anything for the TV show. It's still a form of 'sponsorship.'
I'd rather see a fat data pipe into my house that I can use to establish SVC's (switched virtual circuits) to any video/audio source in the world, and use micropayments to pay for it. If I choose to watch commercial-free TV, I expect to pay for it. If someone wants to sponsor a show so I can see it for free, then I'll expect to see ads.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
What I think the TV stations will do is merge the adverts into shows. This is already done in the movies, where big Fedex trucks are always driving across the screen, and the characters are always drinking Coca-Cola.
Just imagine the Enterprise with the characters replicating Coke instead of brandless drinks. Or Buffy running around with "Gap" on her shirt (if she doesn't already).
This kind of advertising would be impossible to remove without disturbing the actual content of the show.
They can always have ads.
1) Run textual ads in a banner at the bottom of the screen during the show. I've long wished TBS etc would do this during movies instead of interrupting with interstitial adverts every 10 minutes. Interstitial should run between movies/shows, not during them.
2) Integrate the advertising into the content. In Latin america at least, lots of the shows have the host(s) / actor(s) / anchor(s) doing blatant promotions.
3) Disguise the ads as regular content. Randomize the times, and keep the volume level the same, etc, so that automatic detection is not possible.
I do go outside plenty, but I still like TV.
/.ers out there, just like me (I personally know at least two), who enjoy TV and hate it when people who don't know assume that I am a fat lasy american just because I am an engineer who can talk about what was on The Simpsons last night!
I run 30+ miles a week, I play soccer, I lift wieghts 4 times a week, and I am going to run my first marathon in about 7 weeks.
BUT
After a hard day of working and working out, I like to sit on the couch and do absolutly nothing for an hour or two, and I don't think that is a problem, do you?!?
I am sure that there are plenty of other athletic
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
You pay subscription for a channel, but you still get adverts and the stupid logo's on the screen. Try the BBC's draconian licensing scheme, at least you get to watch tv programs for more than 5 minutes at a time. :)
I can tell you what will happen, Fritz Hollings will get his way. Eventually all tv will be digitally encrypted all the way to your tv screen. Attempting to open your sealed tv screen will cause the vital components inside to destroy themselves. The PVR will be built in and will only record approved programs and it certainly wont skip adverts, in fact, it will disable fast-forward during the playback of adverts. Along with breaks every 5 minutes, there will also be banner ads on your screen. You'll be able to remove the banners by paying a monthly fee. Your TV will require an uplink - i.e internet/phone to "synchronise" the clock, and also to send viewing statistics. On the plus side, it will be easier to pay for extras, and pay-per-view events, with features such as the "subscribe me to things you think i'll like" system that guesses what you like from your viewing habits (and from what the network decides you like) and automatically charges you for it. This feature will be turned on by default. Subscribing to the latest series of Friends will be easier than changing the clock.. in fact, its impossible to change the clock.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The radio offer is amazing: France Inter, France Info, France Culture, France Musique, Le Mouv', the France Bleu network...
Xavier
Do I make sense? Please report if not.
gov. funded tv that has legal requirements to try to fulfill needs for every age/target-groups. watched entire babylon5 without a single add, watched dozens of movies without a single add.. true that there is tax if you own/watch tv.. (100$/household/year or so)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Uh, I don't know...
Maybe the $40 a month I send my cable company?
Couldn't Tivo keep track of which commercials were skipped and which ones weren't? With this information couldn't they determine what kind of commercials Joe Consumer doesn't mind watching and put those up between shows?
Wouldn't require too much re-working of the system, and could improve the effectiveness of television advertising rather than relying on the whole "shotgun method".
From the advertising sales standpoint, nothing would change, it would just be a different method of delivery which more accurately targets the product's core demographic.
Just a thought.
They get a million each for every show. Crazy, no?
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
Let me pay for what I watch. Problem solved. Basic cable service is already at a ridiculous $30. Who out there really thinks they use $30 worth of Basic cable!? Screw that. I watch like 5 shows. Let me pay per show and then not only will the medium not be beholden to external commerical interests (and the wealth of good that brings), the consumer will actually feel like they get their money's worth, instead of having to chug down 20% commercials and filler mind-numbing sitcoms. Hey, maybe the consumer might find they watch MORE now that shows which they like are accessible to them (instead of having to double or triple their monthly bill just to get that one show they like).
