Panda Phil

WTF? I know its only Family Guy, but still. God help us if this sort of thing catches on.

http://homepage.mac.com/penguincouple/ad/index.htm

No wonder so many are waiting to watch their tv shows on dvd.

The Cow

Yeah, the wife and I were bitching about this yesterday.

I've only seen it during Family Guy and only for the Bill Engvall show, but that's probably because I don't watch TBS much.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

Red Dog

Wow. That's horrible.

rocketsauce

yeah as someone who just got a marketing BA and am looking to go into media (advertising) I agree that is the worst idea to combat DVR's. I'm in a weird spot because I do love my DVR and skipping commercials, but am planning on making my livelihood on said commercials.

I read an article awhile ago that some channels are planning on going retro and reintroducing the live ad like in the 60's and 70's.

What TBS did was just plain and utter bullshit.

big whoppa

TBS are going to get so blasted for this.

IDrinkMolson

It kind of fits with the Family Guy routine.

But, bad idea.

DthRdrX

This has been annoying the hell out of me the last few times I watched Family Guy.

If they had Peter popping up during Engvall's show I might actually watch it though.

DeanoBKN

Because it's Family Guy, i'll let it slide. It seems like something they would do as a spoof.

Anything else, forget about it!

pinata242

Unacceptable, regardless of underlying show.

das Monkey

Tracer Bullet

That video crashes every browser I have installed on my computer. What is TBS doing?

pinata242

Here's a crappier, off-screen version.



Indeed, Bill. Exactly how cool is that?

Strafe

The Bill Engval show might do well, if only they'd advertise it more.

rfduncan

For me to POOP on!
(Seriously, that show sucks donkey b*lls.)

Tracer Bullet

Yeah, it sucks, but what's stopping people from fast forwarding through it?

JuryDuty

The fact that it's so short. First, it interrupts the momentum of the show (and the jokes), second it's so short that by the time you grab your remote and FF through it, you'll have to go back a few seconds, and by then you might as well have watched it. Horrible.

BJacks

Onion's AV Club just posted something about this:

http://www.avclub.com/content/hater/...ng_bill_engval

Raul3

hahaha that was great!

Draven

Everyone always complains, but then they go right back to skipping commercials.

These shows have to do something to keep the money coming in.

Tracer Bullet

They could be a little more gracious about their failing business model. This is just going to annoy people.

arminius

I agree. I don't know if its still like this but years ago in Germany they only had commercials between shows. They would run 5 or so minutes straight of just commercials that were tied together with some cartoon characters doing something that tied in with the products. Also making good ones instead of insulting ones might help.I don't mind watching a good funny one, but those are few and far between.

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.

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.

Panda Phil

Which is fine, they're welcome to this POS. Meanwhile the rest of us will find other things to do.

MadMark

Thankfully, it's only TBS. It could have been worse. . .
(Don't read if you haven't seen the LOST finale)