TiVo Causes Increase in Product Placement

ndansmith writes "Wired has got an article on how TiVo and other 'ad-skipping technologies' have caused an upsurge in product placements on network television shows. The 84% increase in product placements on TV over the last year has drawn protests from both the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild. An example from the article: 'In a recent episode of the NBC series Medium, writers had to work the movie Memoirs of a Geisha into the dialogue three times because of a deal the network made with Sony earlier in the season. They even had the characters go on a date to an early screening of the movie and bump into friends who had just viewed Geisha to tell them how good it was.' Readers may also remember a controversial Cisco Systems product placement on Fox's 24."

Comments

Inevitable

[Twisted64]

I suppose it was inevitable really... they'll always find a way to get to us. Here's hoping we never get quite as bad as depicted in "The Truman Show" though. I almost crapped my pants when I watched "I, Robot" and "The Island" and saw all the stuff they were pushing along with the film.

Re:Artistic integrity?

[gstoddart]

So, in other words, it isn't like they are concerned about becoming shills...only that they aren't paid enough to be whores.

As much as everyone likes to bash the writers, it doesn't strike me as that outrageous.

When the network starts collecting money so that the people who write the scripts will say certain things, the writers have to work harder to do their episodes and still meet the networks obligations.

And if the writing is sucky because they were busy working in product placement, they're the ones who get fired; not the guy who got the comission for landing the deal.

I must be soul-sucking enough to write the dreck that is on TV, knowing your bosses are making more money so you can be forced to write even more dreck with product-placement would be too much.

They're effectively now writing ad-copy as well as scripts.

Cisco's products on "24" were part of the story

[SpecialAgentXXX]

I didn't mind Cisco's ads on last season's 24. I would rather see the characters using real products like Cisco's IP Phones than some propmaster's incorrect vision of what an IP phone should look like. Ford also sponsors the show and they drive big Ford trucks. Toyota sponsored the DVD preview of Season 5 and you see Jack driving a Toyota. Last season on Smallville, Clark used the red Old Spice deodorant - it was in his locker and on the big banner over the football field.

Product placement is only bad when it's inappropriate and doesn't flow with the show. I sure wouldn't want to see Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brien discussing Kotex Tampons or Vagisil cream as he's about to waste some terrorists. Or President Palmer plugging Uncle Ben's rice at a press conference. But if they are looking for a USB flash card containing Top Secret information, I don't mind them mentioning SanDisk.

Re:Quite frankly,

[h4rm0ny]

When I lived in the USA (British native for reference), I found your TV unbearable. Adverts popped up at random timings and without any kind of warning. Here in the UK, you can actually plan aroud the commercial breaks - it's a half-hour program, you get a few minutes after quarter of an hour. Just right to nip to the loo or make some tea.

I'm hoping that it doesn't spread like trailers on DVDs is starting to. I bought a DVD recently and up came trailers for other DVDs the company marketing people thought I might like. Will definitely be keeping an eye out for which company releases the next film I might be tempted to buy. Same applies to the two-minute piracy warning - I paid for the DVD. I am NOT their target audience.

Where's the value added?

[Kadin2048]

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Last season I started to watch the Shield on FX, after having watched the previous season on my computer by bittorrenting the episodes a day or two after they were released, and I found that the downloaded episodes made for a 1000% better TV-watching experience. No sliders, no moving graphics in the bottom of the screen, no station ID logos, and higher quality than my analog TV.

Someone should clue the local TV stations into a phrase: "value added." They have none. Right now they exist only because they have a monopoly on content (at least at the level of effort that most non-technical users are willing to expend). But as that monopoly breaks down and viewers start to get flooded with content from other places, they're going to be in real trouble.

I still watch a few TV shows, mostly as a social thing with friends, but if it weren't for the fact that we just enjoy getting together once a week and ordering pizza, I'd probably just cancel everything but my basic cable subscription and watch tv shows when they hit NetFlix.