Ofcom says yes on more TV ads
More TV viewers could be driven to the internet under new Ofcom proposals that would allow longer and more frequent commercial breaks. The communications watchdog has released a consultation in response to last year's EU Audiovisual Directive, which aims to harmonise television regulation across the bloc. At present rules mean …
With sky plus and similar systems becoming common does anyone even watch the adverts any more? Mostly I just fast forward over them. If I'm watching live I pause until they are finished then fast forward over them. Does anyone even watch them any more?
...they be allowed to monitor our viewing habits and then target ads to our TV's? (I know, not possible yet outside of Sky and Cable, but it had to be said).
With PVRs so readily available I don't understand why anyone would watch adverts during any programmes, other than live sporting events.
Let 'em do what they want to do - the days of commercial TV advertising are numbered anyway (whether they push up the number of adverts per hour, or not).
Suddenly I'll have WAY more opportunity to go for a piss, grab coffee, hells, even make a sandwich during the commercials, rather than the current "racing around like a dervish" scenario!
Sorry, I'm supposed to stay in one place, mindlessly absorbing the ridiculous claims of marketing types desperately trying to attract my attention by using fine-lookin' girls in bikinis to promote toothpaste? Hmmmm.... no.
Well done Ofcom! My bladder thanks you for your decision!!
(do I really need to add sarcasm tags?)
I record nearly all of the TV I watch, so I can skip through the adverts with impunity - this change will just cause extra thumb usage... Or I could download torrents which already have the adverts stripped out.
I can't see the advertisers wanting to pay for more airtime when this will cause the overall viewing figures to decline.
Way to go Ofcom.
..Skull and crossbones for the death of broadcast TV.
I complained about the amount of advertising on Lost when it was on C4.
The regulations go on about hour slots. This means that if a programme doesn't start on the hour and runs into another hour slot, (quite feasible for even a 40 min show), then the programme can utilise both hours advertising allowance. No rules are made for the channel's own adverts - this is at the discretion of the channel itself to broadcast as few or as many - the case here with C4.
There's a fine line between what people can put up with and what the broadcasters can get away with although judging by the popular shows, for the majority of the viewing public, this isn't much. Carte Blanche for advertising then!!
Or do other people read "Cillit Bang!" as "Clit Bang!"?
Paris because... well, you know why.
I think the ad executives at ITV/C4/C5 need new stop-watches. I've got a Freeview PVR, and I allow 45 minutes to watch a 60 minute program on these channels. Also, C5 often have three ad breaks in a 1 hour program.
Also, if you watch things like E4/More4/Sky, they've already adopted the American advertising model of putting adverts straight after the opening credits.
I think I hardly ever watch a program truly live now. I always time shift to skip the adverts, sponsorship rubbish, credits, etc
This proposed increase in the amount of adverts will only sales & useage of PVRs
Whilst on holiday in Canada (not quite N.America, but, close enough) I died a little inside at every ad-break. And, they were frequent, & sudden.
"On the other hand, Ofcom must also take account of the contribution made by advertising revenue to paying for the choice of television services that viewers enjoy."
They think more adverts will help? Have they seen US or French TV? Its Crap. What we see of US TV in the UK is the pick of the best shows. It is like basing all your views of UK TV on what is shown in prime time on BBC 1 and ITV 1 (although admitedly you would just get Soaps, which would make our TV look crap)
This sort of thing drives me farcking nuts, if it ain't the sound level going through the roof when the ads come on, it's this shit idea of showing the credits and then a whole bunch of ads.
No wonder people illegally download this stuff with all the ads ripped out.... not me obviously ossifer........
So for a program starting at 7.00pm you will probably get to see the first image (allowing for adverts at about 7.03) you would get an ad break of 3 minutes at 7.10. another one at 7.20, then the program actually finishes at 7.27 to allow for more adverts.
total time of program 21Mins
total adverts 9 mins...almost a third of the time spent watching adverts........I'd rather sign up for spam
Cillit Bang? At least they've got rid of the annoying Barry Scott character but now they've decided to go for over dubbing and advert made for Europe so the lip sync is crap.
