On onscreen adverts

[avevale_intelligencer]

People who don't have satellite or cable, or who don't watch much telly anyway, may not be aware that it's been common practice on non-terrestrial channels for some considerable time to stick little banners all over the screen plugging the next programme, or another programme, or an upcoming live event, at every conceivable point either side of any advert break. Yes, it's irritating, but so are the advert breaks themselves, and nobody complains about them.

And then the Beeb does it to nuWho and everyone goes wild.

Every so often someone on Making Light or somewhere indignantly refutes the notion that publishers are indifferent to the quality of the content they sell except insofar as it impacts on the profit margin. They point out, and they should know, that not only they themselves, but absolutely everyone they know who works in the business, is fully and whole-heartedly dedicated to finding the best writers they can and bringing their work before the world. Likewise, I'm sure anyone who works for any given television channel would say with their hand on their heart that the sole purpose of their existence is to bring quality programming before the discerning viewer. It's all about the programmes.

And yet...in the past few years, we've seen the encroachment of continuity announcements over the closing credits of every single programme (or sometimes the closing minutes of said programme), the appearance of the station ident in the top left corner (which only gets removed for the adverts), the squeezing of the said credits into a tiny tiny box so as to include adverts for more programmes, often including commercial sponsors' logoes, and the growth of the intrusive banner such as 6.8 million people saw on Saturday. We have also noted that the continuity announcements are frequently miscued, the screen-squeezing is sometimes applied to the programme rather than the credits, and, in short, whoever is running the daily broadcast schedule seems to spend at least some time each day asleep at the switch. It certainly appears that the content of the programmes is to some extent regarded as filler, at best, and at worst an unnecessary intrusion into the process of selling product (or, in the non-commercial channels' case, keeping people hanging on for the next programme). There's indifference in there somewhere.

The weird thing is that it took so long for anyone to notice. Maybe, if the thousands who complained about it on Saturday have any actual effect (beyond the anodyne "apology" which somebody dashed off late on Sunday), it will spark a wave of complaints to ITV2, 3 and 4, Virgin 1, Sky 1 to 3 and all the rest. We'll see.

Comments

[the-changeling.livejournal.com]

They only did it in England...

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Sadly, my friend, you're just now discovering what we here in the country that invented television have known for decades: The commercials are NOT there to fund the programs; the programs are there to get you to watch the commercials. To paraphrase my Biblical namesake, one cannot serve both Art and Mammon.

But thank you for showing me I'm not the only viewer bugged by the ever-growing encroachment of promos and ads into the shows themselves.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

The "bugs" (as they're known) are just as bad across many US-based channels. It was one thing for there to be a transparent, static channel logo in the corner. But there are often animated ads that take 1/4 of the screen during the show, and we've been railing at them for years. This one happened to be particularly egregious, and the timing sucked red rubber donkeys -- and a populist movement was born. Who knows, maybe it'll make a difference?

I'm not holding my breath in anticipation, though.

[armb.livejournal.com]

> Yes, it's irritating, but so are the advert breaks themselves, and nobody complains about them.

They might accept that given a choice between only a state funded broadcaster and adverts, adverts are preferable, but people do complain if ad breaks get longer, more frequent, or more intrusive (sound compressed to seem louder).

(And TV companies complain that if too many people watch on time-shifting devices that can easily skip ads, which more and more do, they will lose revenue.)

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I have complained to some channels about 'crashing' programme material (the worst was FX with a JAG episode which ended on a very sombre note (Last Post and then silence) which the announcer then cheerfully overtalked; from their reply apparently a lot of people also complained about it and they did apologise and say that the announcer had been warned).

I think in this case the outrage was greater because it was the BBC. Most people understand that commercial companies have to maximise their advertisement time, even though they don't like the credits being squashed (or maybe most don't even notice because they get up as soon as the credits come on, just as they do in the cinema), but the BBC don't have that excuse. Couple that with crashing programme material on a popular show and there will be complaints. I suspect that ITV or whoever would have the same level of complaint if they did it to a soap opera.

Of course, the advertising pressure works both ways. The BBC became well-known for messing with programme times[1] and cancelling programmes at whim (and randomising the order of programmes in a series[2]) because they didn't care, they had a virtual monopoly and weren't responsible to anyone. Unfotrunately some of their programming people still seem to have the same attitude.

[1] At one time I used to set a VCR on "long play", 8 hours, starting 3 hours before a half hour programme was scheduled, in the hope that I would catch it somewhere on the tape. At least one I still missed, they rescheduled at 2am the next morning (instead of 8pm) because the *repeat* (not even live) of a sports game overran too much.

[2] I believe it was 'Shogun' where they showed the last 4 episodes of a season in random order. Unfortunately the main character cut his hair in one of the episodes, so when shown it kept getting longer and shorter again. Several other series also had definite continuity problems because they didn't bother showing them in order.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

You plainly haven't been watching Points of View, or frequenting various BBC message boards or listening to Feedback, because all of those issues have been the subject of furious complaint for over a year.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Well, at least it's inspired some creativity... =:o}