Then again, your television might not be revolutionized.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Sadly I wasn't reading slashdot this weekend and I came late to this lively discussion.
I just wanted to tell you, as an ardent media critic with a fascination with marketing and a realistic sense of economics, the system you proposed is actually quite brilliant. Did you come up with it off the top of your head or is there any more thinking around this concept documented anywhere?
You can get in touch with me via my website or just respond to this.
Howard Dean for president
Last time I checked my satellite bill was around $70, and I pay extra for local channels. That includes HBO and doesn't include any ppv shows. I know cable isn't any cheaper because I switched for that reason. This doesn't seem like free TV to me.
The entertainment industry seems to forget where their money comes from, the consumer. The costs in Hollywood (and this is indicative of other fields, ie. sports) keep sky rocketing. These costs translate to the public in the end. Who do you think pays for the advertisements? The public when we purchase the products.
The best shows on TV are on pay channels anyway. Who needs to see Britanny Spears in another stupid Pepsi commercial, when you can download images of her on the internet anyway!
How 'bout this - shell out $20 a month for HBO and Showtime. Well, scratch Showtime. Since Beggars and Choosers was cancled, it ain't worth it anymore.
bance.net
My $.02
MMMmmmmmm....erotic cakes!!! Homer J. Simpson - Treehouse of Horror VI
Nope, Coke doesn't own Dr Pepper. Neither does Pepsi. Dr Pepper may be bottled by Coke or Pepsi in different areas, depending on the agreements made with local bottlers. In some areas like St. Louis, Dr Pepper/7up has their own bottling plant.
Check here for some more information.
1. Dump all commercials.
2. TV stations start charging cable providers for content.
3. Cable providers charge us for the service.
I think a model like this would only work for satellite providers, not land based cable. The costs to lay/maintain coax is probably significantly more then it would be to plunk a bird in the sky.
Number one problem with this? Money. People will only pay so much for cable. Therefore the cable companies will only pay so much for content, and the stations will only pay so much for shows. Therefor the whole industry needs to live with a smaller profit margin. And this leaves us pretty much back where we are since we live on a very capitolistic continent.
- Jimbob
First: Many of us already Pay for our TV with Cable/Satelite fees, so doesn't a chunk of that money already go *somewhere* upstream? Perhaps that's tha wave of the future...
;)
Second: Anyone else remember the movie "The Truman Show"? Strategicly placed ads, "talkative" people just about Mugging the Main Character against a poster/ad, or just plaster the main character with (hopefully) subtle ads/logos/style reference, "background" billboards/placards, etc. It means that the ad execs would have to get (Heaven forfend) CREATIVE in what they do!
Here's an idea: Have a network, or even start with a show that has NO COMMERCIALS. Well, no plot/continuity interrupting ones, any way. Sell that to the public, and see how popular the full 27 minute programs become!
Just my random brain droppings for the day
I scanned all the responses and may have missed it, but no one seems to point out that in Great Britain commercials come every 15 minutes. Which is quite convenient. And the networks there don't seem to have problems with this, so why can't we adopt it?
Then again Great Britain is one of the paradoxical entities. They had atms before us, have better cell-phones, and technology in general, yet you can electrocute yourself while turning on/off a light switch with wet hands. Go figure....
I'm supposed to feel sorry for these multinational media conglomerates? Screw them! I pay $50 a month to watch TV. I don't know anybody that gets their TV 100% free. We all pay too much money already, and they keep hiking the rates! "But", you say, "those are different companies, cable and TV". The cable companies are monopolies, they should be regulated, put price controls and make 'em give some of the money to the TV people.
What was the last law that benefited people but not corporations?
Why pin your financial future on the flaky business plans of advertisers? Why not just get your income directly from the people whom you serve?
:)
I have cable TV (evil or not, there it is). I buy subscriptions to several premium channels. WHY do I have to put up with advertising on them? The Sci-Fi channel is my prime example, it's a channel that is only available via cable or satellite (TMK), yet they have commercials.
Wasn't the original point of commericials to avoid having to charge the customer for the airwaves?
If everyone could agree on a standard (ha!), the local stations could encrypt their broadcasts and charge directly for the decryption key. Cable already does this, so does satellite.... but screw the advertisers.
