No one watches TV, Nielsen, and you know it Even in the modern world where there is more pay TV, there are few, if any, sources of professional video where consumers can know that they will encounter little or no advertising. Pay TV networks such as Comcast, DirecTV and Time Warner Cable in the US – and Sky and Liberty Global in Europe – all carry the advertising which …
Oh, AdamWill, thank you thank you thank you for existing to write that post. If there's one thing I'm sick of on this site - and there is - it's the sactimonious gits saying things like, "what stupid people don't build their own mail servers? I have for years so I don't see how they can be so dumb!", or, "Company A is selling yachts? Well, I'm not stupid enough to buy a yacht, so the people who run Company A are real morons! Think people want to buy -yachts-! Haha! Yachts can't even get good bandwitdth! What simpletons, not like me. There are a lot of -other- things I also think are stupid and that I don't like. Here, I'll list them; each serves to emphasize my intelligence and general superiority."
Seriously.
I take it you're a marketer, AdamWill? Well, guess what. I'm a consumer. And I sell products and services, *without* resorting to in-your-face advertising. In fact, I have never, in my entire life, purchased the "services" of an advertising "expert" ... with the one exception of having most of my businesses listed in $TELCO'sBigBookO'Numbers[tm]. On to your points:
"So you, personally, have never clicked an ad?"
No. I have not. I haven't even seen a clickable ad in about a decade.
"Good for you. What does that prove?"
Doesn't prove anything. It's just a fact.
"Advertisers don't need _everyone_ to click an ad. They just need some people to click them."
Sound's like a 419/LadsFromLagos justification, to me ...
"Your assertion that you never have really doesn't mean anything, unless it can someone be proven that, because you never click an ad, no-one anywhere ever clicked an ad."
Your grasp of logic is somewhat faulty. I was speaking for me, nobody else.
"It is also a common thing for an anti-advertising person to avow that they 'do not base my meat-space purchasing decisions on how cute the kitten/puppy/small child/meerekat are in the ad'."
I do not. I don't base any purchasing decisions on anything that I see in the media when I let my guard down ... because I'm fully aware that such advertising is full of mistruths & misdirection
"The advertising industry's response to this is twofold."
That should be a colon, not a full stop (period, to us Yanks).
"1) How do you know?
"You say you don't, but why should anyone trust you?"
Those around me know I don't view adverts on purpose.
"People are spectacularly poor reporters both of the facts of their own actions and the motivations behind them. You _say_ you don't base purchasing decisions on advertising. You may truly believe this to be the case. Neither of those things mean it actually _is_ the case."
Keep telling yourself that. No matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make it true.
"The advertising industry is of the general opinion that people certainly do base purchasing decisions on ads, then either lie to themselves about it or simply don't notice."
The advertising industry is deluded. People don't. Sheeple might ...
"The classic illustration of this is to ask someone, quick, to name a company in a field they don't _usually_ think about or buy products in. The answer they come up with is very likely to be determined by advertising."
Uh ... I'm not planning on purchasing from said company to begin with (your premise, remember?). Who cares what company I come up with? What's the point? Your example (cellphone recycle) is twaddle, and you know it.
"Especially when what the company is selling is a straightforward product or service which isn't likely to differ much between vendors, advertising can be crucial, because the advertised-to don't have any reason to carefully research the companies available and pick the 'best' one. This means they have no incentive to even discover companies that don't advertise. They're just going to pick the first one they remember, which is likely one they've seen advertised."
And now we get down to the nitty gritty ... You are admitting that advertisers are aiming at the lowest common denominator. Frankly, these people aren't going to go with advertised products, they are going to go with the lowest cost item in any given range ... "Ol' Roy" dog chow comes to mind. I've never seen it advertised, anywhere, but it flies off the shelves at WalMart ... Similar, but advertised, products don't sell nearly as well. Why not? Because the cost of the advertising is added to the total cost of the product. "Ol'Roy" is cheaper. The sheeple go on cost at the store, not advertising.
