Was thinking about this the other day while I was watching Seinfeld on Pix 11. Frequent commercial breaks are to be expected, but then during the show, an ad for some shitty product pops up and overlaps the bottom 1/3 of the screen. That was it for me and I turned it off.
Lots of justified complaining around here about the endless commercials during football games. And I remember a few years back during a Rangers playoff game...closing minute, Rangers up by 1, opposing goalie pulled, crowd going wild as shot after shot is fired. Announcer is loudly reeling off the play by play: "PUCK CROSSES THE BLUE LINE, NET IS EMPTY, 45 SECONDS LEFT, CAN THEY HOLD ON? - 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance, visit Geico.com today - SHOT SAILS WIDE OF THE GOAL!..." Really?
So my question is...do you have a limit where you'll stop watching or doing something because of ads. Does society at large? Where is the line? For instance there are ads all over buses inside & out, but not so much on Airplanes. Would travelers not stand for ads plastered all over their tray tables or on the plane's ceiling? Will we just put up with it regardless because that's capitalism and we want to consume the product? Or is there a point like me with Seinfeld where you say "okay, I'm done".
Display ads don't bother me because they are easy to ignore. I wouldn't care if a restaurant sold their plates to advertisers since it wouldn't Impact how I enjoy the food.
They also have pop ups when the credits are rolled. The unions that represent these performers should make it a serious issue !
One night I got roped into watching 'Private Parts' on Comedy Central. 5 minutes of movie, 7 minutes of commercials. Rinse and repeat about 8 times right in the middle of the movie. It was unfathomably unwatchable at that point.
Contrast that with overseas. I lived in France for a while and I distinctly remember watching 'Outbreak' on a network station and there were 3 or 4 breaks the entire film (and they have soap commercials with topless women, but that's a whole other topic about sexually repressed America...)
Yeah, it is tough with live sports, but I deal with it. I don't answer the phone when watching, or go to the net, to remain spoil free.
Almost all the rest of my tv watching these days is dvr-ed or paused for 20 minutes/per hour to ff commercials.
That said, I was an early adopter of the DVR (first one in 2000) and used it to skip commericals all of the time. My favorite DVR was the ReplayTV which had Commercial Advance Technology which would automatically skip over the commercials for you. No button presses, no FF, just commercial free bliss. Too bad they got sued for that.
Tell me a TV company can't put a audio limiter on the set?
But I'll still take billboards over tv interruptions. If my job were to come up with shit for the Geico lizard to say, or some read for an announcer to give DURING the action, I'd jump off a building. Professional interrupters.
Just discussed at work this morning how Facebook can now listen to you if you have FB messenger installed, and if it hears you say certain words, it will advertise a matching product to you.
Something I never heard of (mainly since I'm pretty anti-FB), but I can't believe that's allowed. I know you sign your rights away when agreeing to FB's terms, but I feel like that much be in such fineprint that its borderline illegal.
The kickoff sequence to a football game in particular has become ridiculous. Just eliminate the KO and be done with it already.
Regular webpages that automatically stream video ads should be shot into the sun, along with websites that automatically bring up apple app store. Also, ads that are disguised as real news stories should be marked.
Most billboards are an eye sore. They are tolerable only on rural highways.
There are some new communities in north Scottsdale where billboards are illegal and all shop advertising has to be naturalized into the desert landscape. I used to live up there. If you are used to that and then drive to Phoenix, where companies are allowed to light up their ads like it's freaking Vegas, you really notice how distasteful it all is.
The last thing you'd want is for everything to become an HOA, but I think there should be some reasonable legislation to keep things tasteful.
Check out "Facebook purity" It does for facebook what adblock does for the internet. This will get a lot of the garbage out of your newsfeed.
facebook purity - ( New Window )
Check out "Facebook purity" It does for facebook what adblock does for the internet. This will get a lot of the garbage out of your newsfeed. facebook purity - ( New Window )
Thanks, Ron. I use Facebook maybe 2x a year but my wife is on it all the time.