At least until they adopt my only-1-showing-of-a-given-ad-per-day law, enforceable through Homeland Security (multiple viewings of the Nike human-chasing-cat-man commercials sap the mental energy from our citizens and allow terrorists to infiltrate with ease!).
What about having commercials on the bottom 1/5 or 1/3 of the screen, without sound, that play during the show? Similar to an internet banner-ad? Or just a logo somewhere on-screen?
It's already been done for the World Cup, sort of: Since soccer has few time-outs and never enough paused-gameplay for a 1-2 minute group of advertisements, they sold a Logo-placement spot beneath the onscreen clock, so they could collect advertiser money without interrupting the broadcast.
Could this work for regular television? They could still sell normal commercials, but they could also sell the premium integrated ad spots.
$8.95/mo web hosting
You raise an interesting point, but I must comment on a flaw that I detect in your logic. You assume that by my ability to record a television broadcast, I am essentially robbing the broadcast company of revenue from Advertisements. To a point, this *may* be true. However, advertisers pay the broadcasting company for air-time on their network, regardless of whether anybody actually tunes in during that time. (Of course, the price that the advertiser will pay for that slice of time depends on the average number of viewers who watch that channel at that particular time.) However, the livelihood of the television station is not in any way affected by whether people skip the ads.
You really have to consider how they determine the number of people that watch their station at any given time. They only use polling data from places like Nielsen. So, the data that they use to charge advertisers is based only on the percentage of surveyed people viewing that station. Given that they certainly don't survey everyone, there's absolutely no way that the collected data is accurate.
This, of course, begs another question, exposing further flaws in your argument. How many people actually *buy* something after seeing an advertisement? The bottom line is that the number of people who actually view the ad is not proportional to the amount of return on that ad. (Anybody that would like to refute this should consider a lawsuit against NBC because less than 100% of the viewers of NBC at some given moment went right out and bought some product because they'd seen an ad for it. We'll just see how far they get in court!) So, refusing to watch an ad for a product that you wouldn't buy anyways hasn't stolen anything from anybody. And, to top it all off, the television station has already received payment for that air time, regardless of whether you watch it, or whether you actually buy anything!
TV has gotten so bad, that it's been multiple months since I've watched so much as a single program. I haven't seen anything worth taping in many years. So what harm could be done?
... and that's a pretty terrible statement!
One of TV's major uses in this society appears to be as a babysitter. Unfortunately, it is a most immoral babysitter, and praises all manner of socially disintegrative behaviors. In particular, it praises acting violently, behaving abusively, etc. Good role models are few and far between, and are generally aimes at an adult audience. British comedies, e.g., don't appear to me to be designed with the idea that children might be interested. (I'm particularly thinking here of "Are you being served?", which my wife occasionally watched.) There do exist a few nature specials, and they are worthwhile, though I doubt that many would watch them for a steady diet. I doubt, though, that these are worth the constant commercials. They aren't to me.
I honestly believe that "Beat the Clock" was a higher quality of entertainment that most of what is currently available
My suspicion is that the TV standard of "what's a good program?" is "what will keep them coming back?", and that's clearly an important part of the definition. But it's only a part, perhaps one part in four. And the fill the rest of the 3/4 of quality they've opted for the lowest cost shlock that they could get. If violence combined with heavy music works, toss that in. Don't take time to figure out what it means, what lesson it's teaching, whether it's good for society, just notice that it sells!
So why should I care if the stations fold? They are one of the more destructive social elements around. They don't have to be, but they have choosen to be.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I am trying to imagine a show where things like Tampax are advertised
With a few exceptions, fresh produce is usually not branded by the grower. The brand recognition usually comes from the store, and lots of commercials for supermarkets promote their produce department.
Although your local grocer may not be trying to build huge brand recognition for themselves, you still trust them implicitly to supply consistent quality for the same varieties.
Please, cram ads in ever goddamn place where there is space until there are so many ads cluttering my view (which happens pretty frequently already) that I ignore them all like so much background noise. I know when someone is trying to do a product placement, especially when they say the name of the product for no reason or the logo is strangely up front and center in the image, they are not being clever. If you actually buy a car because you saw a character in a movie using it then a sucker truly is born every minute.
Advertisers are basically just wasting their money fighting with each other.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Dweeb.