"Another purpose, say you really like marmite. You eat it all the time. Then for whatever reason you start putting jam on your toast instead. Then a few months later you see a commercial for marmite. You may well start eating marmite on your toast a bit more often. The ad hasn't sold you on something you didn't have any previous experience with; you already knew you liked marmite. But it gives you a little reminder of its existence."
But I always have marmite & jam in my larder ... When I want one or the other, I select one. Don't you keep a wide selection of breakfast food varietals on hand, for use as mood strikes? If so, your point is moot. If not, why not? They keep virtually forever under the right conditions, and are cheap to restock.
"There's dozens of these. Hell, there's hundreds of books full of discussions of the effectiveness or otherwise of advertising."
That sell mostly to those with the marketing mindset. Not the real world.
"There's all sorts of interesting debates to be had on the topic."
I haven't seen any yet. Marketers are shysters of the first water.
"But you have to do a lot better than 'I never pay any attention to ads, therefore ads are ineffective'. That argument isn't even worth the price of admission."
How about "ads don't work with humans, but they might work with sheeple"? Stop pussy-footing around. Admit it. Marketers are in the business of attempting to separate fools from their money. You lot are just as bad as Wall Street, Lawyers, and Politicians.
Just for reference, see above multiple derogatory uses of 'sheeple' as Exhibit A for my assertion of bald-faced arrogance in my first reply.
And just one counterpoint to the predecing post - if relying on some percentage of viewers to take some action, rather than requiring or expecting all of them to do so, is 'like a 419 scam', then -almost everything- is: Books - only a few people need buy them, not all; Software - surely the Apache developers don't expect -everyone- to use their software, but this doesn't put them on the same level as PRINCE LUBAPIN BINDOVEH; even you, presumably, posted your reply with the expectation that despite that only a few of the people who scrolled by would read t, that it was still worth posting.
Funny thing; the Reg forums are really a good thing for me: even though I generally agree with the dim view of advertising expressed here, the arrogant and obnoxious manner with which that view is promoted is so odius that I start to see things from the perspective of the people I don't like.
Excepting the RIAA. It'll be a cold day in hell before I empathise with those bastards.
What's wrong with the term "sheeple"? There is a reason that the early christian church referred to their congregations as "flocks" and their pastors as "shepherds" ... Modern marketards are just using the same flock-like behavior to sell idiots on crap products.
It's not the idea of idiots buying into the flock's perception of "gotta have that" that is the issue (idiots are idiots, and will follow the flock; see iFads). Rather, it's the folks manipulating said idiots into purchasing said crap that are the problem. All that energy could be better spent elsewhere ... See the hell-hole that is the current US government's so-called "legislature" ... From my perspective, it's no better than frat-boys v.s. jocks ...and just as daft.
I have no answers ... I'm not that good. But I do see problems.
While it might be possible to construct an etymological defense of the term 'sheeple', I find it difficult to believe that its predominate real-world use is not nearly-universally attended by sneering disdain.
People who use the term, I suspect, like to (or pretend to) justify themselves by saying they really only dislike those doing the denying / tricking / scamming / oppressing, but when it's time to assign blame, the culprit is almost never the rapacity of the perpetrators, but almost always the stupidity of the victims.
For instance, if we isolate some words from your post, referring to the sheeple we have:
"idiots"
"buying into"
"perception of gotta have that"
"idiots"
"idiots"
"flock"
"iFads"
"idiots"
"crap"
...and you refer to the perpetrators:
"folks manipulating"
"the problem"
Basically, the people being brainwashed are referred to as idiots four times; the people who you say are the 'real problem' are politely referred to as 'folks'.
And, of course, at the end you come right out and say that the victims and the perps are equally at fault - the perps for perpetrating, and the victims, presumably, for stupidly allowing themselves to be perpetrated upon.
So, yeah, when the guy defending the term 'sheeple' (from my assertion that it's intrinsically derogatory) uses these arguments, I become a bit more confident in my position.
