[telecom] Broadcasters Warn of Apocalypse in Dish's Ad-Skipping Service

There is no such thing as "free" broadcast programming. There can't be: it's an oxymoron. Every boradcaster has to pay for the content they transmit, for the employees who run the tranmitters and studios and mobile trucks and satellite dishes, and for the "Talent" that stands in front of the cameras and recites the press release they just received from the ever-so-helpful spin doctors of the corporate PR machine during the evening "news".

You and I don't pay for watching television by observing insipid sixty-second dramas about perfect people doing ever-so-trendy things in ever-so-trendy clothes while mouthing every-so-trendy buzzwords and always putting the product center screen. That's not how we pay for "free" programming.

The cost of television, as my brother so aptly pointed out to me many years ago, is that all the problem are solved in sixty minutes with time out for commercials. The cost of televsion is, as sociologists have discovered, that the economic underclass believes that middle class people all have new clothes, and new cars, and beautiful homes and beautiful wives and carefree lives that never demand they make hard choices or sacrifices.

The cost of television, in short, is that it has drilled itself into our consciousness like some succubus that will steal our souls as it feeds on our innocence and deprives us of the chance to see the world with our own eyes.

Bill

Per Monty Solomon:

One solution to their problem might be commercials that most people do not want to skip.

Seems like there has already been a trend in that direction over the past several years - although I personally haven't watched more than 20 seconds of *any* commercial in a lot longer than that... the snippits I see look more entertaining and less intrusive.

Understood that automated skip is qualitatively different from fast-forward.... but people still have to explicitly invoke it.

A long time ago, when we used to go to Germany every year or two, I observed that the commercials there were all run back-to-back early in the evening. No shows... just continuous commercials. State-run TV, I guess.... But when I brought it up, wondering who on earth would watch them, people said "Sure, people watch the commercials... they're entertaining..." And they were....

But never for longer than ten minutes, right?

Until the mid 1980ies, there was no alternative. Which was good. Since private-run TV is here, the programs have changed to cater for a significantly less intelligent audience.

Even today, Commercials are packed up up so that a show is never interrupted more than twice (three times?) in an hour.

Greetings Marc

--

-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! ----- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " |

The paradigm goes back to the earliest days or radio when it ceased to be just a hobby and became a commercial power house.

When we visited in the Bahamas many years ago Bill Paley (and many others) had a listed telephone number in the very excluive millionaires' section of New Providence.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

This is an excellent and important point.

A viewing of old VHS tapes recorded in the early 1980s reveals less commercial content than now, roughly 5 to 8 minutes more commercials per hour.

I understand newcasts have been reduced from 22 minutes to 18 minutes.

Cable TV providers claim they must raise basic rates 3% every year to pay for programming received from 'free' channels, e.g. USA Network, LifetimeTV, ABCFamily, AMC, Comedy, etc. But programs on these channels are still loaded with commercials, with even more than on traditional broadcast TV. So, the viewer is paying twice. Why is that?

IMHO, there hasn't been any improvement. At certain times, some of the commercials are horrendously bad, such as blaring ads by lawyers to get money for medical malpractice or adverse drug reaction. Or for rather suspicious life insurance or health care services. (How does _anyone_ 75 years old qualify for life insurance 'no questions asked')?

In the old days people would use the bathroom or other tasks during commercials. Commercials used to be evenly spaced throughout a program. But now, to discourage bathroom breaks and hook the viewer in, they keep the first 20 minutes commercial free, then load up the last end with roughly five minutes of content and five minutes of commercials, but not evenly spaced. They also announce "we'll now return to" but then show more commercials, so you'll run out of the bathroom.

If my own choice was to watch TV as aired with its many awful commercials, I couldn't watch. Indeed, I get edgely in waiting rooms these days since so many have a blaring TV set. (They told me doctors' offices can't have magazines because they spread germs--is that true?)

It gets very confusing for the consumer as to who pays for what. The traditional broadcasters complain, the cable companies complain, the satellite companies complain. Who does a consumer believe? I can't help but suspect they're all making tons of money.

On Wed, 30 May 2012 12:59:30 -0700 (PDT) HAncock4 wrote:

I assume by "'free' channels," you're referring to programming carried on the basic tier, and for which there is no extra incremental charge beyond the basic-tier monthly fee.

We've discussed this issue before. Here's a quote from a message I posted here in July 2007:

| Because the programming carried on advertising-supported non- | broadcast channels doesn't generate enough advertising revenue | to cover the cost of producing it and delivering it. If it | did, broadcast stations and networks would be carrying it, and | advertising *already would be* supporting it. | | In order to support such programming, the producers and | program suppliers have to rely on two revenue streams: | advertising and subscriber fees. This is the same business | model employed by the vast majority of print publications. | | The real significance of this dual-revenue-stream business | model isn't just the sum of the two revenue streams; it's the | way in which the two revenue streams reinforce each other: | | - Consumer revenue reinforces advertising revenue. There's | an old adage in the advertising business that "paid | advertising is worth more than free advertising." A | consumer who pays for a publication (print or video) | is more likely to read/watch it than a non-paying | consumer. | | - Advertising revenue reinforces consumer revenue. | Advertising revenue enables the producer to provide a | better product (print or video), thus enticing consumers to | spend more time reading/watching it, and, by extension, | enticing more consumers to buy the product. | | And that, of course, is why the program suppliers demand that | non-broadcast advertising-supported channels must be carried | on the basic tier.

Here's a link to my original post of 07/07/2007: