19 Nov 08 That Toyota Ad
I’ve not seen it myself. Nope. Then again, the last time I watched TV was to see McCain and Obama give their speeches on election night.
One of the reasons I don’t watch network TV is the annoying number of ads, rather than the number of annoying ads. I fully realize that it’s the advertising the generates the revenue for the networks, but unlike online advertising, which you can usually ignore, and which in any case, tends to be contextual, rather than, as in the case of television advertising, completely irrelevant to the content.
I’m good at skim reading and I’m pretty good in general at skimming past anything that doesn’t interest me, and that I don’t need to know. On the occasions that I do watch television, I find I simply don’t remember advertisments. I do get annoyed that the program I am trying to watch is interrupted every 6-7 minutes with a multitude of junk food ads or about pills you should take after a lifetime of eating the aforementioned junk food, but I can’t remember for the most part what the actual products are, as I don’t take pills unless I really have to, and almost never eat junk food as I don’t like it.
Still, what I don’t understand is how some folks get so animated about a 30 second ad, when much of the programming itself leaves a lot to be desired!
Tags: annoying ads, election night, junk food ads, last time, lifetime, mccain, multitude, network tv, occasions, pills, speeches, television advertising, watch network
21 Aug 08 Broadcasting vs Streaming
So the Olympics was watched on TV by around 92% of viewers, and if you look at the total minutes watched agaisnt minutes streamed online it’s over 99% (source TV Week)
I suspect that these are probably similar for most types of video material.
I know that I’m very atypical when it comes to TV. I almost exclusively obtain my news and worldly information from the Internet, with a much smaller amount from broadcast radio (mostly BBC World Service). Then again, I watch very little TV. Period.
Of course, producing TV programming isn’t cheap. Someone somewhere has to pay for it, and mostly its supported by advertising. What I do find strange is that although many people will complain about advertisements on web sites, or blogs, such as this one, they’ll quite happily watch an hour-long show, that is interrupted without warning every 7-8 minutes by intrusive annoying commercials that can’t be skipped, and most often bear no relation to the content of the programming! For me, aside from having a great difficulty of finding content that I find interesting and engaging, viewing is spoiled for me by those ads.
I can watch shows from a service like Joost or Hulu, and while there are commericials they’re much less obtrusive, more contextual, and much less frequent than network TV.
Of course, another great advantage of online services such as those I mentioned above is the ‘on-demand’ model. I’ve already said I watch little TV, but if I did, I want it to be my slave and not my master. I don’t need to mess around with VCR, DVR, Tivo or anything else with Joost for example. I can watch what I want, when I want.
Tags: advertisements, annoying commercials, bbc, bbc world, bbc world service, broadcast radio, demand model, dvr, hulu, Joost, little tv, network tv, olympics, tivo, tv programming, tv week, vcr, video material
01 Dec 07 You Don’t Say!
The Writers Guild of America is on strike. Now, I have some sympathies with them. I wouldn’t want to spend time creating a web site, only to have multiple copies of it made for free, when I could have earned money doing just that. Thing is, particularly with anything on the Internet, we all want and almost expect everything to be free.
Why should movies and shows be free? We’ve gotten used to “free” network TV shows over the years. Of course there is no free lunch, and ultimately the cost of TV (and all other forms of) advertising is passed on to the consumer. In fact, it’s gotten worse on the Internet, where not only is the content expected for free, but we also don’t want any advertising, and where some folks go to some lengths to block it.
We’re not talking about pop-up ads here, but in-line banner ads, which can be blocked by Firefox plug-ins which anyone can install, and which had led to a number of companies refusing to allow their sites to work in Firefox. This is, of course, a great shame, as Firefox is far superior, safer, more secure browser than the other major alternative, Internet Explorer.
I’m pretty much against this myself, as I too, run some advertising on my sites, including this one. It helps to generate a little revenue for me to defray some of the costs of running the site and also as many ads on this site are context sensitive, they may be of use at times, if you’re reading something you’re interested in, and wish to know more about a product, so it can also be a useful service.
Anyway, I have digressed somewhat. Going back to that writers strike. I read a comment on Slashdot this morning from a guy that commented:
“Isn’t it great? My girlfriend started downloading documentaries to make up for the lack, and we’ve learned about a whole host of different things. It’s amazing how little you miss the crap they churn out.”
I can only reply, “No shit, Sherlock!”
Tags: banner ads, churn, context sensitive, creating a web site, defray, different things, documentaries, earned money, firefox, free lunch, internet explorer, line banner, network tv, plug ins, pop up ads, reply, sherlock, slashdot, sympathies, writers guild of america
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