"but when it's time to assign blame"
Not blaming anyone, just observing reality.
"the culprit is almost never the rapacity of the perpetrators"
Predators, not perpetrators. They are in the wrong.
"but almost always the stupidity of the victims."
And prey. Not stupid, but willfully, intentionally, and stubbornly ignorant ... and willing to follow the latest fad, regardless of cost, because "all their mates are doing it". Ever watch a Judas Goat march flock after flock of lambs to slaughter? I have a Judas Goat. It ain't pretty. But I have lamb meat in my freezer, my smoker, on salt, and for sale at the local market & farmers markets, and at a few select local restaurants.
People aren't sheep ... but most sure as hell act like sheep when it comes to "shiny".
Oh, and by invoking 'sheeple' you incidentally destroy your own argument by admitting it's actually completely wrong. Your point becomes 'some people aren't affected by advertising'. You denominate the people who aren't affected by advertising as 'people' and those who are as 'sheeple', clearly in an attempt to denigrate them, but it doesn't really _matter_. You have effectively admitted that some people certainly are affected by advertising, which is what you started out by denying. You can say that those people are idiots and you're not one of them, if it makes you feel good, but it doesn't improve the quality of your debating, which is terrible. We might go on to debate whether it's really true that only dumb people are affected by advertising, but even if it is true, the main point is still conceded by you: advertising does work. Even if it only works on dumb people, why would advertisers care? Dumb people have money.
To me, "sheeple" are flock of humans who clearly don't think about what they are getting into. It's a handle. They are humans, but the word is descriptive of their behavior. Have issues with this concept? Why, exactly? Does it sting? Think about it.
"Even if it only works on dumb people, why would advertisers care?"
So you, speaking as a tool of Fedora, are admitting that separating fools from their money is A-OK, according to the folks in charge of Fedora? Interesting ... ::mental note:: Stick with Slackware.
"Dumb people have money."
So do people who can talk. Assuming you mean ignorant people, only if they inherited it ... and even then, it's not OK to steal it from them.
I'm speaking as a commenter on a Reg thread. It was _your_ choice to bring my occupation into the thread, not mine. You assumed I was a marketer, I stated that I wasn't, and you are now trying out some frankly bizarre methods of turning this mistake on your part into some kind of 'win'. It's kind of sad to watch, really.
"I'm speaking as a commenter on a Reg thread."
Bully for you. So am I.
"It was _your_ choice to bring my occupation into the thread, not mine.
Uh ... no. You volunteered your exact occupation.
"You assumed I was a marketer"
I did.
"I stated that I wasn't"
Reading what you wrote, you are a tool of the Fedora marketing department. You can protest all you like, but it doesn't change reality.
"and you are now trying out some frankly bizarre methods of turning this mistake on your part into some kind of 'win'."
I don't do "win" in this forum. I do reality. Even if it is a Red Top.
"It's kind of sad to watch, really."
I know. Projection can be an ugly thing.
I'm going to stop talking to you now as you're clearly off your rocker, but as a parting point: you don't win arguments by systematically trying to deny everything the other party says, even when you have absolutely no standing to do so. I know what my job is. You clearly don't. You're not getting anywhere by yelling, ever more loudly, that you know what my job really is and I'm just a mug who doesn't know what he's doing. You just look absurd.
When you make a wrong assumption and the other person corrects you, the appropriate course of action is to acknowledge your mistake and continue with the debate, not to keep denying ever more shrilly that you ever got anything wrong. Your initial mistaken assumption wasn't at all significant. You could have gracefully abandoned it and still ontinued to argue your position that advertising is ineffective. Instead you've gone completely off the rails because you're unwilling to accept that you could _possibly_ have been wrong - that anyone who isn't actually involved in marketing could possibly argue the idea that marketing might in fact be effective. That's a pretty stupid position to get stuck in.
"Unless you count spending seventeen hour days running installation validation tests as 'marketing', no, no it isn't."
