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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 Sure, you could say it's their fault for having an outdated business model, but there's a problem: these sources are where A LOT of the content for your PVR comes from.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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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).
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!
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.
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....
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
I'll gladly give up free television (how many people actually use antennas anyway) in return for access to the television airwaves.
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
Which people are you referring to? The studios who want to outlaw commercial skip? If so, you're missing/neglecting a vital piece of copyright history. Sony sold Betamax VCRs. Disney and MCA sued Sony for copyright infringement. Sony won, establishing that time-shifting was legal. Here are the important points from that article:
/were/ yelling and screaming, and they were struck down. Now, however, we live in a digital world, and the people doing the suing have a lot more money, and we're going through the same sort of thing. It's looking like the battleground is congress this time, rather than the courts. Time-shifting is considered Fair Use, however the television studios and MPAA are trying to stop that.
Universal City Studios and Disney felt that the introduction of VTR's (VCR's) were infringing on copyright laws by allowing consumers to record copyrighted material off the television, and allowing new companies to rent out copyrighted material. The plaintiffs (Universal City Studios and Disney Productions) had to prove that the alleged infringements caused economic harm to their industry, or would in the future. The plaintiffs felt that by allowing consumers to record television shows it would cause the royalty prices on re-runs to fall drastically. The court felt that taping off air for entertainment or "time shifting" (recording a program in the present to view at a later date, shifting time) constituted as FAIR USE. Plaintiffs also argued that allowing rental use of video cassettes would cause box office prices to fall. The court allowed this practice to stand on the basis of the First Sale Doctrine of the 1976 Copyright Act, which states: the first purchaser of a copyrighted work (a film on video cassette) could use it in any way the purchaser saw fit as long as copyright was not violated by illegal duplication. (ibid.) In other words you are allowed to rent out the original copy that you bought from the studio, but cannot make copies of the original to rent out. It is rumored that another reason Universal City Studios brought the suit against Sony was because Universal sought to prevent Betamax from capturing a significant part of the home video market before Universals' parent company, MCA, could introduce it's DiscoVision Laserdisc system that was scheduled for release in 1977. The decision handed down in October 1979, by the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Sony. They court felt that set manufacturers could profit from the sale of VCR's, and that the plaintiffs did not prove that any of the above practices constituted economic harm to the motion picture industry.
In other words, people
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
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.
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
I hate the current practices as much as you do, but I have to disagree with the following statement:
I hate being whored out to Coca-Cola without my consent.
By going to the theater, you're consenting. If you don't like it, stop going.
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
You can not be charged to recieve broadcasts that use the publicly owned airwaves. Broadcasters that use over-the-air transmission must prove (laughably) that they perfom a public good or they can loose the use of the channel. Remember... these broadcasters don't pay any significant fee to use these frequencies. Certainly they don't pay even 1% of the revenue they generate using them.
That said, I recall a company called "Whimetco" or something like that. They used a descrambler to recieve pay content transmitted over a UHF channel. Don't know how that ended, but I suspect it was due to the "free public airwaves" issue.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
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.
> 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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
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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
There are non-free channels that have no commercials -- HBO, etc. Only if you don't want them, you don't have to pay for them.
On the other hand, the BBC makes everyone who owns a TV with a receiver pay for it, even if they don't like the BBC and never watch it. Good way to make money, if you can get it, but not exactly a fair business model.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I 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
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!
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
Open source entertainment?
/them/ amongst the crowd...
*shrug*
I spent a couple of summers in the Seattle area, where they had (and probably still have) a public-access channel. On it were some of the strangest shows I've ever seen, like "Bong Hit Championships" (dial in and inhale while they time you, if memory serves) and, ISTR, a very strange Rev. Bruce something-or-other who delivered odd, philosophical rants while his minions rigidly stood at attention behind him.
While people may be good at one thing, you may have to search and search and search to find
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
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?
I don't watch Will and Grace, so I can't comment on that episode, but I'm assuming from the tone of the statement that you consider it to be a crappy episode. I'll give you that. Even very skilled writers have a hard time figuring out how to implement a story line similar to what I imagine the show centered around without a) selling out or b) pissing off sponsors.