How about ads that so frickin annoying, you want to throw a brick through the TV every time it comes on. If I'm deliberately starting to schedule my pee breaks around the repetetive 2-minute commercials for NoSpotShine dish detergent, chances are I'm not going to buy in buy it in the store. Chances are, in fact, that I'll go with the generic brand, just because they don't have ads which annoy the crap out of me.
Meanwhile, ads that have humour get my attention. I've had friends over and will actually rewind just to see a particular commercial which got a few chuckles. Most notably, Molson Canadian commercials... something about a large angry beaver gnawing on a few silly Americans.
Disclaimer: Not that I have anything against Americans, just the ones who think we live in igloos and keep beavers as pets...
[not that I have a PVR...]
I think PVR owners are primarily people who watch alot more TV than your average person. Bitching that they don't willingly sit through the same irrelevant commercials over and over is like complaining that someone doesn't eat at your restaurant... enough. If someone has seen your commercial before, don't whine about them skipping it the next time. Especially when they are re-watching a recorded show the second time through.
Don't PVR owners pay like $10/month for the TV listing service? The cable companies should buy them out (or come out with their own service that is free) and insert a reduced number of targetted ads. Once you have watched the show through once with the commercials, you get to watch it after that without them. And commercial breaks should be shorter and less obtrusive because you could set up preferred profiles (car ads, beverage ads, lingerie ads, ads with sports stars, feminine hygiene ads, cleaning product ads, computer ads, movie ads, similar TV show ads, any TV show ads, only new stuff, only special sales, etc).
Commercials take up about 25% of the airtime. 15 minutes out of every hour, about 10 minutes of product placement, and 5 minutes of promo spots for other shows on the network. The PVR knows what you are going to record anyway and can eliminate a few minutes of the promo spots. The other promo spots can be set up to auto-record the show being advertised at the press of a button. The other 10 minutes of airtime has maybe 2 minutes of product information that is of interest to you.
Americans have very busy lives. The more time advertisers spend trying to shove crap at us, the more resistant we are becoming to it. They are completely failing to understand that.
Bzzzt. Actually, My grocer (Whole Foods) never advertises in my area. And while they do sell produce, I'm such a lazy cook that I was talking about all the packaged goods they sell, like veggie burgers, veggie dogs, breakfast cereal, chips, soy milk. Each of these products exists in tons of varieties, none of which I remember ever seeing an ad for. In fact, Costco has started selling some of them.
When another grocer provides the same products, I buy from them when they offer a better price. Amazingly, the huge chain grocers in my area offer a few organic products, but always at a much higher price. I guess they just don't want my business.
"Sedated"?? Uh...not always the cause of not remembering the forecasts.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
fresh produce is usually not branded by the grower. The brand recognition usually comes from the store, and lots of commercials for supermarkets promote their produce department.
Yes, but most grocery stores like to point out where the produce was grown. I like to support local growers, and so I look for the Product of Ontario signs. Sure it isn't brand recognition per se, but I am still looking for a particular supplier.
Of course, my theory doesn't hold much water in the winter when 90% of all the produce is imported!
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
I'm all for destroying ad based TV and changing to a totally user-pay model (e.g. HBO), based on the following logic...
The way it is:
- Product: Viewer's eyeballs
- Production Equipment: The TV show
- Customer: Adveriser
The way it would be:
- Product: The TV show
- Production Equipemnt: Good writing/acting
- Customer: Viewer
I'd rather be the customer than the product.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Oops. That was supposed to be a reply to a comment that replied to you.
It's not as important as people think for consumers to consume. I honestly do not need the mounds of GARBAGE that people try to sell me. If I stopped buying all this junk the economy would adjust (not collapse).
Why do I need new toys, transformers or whoppers. If I want them, I will go buy them, but I don't need someone to coax me into buying things. Coaxing implies that I don't actually want them.
And TV could be paid for through a tax or donations like it is in some other countries.
If you see a commercial that is not purely informative and is full of flashy gimmicks or just blatent lies you will realize the lack of confidence that company has in thier product. They are so unsure of themselves that they feel that they need to coax people into buying something they might not want. So maybe you shouldn't buy such things.
The ideal system, in my opinion, would be to have indepedent consumer reporting groups. Every company with a new product should try to get into one or more of these publications and then consumers can evaluate what they want and need and get the best deal possible. This would greatly improve the quality of products through a very competive atmosphere. Rather than the current system which improves the effectiveness of slick marketing.