That's not community management, Adam. That's buried (hiding?) in the lab, with little or no contact with other humans. Get out more. You'll be happier.
The single most damaging thing to advertising is sheilas wheels.
That literally tipped me over the edge.
There are pretty strict ofcom rules to follow regarding audio levels. Your not allowed to exceed 7ppm. So what they do is set the program audio at about 5ppm and then ensure that the ads blast out at the full 7ppm, catching your attention.
I have not owned a TV for years now and only watch torrents or streams of a few programs like "The Walking Dead".
At the back of my mind i do worry that they might not make it any more if everyone just downloads it, but they only seem to pay attention to viewing figures in the US so it does not seem to matter how you watch it elsewhere in the world.
I block the ads on the register now after inadvertently finding my page changing to some fucking HTC desire website because i clicked in the dead space as i was scrolling down.
To return to topic, When watching TV, most of us are in a psychological state similar to hypnosis, Your mind is more open to suggestion that it is normally due to the comatose inducing affect of watching the idiot box for hours at a time.
Those brightly coloured, loud flashing ads are more likely to be embedded in your mind than they otherwise would be.
I think that this is both interesting and scary. If you find yourself coming home from the shops one day having purchased something with no idea what your going to do with it then perhaps it's time to stop watching the ads.
The only radio I listen to is Baseball. Baseball commercials are exactly 2 minutes long. I have a button on the dash of all the motor vehicles to mute the radio for exactly 110 seconds (sometimes I'm actually driving & it takes a second or two to hit the button.) I have a similar mute button here in the office. Have you tried timing the "content" and "advert" on your favorite radio programs on an hour-by-hour basis? Cobbling up a simple timer system to mute such things automatically should be simple.
As for television, my remote is cob-webbed to the set-top box for months at a time. TV is a vast, useless wasteland.
Adverts aren't technically any louder than television programmes, they just appear subjectively louder for a couple of reasons: the audio is compressed and everything is pumped up to near the peak. In a TV show you get a varied audio from very quiet to very loud, for a lot of reasons: they want you to hear the actors talking, they want to draw yor attention to particular sounds over a quiet background, and they don't want to piss you off and wear you out. Adverts on the other hand want to GRAB YOU AND SHAKE YOU LIKE A RAG DOLL so they compress and maintain a constant volume, exploiting a few quirks of how the brain processes sound to draw your attention. They don't want to hold it for long, just long enough to insert a message.
In addition, the use of constant volume and relatively high frequency sound effectively overloads the brain and places it in a highly receptive state; the sheer amount of information presented by a full spectrum of sound at the same volume forces your brain to stop trying to pick and choose what to process and just take it all in.
As far as I can tell (and this isn't backed by any studies, it's just me yammering at this point) the effect creates a condition very similar to that of a mild autism spectrum disorder. Most of these disorders affect the way information is filtered and processed by the brain, usually preventing effective filtering and prioritising, with one of the side effects being form of pronoia (or anti-paranoia perhaps), being unable to understand lies and implicitly trusting everything someone says as authoritative# simply because they said it. People with higher functioning autism spectrum disorders develop coping mechanisms that allow them to understand when something isn't true, or at least put it aside until they can find out, and also allow them to filter out unwanted simuli. We who are not "blessed" with this ability are turned into absolutely trusting innocents for just a few moments when an advert blasts at us. Just long enough for the message to start worming its way in.
They're a very primitive and ineffectual version of snowcrash. But they aren't any louder.
Also, volume isn't measured in parts per million. :)
Who said anything about parts per million?
PPM is Peak Programme Meter. A specially weighted scale for audio volume levels with a fast attack and slow decay, so you can spot what's likely to cause distortion. It goes from 1 to 7. 1 is barely audible, 4 (centre scale, and nominal 0dB) is what you are supposed to aim for. 7 ppm is full modulation, i.e. distortion is inevitable.