So I suspect as we get more adverts we're going to get more and more crappy over dubbed rubbish pushed down our throats. Can we start a campaign for real adverts?
It wouldn't be bad if the adverts were any good but in recent years they've pretty much all turned into crap even when they're not over dubbed. Too much coke being snorted I suspect.
digital viewers will already be experiencing this. the other night while watching some adverts on my digibox, i was extremely irritated to find them constantly interrupted by the odd couple of minutes of programming.
[mind you. television has yet to implement the big fucking annoying ad, rolling across the screen in front of the programme you're trying to watch. right reg?]
before they start developing a Phorm-type system to monitor your television viewing and deliver "targeted ad's"
Don't they realise that advertising is loosing it's effect, for example those stupid 118 118 ad's, whilst memorable, make me deliberately NOT use their service?
Brand awareness isn't a good thing in all cases!
I've got 2 words for all you advertisers:
Sky Plus.
And can someone please explain how Sky can sell ad time to advertisers (for mucho dinero), then sell equipment to it's customers that allows them to skip all those pesky ads?
Anyone else see a conflict there?
The internet allows this silliness because a proprietary web based player can be prevented from fast forwarding over the ads.
I am currently trying to find out if I can get a TV signal. Sadly I can't find out because I will need to pay an unrefundable licence fee to find out if there is a service I can by so bollocks to telly (instead of on)
Well, that'll convince me to watch ITV.... not!
Apart from maybe the news, I never watch ITV live as it is - The only sane way to watch it at all is to record it first so that I can skip the adverts. And channel 5 is even worse in this respect. Of course, I know I'm not alone in this. Life is way to short to waste it waiting for the adverts to end so I can get back to what I was watching.
Actually, life is way to short to watch telly at all!
I really can't believe this. There logic seems to that in order to provide a wider 'choice' of channels they are going to make them all equally unwatchable. The main reason I *cough* download movies and tv shows is because trying to watch say Dexter on normal tv with four 8minute add breaks in it totally ruins the experience.
With the release of the iPlayer and similar other offerings in the pipeline any increase in advertising on terrestrial tv is just going to kill is off fast.
Push media is dead! Long live pull media!
If this goes through, buy shares in PVR manufacturers. TiVo took off in the States when customers were told they could skip the adverts.
BTW. These regulations for seven minutes per hour - are they actually enforced? Watching Channel 4 at prime time it seems about double that when you include all the programme trailers, what's coming next, now on Film Four, oooh aren't we great we made Four Weddings and a Funeral half a lifetime ago, if you missed this then catch the repeat of the news on Channel 4 + pi, don't miss tonight's celebrity death shagfest live on E4...
And don't get me started on the cable channels.
Thank God for the PVR and the fast forward options... or the inline editing options if I'm bored
Adverts are driving me away from commercial broadcast TV. There are so many ad breaks in some programs I always record the program so I can FF over the ads.
how about a few of these on bbc channels, and tell the bbc to shove their "license" up their arse
i wish to god there was some way of turning off incoming bbc broadcasts, because this bullshit license we keep paying for, isn't a "tv license" as they like to call it, its a bbc license, for shitty soaps and edited news, nothing more, at least then i could watch the other channels with stuff worth watching on them without worrying about a bunch of twats in a van going past trying to watch crappy bbc channels that i wouldn't nor couldn't watch.
ITV has been in the doldrums for years, because it's programmes with a few exceptions are crap. It needs to show better programmes to encourage more viewers, not advertise more to fewer.
The interruption of programmes by adverts are a source of annoyance as it is, to increase this, would be most unwelcome, and would have a negative effect on the number of viewers.
lucky i have my v+ box - havent watched adverts in ages!
it will end up like trash US tv where its more adverts per hour than actual footage
why not just charge more per advert and keep the same frequency
And what do the viewers get in return?
