Day 173

Though I do not believe it is alright to download media illegally, I do have a certain sense of understanding about TV shows, because television can be so infuriating to watch because of commercals, and nobody wants to wait a whole year and pay 75 bucks for the DVD sets.

American Idol is probably the archetypal example of commercials being intentionally placed right at the precise moment where you don't want to see a commercial. The most tense, tingly, powerful moment of anticipation, moments from resolution, cuts away to obnoxious commercials. I think there is a phenomenon in television now, where the shows, knowing this is how they'll be functioning, in fact build their progressions around the commercial breaks. Watch a show on DVD, and you'll notice quickly that it has several points of semi-anticipation that cut out and back in - ie. where the commercials would have been.

This may seem insignificant, but it speaks to the fact advertizing is the single and sole reason why shows exist in the first place. They could not give two shits whetherthe continuity of an episode is completely ruined for the sake of commercials, so long as you keep watching.

And game shows I don't care about this. But when I'm watching a good show, like a really serious and emotionally gripping episode of House, or Lost, or whatever else, I get really pissed off when it happens. Some previously thought-to-be dead character comes out of nowhere:

"you.... You're alive!"

"Yes, and I'm here to kill you." (pulls gun out, cocks trigger, tense music plays in background...)

DOES THE SOAP SCUM ON YOUR BATHROOM TILES DRIVE YOU CRAZY??? TRY THE NEW MR. CLEAN MOP N' SCRUB SUPER TILE SCRUBBER, WITH THREE KINDS OF SCRUBBING ACTION!!!

"For fuck's sake!! Arg!!" I always say to myself. Sometimes aloud. How can they tell me it's wrong to just download the shows when they try to pull those kinds of stunts. These ads have the opposite effect on me. I get so angry at Mr. Clean, since I know the company deliberately paid extra money to have its commercial placed at the most annoying possible moment, that I will go out of my way never to buy anything it sells.

We're loyal tv viewers, and all we ask is that the continuity and emotional impact of the media isn't crushed every 11 minutes for the sake of me watching stupid, stupid commercials. Is that so much to ask? Can't we compromise somehow?

Comments

Colin said…
Sure, there's an alternative model to watching commercial-ridden programming, although it's in its infancy, yet to meet its full potential. It's the iTunes-model. Well, almost.

The model we currently have established makes terribly no sense. Most North American TV watchers pay big money to their cable or satellite providers to have commercial-laden media pumped/streamed into their homes. This media however, for the most part, was intended to be FREE for us- broadcast over the airwaves for us to pick up on our TV's rabbit ears. We got this service for free because of the commercials, which allowed the content creators to make the content. It's the model that was established by radio before television.

But wait there a sec- radio! We get radio for FREE, and we don't even think about it, and it has a similar proportion of advertising-to-content ratio as television. There ARE pay-for-radio services now thanks to satellite programming broadcasters, most notably Sirius and XM radio. These two services are great for customers - because they pay and get value passed onto them- content without advertising, a model that is fair, because the money consumers pay for the service compensates for the money not being brought in by advertising.

So, why do we pay for cable then? .. Because we've been accustomed to the luxury of large numbers of channels.. many of which the 'Shaws' of the world pick up for free and give to us for a charge, because they can collect them from rather away locations than our bunny-ears. They'd have us believe we're paying for the content (which is their price-point)- but nay, we're paying for access to their infrastructure, while they're charging us for the content.

The internet has the potential to fix that. We can buy content directly from its creators, free of advertising. The iTunes model is *almost* exactly this, except iTunes (apple) is the middle-woman who skims some profit off the top for themselves while establishing a monopoly of content distribution.

Colin plugs his own blog: www.colinboorman.ca
4:00 PM
Anonymous said…
By the way, I think you should watch/download/buy "Arrested Development". I have cancelled my cable since we spoke last, and my television/movie watching has since also been on a steady decline, but I have recently made myself into the third season of that show (there are only three, unfortunately) and it's basically too smart to be on television, and utterly, utterly awesome and funny. I think you'd really like it.

Onto commercials, I hate them, and I am kind of glad that in spending time with you, I developed a very good habit of muting/turning the TV off during commercials. I have met a lot of new people with whom I do this with now and I am always complimented on it, and people say it's a good idea they too adopt.

Fact is, after x number of hours, advertising must gradually lose its effect on us, decrease in effectivity, become stagnate, boring, dull, something worthy of ignoring. For me, anyway, all commercials do now is inform me of a product's existence, or remind me of a product's existence, which in some cases, does remind me I need to pick up Shampoo (not necessarily Dove shampoo, but shampoo), but most of the time it just reminds me of all the things I don't need, and all the things that are fickle and ridiculous and I have no interest in owning or being a part of.

At least consciously.
11:20 AM
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