Yes well...I've been working at the pointy end of the TV industry for 11 years now, i'll be sure to point out to everyone here that they have been doing it wrong and to give you a call.
PPM (i had hoped that this would be obvious) in this case does not stand for Parts per million.
It's Peak program meter you imbecile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_programme_meter
with the chastising out of the way, it is fair to say that commercials have higher production values than most program material but it's far less sinister than your explanation. Ads pay, programs don't, therefore the ads producers spend more effort on setting the levels to peak without clipping.
Software has existed for years which will identify and cut adverts from video streams, I see this has now appeared in appliances. I suppose the next target will be the deletion of excessive product placements; that should be make for fun product review shows :-P
Who really needs a broadcast media signal receiver for routine use?
I don't, so the minions of the BBC are out of luck.
I stopped watching most broadcast media years ago due to the stupid time and space restrictions; most of my media is from the internet now.
It used to be: New programme. It has about 10 minutes to hook me. Is it good? Okay, advert break. Pop the kettle on, pee, make tea, back for the next part of the programme. Not bad. Second advert break, where did I put the salt & vinegar crisps? Third advert break... mmmm, have I had any email?
How it is now: Rarely watch anything "live". It all goes onto my Neuros OSD. Pop out the SD card, insert it into the computer, warm up SMPlayer, watch. Adbreak? PageDown a few times, what adbreak? Now I can watch something without the flow being interrupted by Yet Another DFS Sale.
On a more serious note. Look at the stuff being advertised. There's a lot of advert for general stuff like butter (so bad everybody cries when they taste it), a cute girl delivering milk for some sort of yoghurt, nappies, how the NatWest are really very helpful (cough cough), etc. But then there are adverts for cars and sofas - I mean, what sort of person would buy a hideous leather sofa, or new-model Peugeot just 'cos they saw it on a telly advert? Especially the ones late at night - like "oh my God I must get a Qashquia RIGHT NOW (or maybe once I've figured out how to spell it)!". I don't think so...
Maybe we identify better with adverts that give us something. Like the annoying two and their coffee romance. Or the BT "family" (what happened to them?). An advert that makes us laugh, or facepalm. It doesn't matter, so long at it isn't "oooh, look, shiny, you want it right?".
The advert I remember most? That epic dose of existential nonsense that was Rutger Hauer punting Guinness. It was deep, possibly meaninful if you thought about it too hard, and beautiful to look at. Compare this with... a lot of current adverts. They're all a bit meh. There's zero incentive to actually take the time to watch an advertisement.
The BT family has been replaced with a student flat share spin-off featuring the perpetually mystified looking teenager, a female and a creepy older guy who is presumably one of the perma-student types who is constantly trying to creep onto the girl via the use of BT broadband services.
I don't really know what type of message they are trying to convey there.
I remember the Rutger Hauer ads, but the one that really floated my boat was the one with the group of surfers on a really foul day. 'Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock.'
I remember recording the advert - not the programme - so as to stepframe it and see how the producers did the transitions.
Sad, or what ?
Chris Cosgrove
Sounds like they have the same mentality of the TV licence spotter vans who are firmly convinced everyone watches TV, even if there is no TV in the house.
I tossed my TV years ago and only am able to watch through my daughter's computer, which gas an adapter.
Thus assuming your daughter still lives with you, you do still have and use television receiving equipment.
So you or your daughter does still need a licence and the TV licencing people remain accurate in their assumption.
If you only watch iPlayer and other on-demand "repeats" and never at the same time as it's broadcast, that's when you don't need a licence.
- Incidentally, there's no longer such a thing as a 'TV detector van'. Many years ago they could tell by the CRT baseband squeal, even knowing which channel, but it's now much easier and more accurate to assume that 99.9% of the population have and use TV receiving equipment, coupled with the database of TV receiving equipment purchases.
That said, Capita do have themselves to blame over continually bugging people who genuinely have no TV receiving kit. And even repeatedly visiting people who already have a TV licence - that one really annoys me.