I think the ruling about extra advertisement time should have been made conditional on the broadcasters adopting a common standard to be used for indicating to domestic video recording equipment whether editorial content or advertising was being broadcast, to be licenced royalty-free to electronics manufacturers; and with instant loss of broadcasting licence in the event of misuse by broadcasters. It's only fair: if they want to broadcast more adverts, it should be easier for us to avoid them.
I've got Sky Plus, so I'll only be minimally affected anyway, but this is going too far.
Nice to know they are safeguarding the content quality of our idiot boxes and not just pandering to the broadcasters.
Then again, since UK TV has generally turned into a collection of reality shows, I hardly watch it any more. Almost anything worth watching these days seems to be American, Prison Break, Dexter, CSI (if you can ignore their howling technical mistakes!), so available several season ahead via *cough* p2p *cough*.
I'm sure UK TV will come back with something involving Celebs (A-Z class) and a viewers vote, although the only one I can think of that I might watch would be Celebrity firing squad, you vote for who gets the slug!
I wonder if that's why F1 is moving back to the BBC?
7 min per hour currently... on which planet is Ofcom living on certainly not mine
We get 15 per hour here. Lucky bastards.
Freeview digital channels habit of starting a program for a few minutes, then giving ads for more than 5 minutes before returning to the programme is already annoying but useful. Making a cup of tea and toasting a hot cross bun is already possible. Must buy a Freeview digital recorder to filter out the adverts. Ofcom may say "yes" to more adverts but we do not have to watch them. Ads - You have been erased!
"by selling more time in front of fewer viewers"
And thus driving even more viewers away causing a further drop in revenues. I assume that eventually they will think that 'advertising only' is the way to go.
North American viewer here and we wait for series to come out on DVD just to avoid too many and too frequent ads. We watch one or part of one season and from then on wait for the DVDs to come out. If they start putting advertising on the DVDs we will stop buying them.
Ofcom can go and shove their idea up the brown highway.
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This is precisely why I currently do, and will continue to download tv from the net. The continuing ad breaks really annoy me - Formula 1, for example, now has more Sony ads then actual racing time. (Thankfully BBC have won the rights to F1 from 2009).
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Seriously Ofcom. Kiss my shiny metal buttocks
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PH, cause she is nearly as stupid as Ofcom.
Tivo users *used* to be able to skip ads automatically. But Tivo were "persuaded" to change this. If Tivo had been properly (as per intent rather than per wording) GPL, the owners (people who bought a Tivo) would be able to get their own fix to this regression, turning back on the auto-skip feature if they so desired.
That's why there's the famous "anti-Tivo clause" in GPL3.
Sky View Plus will go the same way when Sky want it to.
Actually, I've noticed that there are several stations (More4, Virgin1 amongst others) where they already use the American practice of running ads immediately after the opening credits. It is reeeeeaaaalllyyy annnnnoyyyying.
Mind you, I spent a weekend watching Italian TV. There was actually an ad break during the closing credits; it returned in time for the last 5 seconds of names of people that ran and fetched the coffee for the non-entities that are listed after the people that actually did any work. Then it went to another ad break
Can we have an icon for gouging out of eyes?
As I see it, things are balanced as is.
The customer pays a certain monthly fee, the advertiser pays a fee, the service provider buys the right to broadcast programs from studios.
Now, things could get out of whack. Suddenly the service provider has the opportunity to make more money by placing more ads. Where does this money go? Into reducing the cost of TV? Oh no, it goes to the shareholders.
Well, I for one DO NOT WANT. I hate adverts as is. I see the point of them, I see that without them TV would be far more expensive. That doesnt mean the ratio of content to adverts should change from 9:1 to 1:9 without me seeing any benefit.
I really dont see what Ofcom is trying to achieve by allowing more adverts. How does it help the consumer? All other businesses involved in TV are doing okay - if they werent, either consumers would have to pay more, or the companies would go out of business. Its nice to know that Ofcom is on our side, isnt it?
Mine's the one with YouTube and other examples of Internet media distribution on it.
my internet was down last night so I had to watch TV
Holy drek it's shite - I mean complete and utter shite.
