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Google Ad Revenue To Top UK Broadcaster's
GoingTurbo writes, "By the end of the year advertisers in the UK will have spent more money advertising on Google than they did on the UK's Channel Four TV station. The article suggests we will see the slow erosion of traditional television broadcasting, and with it, the death of the great TV ads of the past. The article offers an alternative possibility for the future of television." From the article: "The US has been forced to contend with heinously patronizing and crude TV advertising for decades, but the UK's advertising industry has managed to create art out of the dirty act of selling. Some of the best short films of the last century have been television advertisements... Even if some of these make the transition... online, they'll lack the spectacle of their TV equivalent."
Shouldn't you be out somewhere being smug and self-righteous in a coffee house or something?
First the kind of advertising you get on the web is very different from the one you get on a TV.
... Things a whole family needs on a day-to-day basis.
Usually what you get on the Web is : Video Games, Movies, IT solution, Websites... Things people who surf are interested in.
And you get on TV : Food, Detergent, Soap, Cars,
Additionnally, TV got some help from the web : Now everytime a major TV serie come out, there is a dedicated website to create a buzz and provide some informations to get more people in front of their TV (Lost comes in mind).
Some of the best short films of the last century have been television advertisements... Even if some of these make the transition... online, they'll lack the spectacle of their TV equivalent."
What a load of rubbish. Art, indeed. Yes, the high art that is Car Insurance adds and refinancing company adds - I swear, 50% of adds on UK tv consist of these two "products". A nodding dog, a red car... has art really become this?
How d'you figure that? Every channel advertises it's own programs either side of the adverts, and none of them less so than the bbc. Buy a dvd with a bbc produced show on it and see how long the half hour shows are (usually around 28 minutes), and then look at the ones that run at half an hour on channel 4 (the simpsons on the bbc was a twenty or twenty five minute show if memory serves).
Go to the USA and watch tv, it's intolerable: the adverts are every two minutes (or feel like it). At least with the bbc the commercial channels are forced to regulate how often they break, for fear of pissing away viewers..
Additionally if we lost the bbc to advertising we'd lose a hell of a lot more than just the time between programs. The license fee means that they are publically accountable (and therefore not to the highest bidder). It allows them to innovate (I direct your attention to all the innovative comedy programs it's produced in the last 30 years). The website is a fantastic, in depth resource. The Radio stations cater to all tastes, they have informed debaters, all sorts of music for all cultures and we're saved from the embarrassement that are Radio Adverts. There's a million reasons why the bbc is hugely beneficial to British culture: "Time between programs" is not one of the big ones.
Stupid people think it's cool. Smart people thinks it's a joke; also cool.
The BBC has as much advertising for what else is on TV this week as any other channel during the breaks between programmes. The real difference is that they don't break off immediately after the opening credit sequence, and strictly, literally every 5 minutes after that, to advertise stuff DURING the show.
Thanks the the fact that most stuff on the BBC is going to be shown on some other, ad-funded channel at some point, shows are an odd number of minutes long. So they fill the 2 mins between shows with stuff; I can't say I'm that bothered by it myself.
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