I generally watch Internet-based content, vs. broadcast or cable TV. When I did watch TV, I never watched the commercials. The strange thing is for Internet shows that I really do like (like DailyGrace or SciShow on YouTube), I will watch the pre-roll ad - because it directly pays the artist back for the content. Many of these folks live on the day-to-day revenue they receive from YouTube. On the other hand, TV shows are bought and paid for and 'in the can', with the artists paid before the first episode of the series airs. This discontinuity makes not watching the ad on TV OK in my mind; it's the non-creative middle-men that are impacted.
Frankly, TV and most movies, for the most part, are no longer engaging; given a choice between TV content and Internet content, I tend to pick internet content every time, and I'm well into my 50's.
The other comment I had was on the reported viewing. I don't know anyone under 30 years old that doesn't download at least some of their programming. In 20 years, that will be the over 50-year old demographic as well; they don't suddenly become brain-dead on their birthday. In fact, I regularly run into folks in the 50's that are now watching via downloads. I'm quite certain that none of those are accurately reporting their viewing habits, no matter who asks.
There were twenty-minute programme segments followed by three twenty-second ads and back to the programme. Perhaps that's wishful thinking, but I'm sure you had to rush to put the kettle on.
With short ad-breaks it is hardly worth turning away. Put on 6 45-second ads, two of which are the same and there is no way I'm sticking around.
Everything in our house gets PVR'd. It isn't only pleasant but removes the tv as a common form of entertainment for the kids (no big-screen in the lounge). Occasionally, if we have to watch live or on catchup-tv, there are constant comments about having forgotten how awful live tv is. Even if something is on while we want to watch it, we'll pick something else until its over half-way through, so we don't have to endure the not-just-long but unappealing adverts. Australian networks especially seems to have no idea how a story's flow can be ruined by an ad-break.
An unintended and interesting side-effect of a pvr is that we are reducing our TV viewing. We don't watch spontaneously or turn it on just to see what's on. We'd probably be inclined to watch more if it wasn't such a terrible experience.
"An unintended and interesting side-effect of a pvr is that we are reducing our TV viewing."
I watch animé and such on-line, and a TV film if it sounds interesting. I want to PVR "The Walking Dead" on C5 on Monday, so I've just been out prodding my dish that got pushed out of alignment by a strong wind... Tuesday evening last week, I think...
I'm with you on this one. Now I have choices (and, ironically, one of them being the "off" button), I find my TV consumption is dropping. TWD as mentioned, Castle... um... forty-odd channels and that's it? Yawn. Come on, somebody just add ninjas!
I've noticed that with older but still perfectly good bedroom TV's the remotes tend to die and have to be replaced because the sound kill button goes.
Some time back I had a TV (One of those giant boxes with decent sound) which had a 'reduce sound' button so that the volume was reduced considerably during adverts. Sadly the other half watered the plant on top and the electrics died.
P.
The thing that really annoys me is that the licensing authority has allowed more advert breaks and increase length, when there were only one or two breaks in a program and the length of the break was limited to three minutes, the adverts didn't annoy. Today however I have a DVR which allows me to pause the TV and skip the adverts by giving me the pause deferred time. I wait 5 minutes then select live TV, so never see the adverts. The TV companies are killing the goose that laid golden eggs by annoying viewers so much that they avoid adverts altogether. As advertisers realise that adverts are having no effect on sales they will stop using TV advertising. I do watch some BBC programs (although the dumbing down of their schedule mean that there is less and less to watch) I find that the number of trailers is almost as bad as the adverts on commercial TV so I skip those as well.
I'd happily pay double or even triple if it meant there were no ads interrupting the content. When my street was first cabled I naively signed up thinking, as it was a paid-for service, there'd be fewer ads. Very quickly cancelled the subscription! Sadly, it seems the more you pay for a broadcast service the more your enjoyment of the content is spoiled by annoying shouty people telling you what to buy. Thank god for PVRs and LoveFilm to rent box-sets.
