This morning I sat down in front of the TV and started watching episodes of Mythbusters on On-Demand.
Let me be clear about that. I wasn't watching the Discovery Channel, I went to my On Demand channel and started streaming episodes.
If you've never seen On Demand, it works a lot like Tivo, only you don't get to choose which shows to record. You have all your movie channels, and a limited selection of the other cable networks. So you pick the show you want to see and you watch it, while being able to pause, rewind and fast forward.
It was only fairly recently that they put up episodes of Mythbusters, and only very recently did they put up episodes I'd either not seen, or only seen once.
Long story short, I was pleased.
Then I started watching. After ten minutes there was an ad for Mythbusters, which I (of course) fast forwarded through. Ten Minutes later, you guessed it, another ad for Mythbusters. Then it appeared that the longer the show went on, the more frequent these ads became.
The person who can give me an adequate explanation for this wins a big clock:
You see, I specifically chose to watch Mythbusters, so you can assume that I'm a fan of the show. So why interrupt the show to advertise the show I'm already watching! It makes absolutely no sense.
Fair enough, I could understand them putting a single ad at the beginning or at the end to let you know what time the show airs normally, but every seven minutes? Isn't that like me programming a pop-up to appear here every seven minutes with nothing but a link to this blog.
"Hey, I see you like the blog you're reading right now! Click here to go to it! It's great!"
The worst part is, they didn't even give the times that Mythbusters comes on. It was literally "Watch Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel!"
Isn't that what I'm already doing? Didn't I choose 'Cable Networks' then 'Discovery Channel' on the On-Demand menu?
The second big point is, do you know anyone who will sit through any ads when they have a remote in their hand and can fast forward through them? It's like someone sat down and tried to come up with the most pointless and worthless advertising technique ever:
"I know, let's absolutely load the On-Demand episodes with ads, we'll do so many that people will automatically fast forward through them."
"Well, that's pretty pointless, but it could be even worse."
"I've got it! Let's only advertise the show that they're already watching!"
"Yes!!!!"
I mean, I wouldn't like it, but I could at least understand them interrupting an episode of Mythbusters with an ad for Dirty Jobs or Build It Bigger, but they don't.
The only logical answer I can come up with is that they put all those ads in for no other reason that to annoy us...or they've gotten so used to loading shows with ads that it's become so deeply ingrained in their psyche, that they can't not include advertising.
1 comment:
Ugh. It's like these people don't actually WATCH TV.
I agree with you, it would be sufficient to give you one ad at the end or something that told you the normal viewing time for the show (that's actually helpful). And it would be fine if they hyped some of their other shows you might be interested in.
As an aside, Spike TV has got to be one of the most annoying stations when it comes to ads because every ad break in a given hour block seems to be for the same show. I've been recording Voyager, and for months straight every commercial break had an ad for some miniseries. It was driving me mad. And, it clearly didn't work, because I can't remember the name of the show and had no desire to watch it after getting bludgeoned over the head with advertising for it.
Post a Comment