DVD Talk Forum - TBS just needs to stop.

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^ :lol: but that's some serious spoiler material man. Might be a little too soon for that out in the open in an unrelated thread.

the Superstation TBS 7:05 for saturday night rasslin (wait, wrong decade)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ayre

A handful of viewers will be pissed off, but Bill Engvall will get a big (relative) ratings boost that will be attributed to the marketing strategy.

While that may be true, I know personally I wont watch the show now because of the way they did the advertising...When I saw this I was like WTF!!!!!! One of the worse marketing Ideas they came up with, I guess advertising their shows in the "splashes" while other shows are running wasn't good enough..

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoboDad

In the early days of television, it was found that most people skipped commercials, not by use of a DVR, but by leaving the room, either to use the bathroom, or to go fetch a snack from the kitchen. The way many shows dealt with that was by including product placements in the show itself. Game shows had sponsor banners as part of the set and opening graphics, and voiced over by the announcer, and scripted shows had the actors use and/or mention products, or provide in-character, often live ad spots, etc.

The problem with this paradigm was the creation of syndication. It does little good for a show to include a product placement if there is no ad revenue received from the producer of said product during its syndicated life. And given how products change over time, most companies probably wouldn't want to pay a fee to "advertise" a product that is possibly several generations old.

So what are networks and local stations to do? Certainly the Bill Engvall "pause the show" experiment is a bad, bad idea, and may even result in a loss of viewers, which would kind of defeat the purpose it is trying to serve. I don't really have any answers either, and I can sympathize (on a purely business level) with their plight, but that sympathy ends when you consider the way commercial time per hour has increased over the past 40 years -- 8 minutes/hour in 1967, versus 18 minutes/hour in 2008. Either they need to start charging an ad rate that allows them to reduce the overall number of ads while still generating adequate revenue, or else find more creative ways to insert ads into the program without being so ridiculously intrusive.

I remember seeing the tail end of embedded advertisements when I was a kid.

The newscaster would say, ". . . the President also said that the US should be out of Vietnam by 1969.

Do you have dandruff? Tegrin medicated shampoo combats dandruff. Tegrin. Now it's even stronger.

Anwar Sadat announced that Israeli hostile actions were threatening peaceful relations with Egyptian. . ."

Even as a little kid I thought it was wrong.

I thought this thread was going to be about TBS constantly promoting House of Payne as (supposedly) "cable's #1 sitcom of all time". Give me a break.

what made for cable sitcom has done better?

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuessWho

what made for cable sitcom has done better?

Does South Park count? It's a comedy and those boys get in situations.

Cable subscribers have already shown that they'll put up with ANYTHING. You'll all bitch about this for a while but eventually get used to it just like everything else, because you can never even think about not having cable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Smithee

Isn't TBS an over-the-air channel in Atlanta?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Smithee

Canceling cable because of a TBS ad would make no sense. Not watching TBS would make sense.

Yikes...those ads suck!

Bill Engval (whoever the f*ck that is anyway) just made my list of people whose death I will celebrate. Not that I've seen TBS or ever watched an episode of Family Guy on TV but I saw that hick last week promoting his shit show before the Sex and the City movie. I had to clinch my eyes shut in order to avoid coming in any kind of contact with a fraction of that uninspired looking garbage. But its ok, I'll forget all about this guy after he stops with the before the movie advertisements.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Cow

Isn't TBS an over-the-air channel in Atlanta?

It was, but things got complicated over the past few years. Initially, WTBS just offered their signal free to any cable company that wanted it; this turned out to be a shrewd move for Turner, as it made Braves fans all over the country.

In the past few years, however, TBS expanded its baseball coverage to include other teams, and I believe that because of MLB broadcasting rules, WTBS could no longer broadcast to the local Atlanta market. So there was a "local" version of TBS and a "broadcast" version which was available outside the Atlanta area.

According to Wikipedia, "on October 1, 2007, Turner Broadcasting rebranded WTBS [the Atlanta OTA station] as Peachtree TV, with new call letters, WPCH-TV. As a result of this, the nationwide version of TBS, which was blacked-out in the Atlanta market, became available to cable and satellite viewers in the market for the first time. Peachtree TV carries Atlanta Braves baseball as well as classic and more recent off-network syndicated programming and movies."

EDIT: Apparently, TBS always had two different versions. The "local TBS" was required by the FCC as a broadcast station to offer public affairs stuff and educational content for children, while "national TBS" (being a cable channel) was not. Also, commercials differed between the local and national versions. However, most of the time the two channels were simulcasting the same programming.

That commercial interruption could have been funny, if they had done it right.

Here's what they should have done.

After Bill un-pauses the show, the FG characters all stop what they're doing, look in his direction and start bitching about him interrupting their show as he walks off camera. Then Peter walks off camera in the same direction, you hear a fist fight and Bill Engvall screaming, then Peter walks back on camera, and the FG show resumes its story. They could have milked it for more by having Bill (with a black eye) stick his head back on camera and say "Sorry for the interruption, folks" and have Peter jump off camera, accompanied by more fight sounds and Bill screaming, then Peter walks back on and they resume.

Just a thought.

I'm sure Family Guy will be running to make fun of this. Just like Arrested Development did. AND the Simpsons movie.

It was inevitable that something like this would happen sooner or later given the number of obtrusive ads these days. This is the very reason I gave up watching the majority of network/cable TV shows years ago and instead wait for the DVD season sets.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chad

Just wait until they have unskippable commercials in the DVD sets! I already hate the companies that put those stupid unskippable previews that load up when you first put a DVD in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triple S

I'm sure Family Guy will be running to make fun of this. Just like Arrested Development did. AND the Simpsons movie.

The Simpsons Movie jab was one of the movie's funniest parts, during its gloriously nonsensical and plotless first half.

"Yes, we even advertise during our movies!" :lol:

I'm surprised there isn't an ad banner constantly running underneath the shows. Kind of like the stock tickers on CNN or whatever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mndtrp

I'm surprised there isn't an ad banner constantly running underneath the shows. Kind of like the stock tickers on CNN or whatever.

Give it a couple of years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mndtrp

I'm surprised there isn't an ad banner constantly running underneath the shows. Kind of like the stock tickers on CNN or whatever.

Like the ticker in the Simpson's Movie. I'd expect that soon too :)

I hate it as much as anyone, but again - what are advertisers supposed to do? Commercials are getting skipped, commercials pay the bills, no commercials=no show.

No one ever offers an alternative suggestion.