I worked it out as approx £200 per household per year, to completely replace all TV advertising revenue with subscriptions. But I'd settle for 3 minutes of "comfort breaks" every 15 minutes. They can show what they like then, so long as they give me a decent transition/warning notice that the programme is about to restart.
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/2/2012/05/19/dish_networks_at_odds_with_broadcasters_over_ad_skipping/ (2nd page of comments)
"young people's ability to multi-task" should not be confused with an inability to actually stay focused on a single task/program, or to maintain interest in a program over a 3-minute span of adverts.
The vast majority of my friends watch their preferred programs on "linear TV". DVRs, some VCRs, and online access such as NetFlix or Hulu are only used when they won't be home to view the program on the first run.
that the advertisers seem to imagine that there is some implicit contract: we fund the entertainment and in return you have to watch our adverts.
No such contract exists; the viewer/listener has the perfect right to ignore the message completely.
Unfortunately, since with very few exceptions, the entire broadcast TV/Radio industry is predicated on and funded by this imagined contract. It would seem that the advertisers have two choices: either make adverts that people want to watch, or make programs that people want to watch. And they don't seem to do terribly well and the first is, well, kind of hard to do too.
I do quite a lot of consumer surveys and they often show you some ads and say "have you seen this?" Invariably I haven't, and I tell them so. They ask how the ad changes my impression of the product or brand: it doesn't. I really don't see the point.
Compaines would do much better if they invested their marketing budgets into improving their products, or reducing their prices. Word would get around pretty fast, and the best products would sell on their merits.
Yes, I know most consumers are dumb. I still think it would work.
It doesn't matter how many minutes per hour of TV are devoted to advertisements - the total spend on TV advertising will remain roughly constant. In Australia, we have loads of slots on sale - so they are cheap, and Max Annoying can afford to make a ten second movie of himself standing in front of his dodgy used car lot screaming at me about how great this week's deals are.
In the UK (at least, back in the good old days when I lived over there, and beer was less than a pound a pint), there were strict limits on the ads per hour; and only one channel allowed to have them at all. This did not significantly reduce the revenue to be had by selling TV ads; oh no. The revenue was simply concentrated in a smaller space, and as a result, it was essential to advertisers that they made better ads - even if they were more expensive - with the result that Rutger Hauer sold us Guiness without screaming at us (even though it could cost more than a pound a pint).
The proliferation of TV channels, coupled with the insanely large proportion of all that airtime that is devoted to advertising in Australia leads to vast numbers of cheap, crappy ads that no-one cares about. It is simple inflation - increase the supply, and the value plummets.
Of course, if any one channel or network tries to improve the value of their advertising slots by reducing the number available, the other networks will happily grab their share of the loot. The only solution would be for the government to impose a legal constraint, limiting advertising time per hour across all channels. I am prepared to bet that not only would such a constraint not reduce the networks' revenue, but that it would actually result in better penetration of those ads that were still broadcast. Even Mr Annoying would benefit - he could spend his advertising budget on radio, billboards and other media that might actually reach his potential customers, instead of wasting it on TV slots that everyone fast-forwards through, and which benefit no-one but the sales droids at the TV networks.
Of course I won't be holding my breath waiting for this to happen.
Because you say it is? As opposed to Nielsen, whose job it is to, you know, measure it.
No, the TV viewing figures aren't perfect but they're a damn sight better than 'social' alternatives. Say you build a multimillion dollar project to measure TV through Facebook. Facebook growth is slowing down (for sure) and may turn into decline (we can only hope). What then? Brand new audience methodology every five years based on the latest social fad?
What about programmes that don't register on Facebook? There are lots that Nielsen can't register properly, even by actually logging what's shown on TVs. Is there a multi-thousand person discussion going on about those shows on Facebook? I doubt it.
In conclusion, anyone involved in social media shouldn't be let anywhere near TV viewing figures. Sort your own field out and leave TV alone. It's fine.
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