Culture

Culture

by Mike Masnick




Learn To Appreciate Commercials... Or Else!

from the repeat-after-me:-commercials-are-good dept

While the TV industry is still struggling to figure out how to deal with the fact that people now skip commercials, it looks like their latest tactic is to try to convince people that they actually do like commercials. Over in Japan, they're holding TV Commercial Day to celebrate TV commercials. Of course, this comes along with a reminder from broadcasters that they believe skipping commercials is illegal in Japan. They're a bit behind the times. TV execs in the US tried that a few years ago, before everyone laughed them out of their jobs. Still, it does show how TV execs seem to feel like they're entitled to force people to watch the crap they put on TV, but never stop to think that maybe if they didn't have so many annoying and intrusive commercials all the time, people wouldn't mind so much. The problem has nothing to do with the legality of things -- but that TV execs still haven't realized that there's competition for the attention of people these days, and a lot of the other choices are much more appealing.

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Jul 15th, 2005 @ 2:20pm
  • intrusive commercials

    If you think they are intrusive now, wait for more studios to do what TBS or whomever it is does. They put the commercial in the bottom of the screen, sometimes 1/3 of the screen *during* the show so you cant skip it. This will become more and more common if the execs feel they arent getting revenue from regular ads.

    In all fairness I have only seen one product advertised (UPS) during a show like that, normally its advertisements for other shows on the same station, so they dont waste normal commercial time (thus enabling them to sell more commercials).

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Jul 15th, 2005 @ 7:03pm
    • Re: intrusive commercials

      by Toss The Tube

      TBS has always been annoying. Between the butchering of movies and the constant commercials, they rapidly fell from must-see to never-see.

      I gave up on TV almost 3 months ago. Now, I watch maybe, 3hrs a week. Just snippets of local news. Best decision I ever made. Life is too short to be watching TV. Might return in the fall when new shows start -- then again -- Might not.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    Jul 16th, 2005 @ 8:03am
  • marketing industry is lame

    by david

    The people who make commericals, and do advertising fail to realize, that the more in your face they are , more we are apt to turn them off. I remenber the good old days of commericals. I remenber as a teen, waiting for the chanel number 5 commerical. I do watch the geico commericals as well.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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