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I'm ready for the TV revolution to hit!
app103:
I think you are either forgetting something or are unaware of it...the purpose of television programming.
You assume it exists to inform and/or entertain you. Not quite true. The programs exist to draw you in and control you by keeping you seated so they can show you advertisements. Advertising is the purpose of TV. If the networks could show nothing but advertising 24/7 and make as much money, they would. But you wouldn't sit and watch, so they have to trick you somehow to get you to comply with their wishes, which is why there are programs that you enjoy. It's how they keep you seated for the commercials and how they keep you coming back for more ads.
And while you may believe you are paying a bill to view those networks, you are actually paying for the delivery service provided by your cable, phone, or dish company and not the actual stations they are delivering to you (unless it is a pay network like HBO or Showtime, which are an additional fee)
They do not want you to be in control of the viewing experience. That would mean less profits for them. The rates they charge advertisers are based on the popularity of the programs, the time slot in which they are shown, and the length of the advertising slot in which it will be inserted.
The only time you are allowed to have control over your viewing experience is when you are willing to pay extra for it. And the more control you want, the more you can expect to pay, if they decide to give you what you want.
Think about it...
Why would any network pay so much money for the production of any program, or the right to air a program, if they were not making so much more from the advertising shown during that program? You are just a set of ad watching eyeballs to them. Nothing more.
superboyac:
I think app nailed it. You said it better than I could have.
And that's sad for the consumers. It's sad to me to know that this great technology is available, yet we are stuck with a crappy user experience. I watch Mad Men also, and sometimes I wonder about what the future holds for advertising. The typical advertising models seem antiquated to me also. Commercials, movie previews, even ads on the internet. How effective are they to the end user? i wonder sometimes. I know it's bringing loads of money to everyone, but is it actually accomplishing the true intent of advertising? Are a lot of people discovering the products they need through formal advertising these days? I wonder.
Stoic Joker:
Yepper App nailed it.
You are just a set of ad watching eyeballs to them. Nothing more.-app103 (August 19, 2010, 12:53 PM)
--- End quote ---
I just got this mental picture of the Geico mascot bleeding its money bundle into a TV set and then vanishing.
zridling:
Yea, App's insight on how the program content is merely there to interrupt the ads is true to my experience. Long ago, Howard Stern would do 38-40 minutes of his show each hour and then take a 20-minute ad break. It was great radio, because you could stay and listen to the wacky ads or you could flip the station for a determined time.
But as ads continue their creep into everything, I'm reminded how prescient the movie Idiocracy (2006) really was. They're even running onscreen YouTube popup ads in between plays during the St. Louis Rams preseason football game last week. It was maddening. And if I listen to a baseball radio broadcast, the announcer is busy trying to read an ad in between pitches. These instances alone confirm App's insight.
JavaJones:
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with App, and I explained why in my original post above, but I'll respond more pointedly here.
I have no illusions about the purpose of TV and the payments we make to gain access. Advertising is king, no doubt about it. Which is exactly why on-demand TV *with a properly integrated ad model* makes tons more sense than the current system. Why? Because people already skip ads with DVRs, switch channels during commercial breaks, or simply mute the commercials. The advertising system is already compromised to some degree. Far from further compromising it, an on-demand system could actually strengthen it and improve its effectiveness, which is a win for everyone since ineffective advertising is a waste of everyone's time (consumer, service provider, and advertiser alike).
The answer is, in my mind, fairly simple. With on-demand you could easily have mandatory-to-watch interspersed ads, no skipping possible. People can (or at least should be able to) still mute, but that's about it. In fact this approach is already in wide (and increasing) use, including on big sites like YouTube (only for videos setup to use ads), and many others. Given the fact that the ads are almost impossible to skip, already you can see the on-demand system being potentially more useful for selling ads and being demonstrably less "compromised" than the current system.
But it doesn't stop there, it only gets better. Think about the disconnect between someone watching a commercial for a given product and the time it takes them to A: find out more info or B: go buy the thing. With a properly Internet-enabled TV watching experience, the distance between a customer and a product purchase can get a lot smaller. Someone wants to find out more about Colgate Toothpaste? All they do is click a button on their remote during the ad and it opens a site full of info, formatted for viewing on a TV, and with convenient buy links. Their show? It's automatically paused, ready to continue playing when they're done fulfilling the advertising's fundamental point of existence. This is far better than traditional TV advertising and it's easily realized.
The system could even record a history of the advertising they've been shown, allowing them to reference recent advertising for more info. I know I've had several times where I've actually been interested in a product or ad but been unable to remember exact details and would have really appreciated a feature like that: "Yeah, it was a commercial for a new digital camera last night when I was watching my favorite show. It had great features, I just don't remember the model number or manufacturer..."
Another important benefit comes from better targeting of ads. As a service/content provider you would have an advertising content store, just like your main content store. Because nothing is on a strict schedule anymore, not only can you serve up whatever ads you want, of any length (theoretically - within reasonable limits of customer's tolerance), but you can also show specific ads to each individual customer. Those ads can be based on your knowledge of their TV watching habits, or their "click" habits on previous advertisements, or any other info that you gather through your new, more intelligent "set top box". You could even let customers vote up or down ads or ad types as they watch.
You can also give customers choices like having more frequent but shorter ad breaks vs. less frequent and longer breaks. Or even let customers choose what kind of advertising they get, based on their actual self-selected interests. There are many additional possibilities too like interactive ads, or even live contextual ads overlaid on content (like YouTube ads).
All of this makes advertising *more* effective and serves the primary purpose of TV far better than the current system, as far as I can see. The only issue that stands out in my mind is working out a different pricing model for ad time/space. But it shouldn't be that complicated as many of the current approaches still work. You don't have "time slots", but you do have shows that are more or less popular, which of course deserve correspondingly more or less compensation for associated ad time. So not much different than now. I think that issue could be easily resolved.
I don't claim to be an expert on any of this and I would be happy to know more about how everything works behind the scenes and hear alternative viewpoints and approaches. But for now I still see this is a pretty big win-win(-win) for everyone. There are some big business process adjustments to make, and some technology foundations to lay, but ultimately these are not huge obstacles for an industry that successfully took over from broadcast programming, laid millions of miles of cable across the US, and makes billions and billions of dollars every year. Put simply, it is really just in their best interest to do this IMO.
- Oshyan
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