I just read a bit of a book and went to bed.
I can't believe people still watch TV.
I have been a torrent advocate all the eway, for three or four years now, and feel repulsed at the idea of adverts with my telly anymore. I was getting excited by iplayer and 4OD etc. but this is another nail in TV's grave. I can't remember when I last used my NTL subscription - I should really cancel it.
give us legal torrents, no restrictions, no adverts, and charge us, say 20p for half-hour's entertainment - you'll get my money. Until then, bittorrents for me.
Firstly, Cillit bang getting rid of barry scott in favour of badly dubbed women was a mistake. He was clearly a highlight!!
Secondly, Ofcom are a bunch of idiots. By allowing broadcasters to have more adverts they will be causing people like me to goto places I can get shows without adverts! So thats the BBC and the internet.
With more advert breaks the budget of advertisers will be streched further and in general the quality of the adverts will have to decline. I would much prefer a small ad break with 1 high quality advert which would actually persuade me to buy a product.
Long advert and frequent breaks just make make me switch off to them!
As if Sky follows the rules, how many breaks do they do in 1hr of tv, more than Ofcom allow and I hate having the credits popping up 10 minutes into a program, The Unit being a prime example of American TV stupidity.
So who will be the first advertiser to produce an advert that's slowed down by a factor of 32 or otherwise designed to get there message across in the few seconds as it flashes by on fast forward.
The best way to deal with these intrusive ads and the other brain washing, mind numbing pap is to switch the Soul Stealer off,
Cancel your Sky/cable subscriptions and license fee,
Don't let the Devils Device suck you dry. There is a wide world out there, lots to do and see.
Try it for a week or a month and feel the freedom, you won't be disappointed.
The consensus here seem to be that, for whatever reason, adverts don't work. If it is the case that they don't work, then why do companies pay for them? I've heard the "tax break" argument, but that doesn't hold water as they still cost more money than they save.
I maintain that there are morons out there on whom adverts work, and lots of them, so it is the morons we should blame and not the advertisers. Companies, in particular corporations, exist to make profit as a capitalist society we should accept this. The fault here lies with those too moronic, or too lazy, to make choices based upon actual value rather than bullshit.
Don't get me wrong, I hate adverts as much as the next man (which is why I don't see any on this page) but I don't blame ITV or Coke for them -- I blame the brain-washed morons.
You've got to be kidding, they're the sane ones in this mess. If I could pay double TV licence to get the adverts off the other channels I could. Without the BBC as a bottom line for us to remember what life used to be like, everything in the entire world would have adverts almost constantly.
Also they can offer some less popular programs because of the funding difference, rather than lowest common denominator rubbish that quite frankly is worse than the adverts that fund it.
Perhaps... and this is just an idea... ALL channels should be on subscribe / adverts choice. (Not both like Sky do it!!!)
Yes as practical approach in the meanwhile I have a PVR but they're so darn good I'd have one anyway.
Good old mythtv - auto strips adverts for me.
I almost cried when it broke for a few days and I had to endure adverts again.
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why not just charge more per advert and keep the same frequency
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That's actually a really good idea - it might price the low-budget, badly dubbed, piss awful (if I ever meet "Barry Scott" I'm going to force him to drink that shit) ads out of the market and leave us with those ads that, really, we don't really mind watching.
Sony Bravia (plasticine bunnines) for instance, or just about anything by Guiness, Carling or WKD (hmm booze seems to get the best ads) - the Hamlet cigar ads would be illegal now of course =( Sometimes the ads are better than the programs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXVTjYTYcJo
Damn you beat me to it.
This reminds me of an old Dilbert cartoon basically along the lines of:
"To reduce our losses in light of diminishing sales we're downsizing the sales team"
The advert detection scriptps in MythTV are bloody marvellous. Now I can watch the Space:1999 reruns on ITV4 without Barry Scott interrupting Barry Morse.
The more ads there are, the more people will find it worthwhile to invest in ad-skipping technology.
