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We Interrupt These Commercials....
Two letters:
...I wanted to get the latest news and I turned to no less than five news channels...but all I saw were commercials, one right after another. Finally, I gave up and turned on the computer and went to a couple web sites and immediately found what I wanted to know.
And the the TV people wonder why they are losing viewers!
-Sara - Chicago, IL
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...I recently spent some time in your country and found that your TV seems to be mostly filled with commercials. You've got some good programs, but they are interrupted a half-dozen times an hour for a group of up to ten commercials, one right after another. ...How can you follow a program with so many interruptions?
-JT, New Brunswick, Canada
I couldn't believe your figure of ten commercials in a row, so I tuned to some cable/satellite programs and found you were right: although they were short, I counted 8 to 10 commercials during each break.
Each year the commercial content of TV programming has been increasing. By some estimates, when you consider product placement plus the blocks of commercials, we are approaching the point where commercials will represent one-half of programming time.
To escape the commercial clutter many people are using personal video recorders to record programs so they can speed through the long blocks of commercials. Viewers that can't afford such luxuries, simply use the "mute" button on the remote control.
To combat these approaches advertisers are going to product placement, to make their products clearly visible in the settings of sitcoms and dramatic programming.
Of course, programming costs money, so it's a matter of the lesser of the two evils—the commercial clutter or having to pay for the luxury of commercial-free programming. Since most US broadcasting is not government subsidized as it is in many countries, the money to pay for programming has to come from somewhere.
And, there is also this to consider: During major news events—the September 11th terrorist attacks, for example—the major networks dropped commercials for extended periods of time and lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. Of course, the argument could be made that any network or station that ran commercials during a time of fast-breaking news like this would immediately lose their audience when people tuned to another station.
We have evidence that many viewers are growing weary of the ever-increasing barrage of commercials and are turning to other media outlets. Even now, it appears that young, computer literate people are relying on the Internet for most of their news.
Even while announcing multi-billions in profits in 2003, the media giants push to sell even more commercials. While commercial television focuses on short-term profit, it is alienating its most valued viewers.
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