Of course the biggest flaw with a different system is that many argue that consumers don't know what they want. So it's up to the marketing people to influence society into wanting something. "Oh this soda makes you an athlete!", "These shoes will let you play basketball like a pro!", "You will be a pretty girl if you have this doll.", "Your dad will love you if you buy our toys.", "If you don't buy this peanutbutter then you are a bad mother". Etc.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Make Cable networks pay for content:
Most people watch TV via cable so it seems cable companys are effectively doing TV stations and networks a favor in carrying the content for the consumer.
HOWEVER a Clinton era law requires cable networks to pay tv stations for carying this content.
So in short this is already being done.
TV stations could carry infomertals or content for shop at home late at night when they aren't airing normal programming. TiVO users aren't going to record this content even with out commertal zapping becouse it's not mixed in with the tv programming. You have to want to watch commertals. Strangely enough it seems to work as long as it's something people want to watch.
Obveously they are doing this already.
They could sell spin off products. Like talking purple dino dolls or Pokemon cards or video games. Or make tv shows that are spin offs of products like the Sonic TV show that is nothing more than a 30 minute commertal.
They could scamble the programming like they do on satlight programming and require a standard decoder on all TVs.. unless the content is being pulled in by cable where the cable company repacages and decodes it for you.
This isn't being done universally but it's what they do when you try to pull in shows via larg sat dish (not DSS but the older system)
They could try to open source it... Just kidding don't kill me.
They could do a lot of diffrent things up to and including a PBS style or a BBC moddle.
(Not very diffrent however PBS is volintary and a US BBC would give the federal government total control over the content.. Get ready for fundimentalist TV 24-7
where as PBS is totally begging us to help them carry the best shows...
Dr Who, The prisononer... yeah...)
TV stations use TV ads becouse they provide the most funding. But TV networks unlike the music industry saw the writing on the wall and improved.
That dosen't mean they won't let go. But lose the ads and we won't lose TV.
However the more expensive shows will have to shift to cable becouse there is yet more money in subscriber based funding.
I don't actually exist.
Make better commercials!
Make me want to watch them.
I actually went out of my way & spent over an hour watching the BMW short films on their web site (BMWFilms). I even watched the director voice-over & "making of" extras. They rock!
Pushing TV out over radio is a business plan that will only survive until computer networks get good enough to carry the same viewing quality. After that point, who would want to view lowest-common-denominator shows? Who would waste their money on untargeted advertising?
Far more likely: streaming video, as a freebie (because p2p makes paying for static content pointless), funded by individually targeted product placements and explicit sponsorship. "today's episode of Commander Bush and the Axis of Evil is sponsored by Exxon, Lockheed, and the NSA".
Also, in areas where Dr. Pepper is bottled by Coke, Pepsi has their own clone product called Mr. Green. It is sold under the Sobe label, and tastes virtually identical (IMO) to Dr. Pepper, with the addition of ginseng extract. Oh, and as the name suggests, it's green*. For contractual reasons(?), it is not offered in areas where Pepsi does the bottling for Dr. Pepper.
*the green color seems to very similar to the color you get by mixing equal parts Pepsi Blue and any caramel-colored beverage. coincidence? applying a failure in one product line to create a new one? you be the judge.
"Time is an abstract concept devised by carbon-based lifeforms to monitor their ongoing decay." - Thundercleese
Advertising CAN make a difference, but many times does not. For example, why on Earth would a small town ever require advertisements to be shown? In a town of 50,000 or so, most everyone in that town is aware of most everything that is going on in that town--at least in the areas that they have any interest in.
In bigger cities, advertising becomes more effective, but also more expensive, which typically means that ony well-known, well-to-do companies can afford decent ad campaigns. This is pointless. If a company is well known, there is no reason to promote it over the air waves except to remind viewers of its existence.
The only time that I believe advertising is effective, is with new companies--companies that have no market penetration and need to get the word out on their existence.