But take, for example, the Kenny Roger's Roasters, Drake's Coffee cake, or Black Saab episodes of Seinfeld (episodes for which the studio and writers received no compensation at all). Kramer was conflicted because the neon sign of the Kenny Roger's place was keeping him up, but the chicken tasted so good. People can laugh at Kramer's misfortunes and still get the idea that Kenny Roger's makes a tasty chicken (for the record, it is pretty good). Had KRR paid the writers/studio for that episode, it would've been a perfect example of what I'm describing. For the record, Seinfeld fans consider the Drake's Cake and Kenny Roger's episodes to be some of the funniest around, not to mention that the season arcs about Jerry getting his own show on NBC (a show about nothing) would've worked wonderfully as an NBC self-ad.
The Simpsons (social satire) used to be rife with Fox insults ("wow, Fox turned into a hardcore porn station so fast", "I'm sure there's something better on from those fine folks at ABC", "Friday's just another day between NBC's thursday night must-see TV and Saturday's CBS crap-o-rama"), which I'm sure would do as good a job as "you're watching Fox".
Insidious? It's not a global conspiracy; it's just the way TV's business model works, and it's likely the way it always will work. For all the talk of $2 per show with free previews, it plays out a hell-of-a-lot like the micropayments idea that web comics wish they could implement. It sounds great, but really, the public would simply be too lazy to engage in it. Oh, and I'm sure Visa will love to handle $1 and $2 charges all day long (and the credit disputes customers will bring when 'this show sucked').
Fact of the matter is that advertising is what pays for TV. Until they can prove that a micropayment system works reliably, they're probably gonna stick to the same plan that's been working for the past 50 years. Sure, they may modify it a bit if PVRs start allowing large amounts of people to skip commercials, but they'll make their money somehow. I currently own two DVD television show compilations: Buffy Seasons one and two. It's a grand total of about $70 worth of television shows. Now assuming my apartment complex didn't include extended cable by default, the cable I get right now (extended basic) would cost me about $40 a month. That price is partly subsidized by advertising dollars, as the $10/month for a single channel of ad-less HBO would indicate. Assuming an ad-less TV setup (and interpolating that $10/month tag for ease of math/estimation), I'd need to spend a good, solid $80/month to see the television shows I enjoy: I'd need UPN for Buffy, Fox for Simpsons, NBC for Friends, The History Channel for the cool stuff that comes on it, HGTV for the girlfriend, TNN for their Next Generation re-runs (for the girlfriend; am I the only geek who DOESN'T like Star Trek?), Cartoon Network for the occasional anime that I enjoy watching, and the Food Network (Iron Chef). I'd rather deal with Iron Chef using Ginsus, Bart getting the latest Eidos videogame instead of Blood Warrior 3 (although the fake videogames are always funny), or a plug for Home Depot during an HGTV remodeling show than shell out a smooth $80 for the eight channels we watch at my place. If it comes to that, then I'll decide at that point if $80 is worth it, but until then, I'll deal with the subtle insidiousness.
Just as an aside, I do try to help out those things that I enjoy. I bought the Buffy DVDs despite the fact that I have every season already archived on CD-Rs. And no, it isn't the "incredible picture quality" that motivated me (the tape to DVD transfer on those DVDs is wretched, particularly the first season). I just like Buffy, and I hope to encourage further seasons. I've bought T-Shirts from Thinkgeek and comic compilation books from Bob the Angry flower. There's a fine line between "being a good little consumer" and keeping the companies (or programs) I like in business/on the air.
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
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...
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"
How do airlines survive without subsudies?
And so on.
I think TV will get annoying INLINE banner ads. That's all. Next question.
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"
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.
The term "soap opera" originally applied to soap commercials pretending to be drama.
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!
"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
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!
...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.
I get that song stuck in my head for hours at a time....
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
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?
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
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.
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?
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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
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
(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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
Except that they're using Congress instead of the courts. Congress is much more easily bought.
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....
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
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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!).
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.