Ninja Gaiden

Has anyone else seen this? I'm watching Ghostbusters on TNT and suddenly an advertisment for vanilla coke comes up under the screen squishing the image above it. This has got to be one of the dumber ideas I've seen. I've seen this done a few times on USA also. Do they want people to stop watching thier shows?

Jackskeleton

the good ol' Lower third's ad's. I am watching Ghost busters aswell. While most stations will key the ad over the show in progress making a sort of invisable/visable ad not being to much of a distraction to the screen, TNT on the other hand smashes the image into a smaller aspect so to create a black bar of doom. I hate this with a passion. if you are going to do anything to the lower third, do it without affecting the 4:3 aspect of the show. I Spike does this alot and you do recall FOX's ad's for joe millionare right?

Numanoid

This sounds like yet another sad attempt to combat Tivos and the like. Since more and more people are PVRing their shows, and skipping through the commercials, the ad companies and stations are getting desperate and are finding ways to insert the adds into or on top of the shows. Write to the advertiser and the station and tell them you won't be buying their products, or watching their shows while this continues. It's the only way they will ever stop.

Buford T Pusser

and tell them I won't either (buying products/watching shows)

tha_dvd_man

I never, ever watch a movie that has such invasive advertising schemes. The moment I see one while watching a movie, I flip the channel and don't turn back.

Wizdar

ESPN started this screen-squishing technique at the top and bottom of the hour a century or so ago. Of course, there was sports info there.

TNN/Spike was doing this a year or two ago, and some time along the line figured out how to do it without actually squishing the pic. All their ads, though, were about programs, not products.

This isn’t a surprise to me at all.

I managed to catch a Nip/Tuck promo on the lower right corner of the screen a coupla days ago, complete with very annoying scissors noises. The “bugs” are growing, and there’s no end in sight.

IMO, the number of folks who actually call and complain will be so insignificant as to be an annoyance more than anything else. Without any kind of organized “movement,” “voting with your wallet” is an exercise in futility.

It’ll soon come to the point where TV will only be worth watching on DVD.

BDB

You all watch movies on television? I don't understand this at all

Speed Channel has some hideous promo's for Wind Tunnel or some other crappy program, and of course they crank up the volume...

I heard that this season NBC are going to show some mini snippets during the commercials to make people watch them.

Numanoid

Yes, apparently they are going to start running one minute mini-series inside of the commercial breaks in an effort to get you to watch the entire break to catch the next installment. Of course, for we Internt savvy folk, that won't work, because somebody will surely collect the series, assemble them and post them to the usual P2P spots. Suckers.

Roto

I think it's pretty brave for anyone to admit on DVDtalk that they'd watch a movie on TNT

marty888

More and more, my TV is becoming simply a DVD monitor .... probably down to about 2-3 hours a week of prime-time broadcast stuff.

rocketsauce

jacksleleton, i have a question..... do you or have you worked in the television buisness? you referred to "lower thirds" which is a referance to a type of chyron. just wondering, never heard anyone wlse outside the "buisness" refer to that

Jackskeleton

Yeah, I'm in the industry.

Chew

Not if a set like Rocky & Bullwinkle is any indication: they have a "bug" too.

Wizdar

Say, WHAT???

What kind of bug?

Chew

Wizdar

WTF?!?

Numanoid

It only lasts for ten seconds at the beginning of the episode. It's not permanent. Although that hasn't stopped many people from boycotting the set:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...ght=bullwinkle

Wizdar

Thanks for the link. Gonna pop right over there and show my support. This kinda crap ain’t going anywhere with me.

Yeah.

Just like that Lucas guy, thinks he can get away with anything that doesn’t include the OT, he’s got another thing coming.

Yeah.

Voting with my wallet.

Yeah.










OK, so who’s got the best price?

Draven

Not that I don't find them annoying, but if everyone is going to be skipping commercials, how exactly is TV going to make any money?

Almost all of it comes from advertisers.

Easy

Let me see if I got this right... Networks feel they are forced into advertising during the show because of PVR owners skipping commercials. So now the shows where this is done aren't worth watching, much less recording. How ironic.

redskull47

It won't be long until we're back to the way they used to do ads on old radio shows--the ads will become part of the dialogue:

Joey:
Hey Ross, you wanna go get something to eat?
Ross:
Sure. Let's use your car.
Joey:
You mean my 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix Special Edition, with all leather seats, Vortec V-6 engine, with power windows and locks standard? Pontiac: Fuel for the Soul!

Draven

Doesn't answer the question. Television is a business and it needs money to function. What should they do instead?

El-Kabong

Soon? Man, for me the breaking point was years ago. Aside from a couple of notiable exceptions, broadcast TV sucks ass hardcore. I think the last thing I watched with any regularity was Babylon 5. Since then there hasnt been a damn thing on worth watching.

(I did miss Buffy for darn near the entire run - which would have been the OTHER thing on TV as of late that I would have watched. But the DVD sets are fitting the bill just fine)

How about getting back to the 50's, where TV shows were sponsored by Big Business. You know, Texaco Theater, the Hallmark Playhouse and so on. Non-intrusive and yet still effective.

Jackskeleton

with today's budget on shows, not many companies can afford to sponser a network show on their own. Some are based around it, look at Pepsi's music variety show. Another solution can be a smaller step then full sponsership, product placement. It's been done in many instances. Look at American Idol. the product placement for coke and the singing numbers based around the sponsers car are examples of product placement in the show itself. But for a single copration to take on a full half hour show would be a heavy load. Not to mention it would only really apply towards huge corporations that want to adverstise nation wide. A lot of local ad's would suffer from that.

In the long run, we are moving towards a video on demand type of situation with broadcasting and broadcast cost is not going to go down anytime soon, so networks need to do what they need to in order to stay afloat.

Draven

Yup.

Alias's pilot episode was sponsored by Nokia. There were a couple of times she answered her cell phone and it was obviously a Nokia, and at least one time when they shot a closeup of the screen (to show who was calling) but the Nokia logo was prominently placed.

And I was totally fine with that, since when I look at MY cell phone the Nokia logo is prominently placed. I'd rather have people using real-world products than listening to their Sorny stereos.