The Political Programmer
1. Don't the Japanese build things in Malaysia and Vietnam for that very reason? Sh1t, it sounds like you'd prefer we let their economies dry up and go away. Maybe, the countries we're doing business with should establish a minimum legal wage on imported work? (BTW, I drove to a shop in Mexico to protest just this thing, but I digress). OK, lets just say that Texas Instruments and Intel shut down their foundries in Malaysia. Those people have no better opportunities than that factory. Would you have us stop employing them? Your idealism would say that we should pay them better wages. The problem there is that their inexpensive living conditions are what made that location so attractive for business in hte first place. I am opposed to sweatshops and unhealthy working conditions. I am against paying a worker below living wages. But living wages are lower in third world countries, and the US dollars flowing in in many cases is the only thing improving their economies. "Developing Countries" are developing because of industry. Otherwise they stay basically stone age. No jobs, no opportunities, no chance at a better life for your kids than the one you got. If you had your idealistic ways, that's exactly what would happen.
Its too expensive you say, we neeed so and so much money...
People are getting payed WAY TO MUCH as it is.
Martin Sheen in the West Wing
Now if all got proper decent vages, the expenses for everything would come down.
Obvously most of the people involved today wouldn't give that up voluentarily.
But mark my words, in a not too distance future we'll get not new tvstations, but webstations- who not broadcast, but stream (multicast) original programming made for much less money that what is used today.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
You misunderstand. I'm stating a fact, not condeming it. Lots of people get fucked because I want an iPod. I'm just glad that in some way I'm not the guy being fucked.
The middle mind speaks!
"The most obvious alternative is to send your favorite shows to you via broadband and have you pay by the show. But would you pay to watch Buffy, The News, Star Trek?"
Buffy? No, but that's personal preference. News? Not as it's done now, unless we're talking about a classy outfit like BBC World News or Jim Leher. $1.00 to $2.00 per episode of Enterprise? Heck yeah. I'd much rather spend as much as $10.00 a month to watch Enterprise than to spend $10.00 on a movie ticket to see Nemesis.
If anything such a pricing scheme would bring movie ticket prices back down to the real world.
I pay $80 every month for cable. I watch only about 30%
of the channels and far little content (after all there are 100+ channels
24 hours a day and I watch max 4 hours a day).
If they charged me the same amount for the little subset of content
that I watch I would gladly agree to that arrangement.
If they cannot make their content and make it cost less than about $80 per month
per viewer then there is some problem with this demand supply curve.
And no, I dont watch the commercials, even though I dont have replay TV or TiVo.
Its a simple common sense concept. You can make it as difficult as you want
for me to avoid commercials. But still you cant make me watch (and much less buy)
what I dont want to watch.
Drill this into the heads : If someone doesnt want to do something, no matter
how much legislation, how much force and how much ranting is used,
that person would still not enjoy doing it.
How is this for an idea: Why dont we make a legislation which mandates
each person to spend a minimum amount every month on consumer goods instead?
Cynicism and mindless flaiming apart, some thought needs to be given to
why there is a basic problem here? Why is it so hard to make programs
and make it at a cost that can be profitable by what people are willing to pay for it?
Is it because people have such diverse interests that catering to everyone just
shoots up the cost?
Is it because the content makers are placed far away from the consumers ?
Are the costs for items related to producing TV content artificially high because
of the flawed models being used till now (a.k.a are these people just plain spolt?) ?
Is it because the investors are just not willing to forgo the model they have always
known and used ?
Just think about this:
We have the ad model where the ads support the cost for making the shows. And these ads
payoff by the profits they make from what I end up buying after watching the ads.
If I am willing to pay up this amount expressly for the cost of making the show then
what is the need for the ads ?
DO NOT PANIC
The license fee is for the receiving equipment. If it works, you pay. It don't matter if it's not tuned in, or if you only have S4C (Welsh language ), you pay.
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
No, it's not. From http://www.jifvik.org/tv/ -
I had this reply stating that I did not need a licence as long as the equipment was not used for receiving broadcasts. I wrote back asking them to confirm how I could prove that I was in the clear if a Licensing Inspector were to call. They sent me this reply stating that de-tuning the equipment is sufficient.
The magical "any day now" video on demand is here.
Indeed Content On Demand is the future of consumer TV and is here now.
I work on this Project which as well as subscription DTV provides a comprehensive Content on Demand service that is not just limited to Movies. It includes Local, National and Global News, Local & National Weather, What's On and Documentaries. All high quality content provided by the BBC and Commercial stations. The revenue source is subscription which starts at 9UKP (~15EURO/USD), it includes 15 broadcast DTV channels and a lot of inclusive On-Demand Content, everthing except Movies and Music. Consumers are prepared to pay for high quality content. As a user of this service since launch two years ago I'm gotten increasingly unaccepting of advert breaks.
I should perhaps point out this is not a cable tv system as such, it is delivered using IP over ADSL, to provide a point to point broadband network.
this model bypasses both TiVo's and commercial television's revenue models.
Indeed we are developing a server side PVR system which provides a number of advantages over TIVO. The amount of content that a consumer can store is essentially unlimited, certainly not limited to 35 hours of a TIVO. The consumer does not have to make preset selections, just browse the historical epg. The overall cost is much less, since there is minimal duplication of data and service costs are consequently much lower. IMHO Client side PVR is doomed.
If there were enough viewers to have the end cost to the consumer small
enough, then I'd vote for that. However, the cost would go the way of
taxes. Once the system was in place the 'tax' would raise according to the
network's perceived/real cost to air a show.
Ads I want to see - won't work as the point of advertising and a free market
is to place all products in front of the viewers. The ones that make it
have validity in the market place. We could be passing on inventive
products that nobody would select to see as they don't know they exist.
This would destroy progressing invention.
Commercials that catch our eye burden the advertiser to create and maintain
effective ads. If we watch and buy, then the ad did it's job. Even bad
products are represented by great advertising. Power of the dollar usually
gets that particular product off the market.
Leave well enough alone. Keep the commercials coming.
As you said, have Buffy pick a Mountain Dew is the best way to go. You can even allow unlimited copies of the show! Rip as many DVD as you want! You will be watching my adds.!
There won't be any need for DMCA any more. Copy everything you want! My advertisers will be very happy.
Your spalling (v. tr. To break up into chips or fragments., v. intr. To chip or crumble.) probably doesn't need any work but your spelling might be able to stand some improvement.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If the commercials on cable are better where you are, broadcast in your area must be truly horrid.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Did you watch Cosmos? Walking with Dinosaurs? The complete cycle of Beethoven Symphonies conducted by Leonard Bernstein?
What about old movies that are worthwhile but will never get a new screening in commercial cinemas (Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, Metropolis, The great dictator where available to me and many others thanks to TV).
Selective TV watching, in which you carefully choose worthwhile stuff is the answer, not childish technophobic hysteria (I know what I am going to watch one week in advance, more if I can).
By all means don not watch TV by impulse, but turning it off no matter what seems to me as lacking of common sense as spenidng all your free time watching the box.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Now I understand why the original poster despairs...
I think I will dump my ageing TV set tonight...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
any equipment, such as a TV set or TV-enabled computer, which is capable of receiving broadcast television programmes (and it is ever used for that purpose), you'll need a TV licence.
I wouldn't like to try and fight it in a court...
Magistrate- "Eh? Television? Poppycock! Pure scientifictional! Humbug and Blast to that Jules Vernon chappy!! Ruddy foreigner! Etc, etc, mumble......ZZZZZZZZZZZZ....Eh! What what!! Fine seven shillings and sixpence! Next!! ...ZZZZZZZZZ"
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
True, but if you have a signed letter from the TV licensing authority saying you don't need a licence, your pretty much covered.
TV Detector Man: ...We know you've got a telly - we detected it! ... Now, about your telly... [seeing Vivien with a electrical cord hanging out of his mouth] You're nicked sunshine!
Neil: Oh, so you've just been playing with me all along?
TV Detector Man: Yes... It's better than playing with yourself.. Haha, cheap inuendoes help make the world go round. Now, where's your telly?
Mike: [Pushing past Neil.. but not letting the TV Detector man see into the house] You haven't introduced me to your friend, Neil...
Neil: Er.. Mike this is.. the TV detector man...
TV Detector Man: The name's Bastard - but you can call me RightBleedin'.. all my friends do - well he did... until I killed him... [pushing through the door]
Vivien: [pointing to mouth] It's a toaster.
TVDM: It's a telly! It's a telly!!
Mike: Telly or toaster - the contents of my colleague's stomach are his own.
TVDM: Oh, I can wait.. I'm very good at waiting... Now, which way to the toilet.
---- *dog sitting next to a computer, with his beady eyes shifting left to right*