Newspapers have been doing it for years and now it seems commercial TV is also joining in on the party!
Australian consumers have relied on the informative News for decades, both in print, on television and to a lesser extent the radio.
National News (TV)
However, today it seems television stations run promotional spots throughout news broadcasts promoting TV shows. Even better if they can tie it in with a news story. Me, well I change channels, I do not care to hear about Big Brother, CSI, the X Factor or any other TV spot promotional stories, to be honest it makes me sick.
So if the commercial stations want to fight it out for supremacy they can do so without my patronage, I watch the news for news and that is why I tune into SBS or ABC. News that does not cross promote other TV shows. It really is getting embarrassing.
Newspapers
These have been guilty for a number of years, whether it be News Ltd or Fairfax. News Ltd are particularly brutal with the promotion of web sites such as ‘how a young lady took only 15 minutes to find a job on careerone.com.au’, gripping stuff!
Live Broadcasts
Hearing Ritchie Benaud talk about how he cannot wait for the next series of Survivor, or Bruce McAvaney tell us during a Tennis broadcast how much fun the last series of My Restaurant Rules was and how with Dicko coming on board it should spice things up even further ……is stomach churning.
Consumers do have a choice, switch off, because the more we accept this type of commercial TV, the more rubbish we will be served.
TIVO
I suspect all of this promotion is getting our minds set for the coming world of Digital recording, where you can erase (and skip) commercials, that is why so many ads now appear at the bottom of the TV screens during shows. It could cost all commercial stations a fortune, but it will take a couple of years to catch on. In the US it is big business and has been around for a number of years. You can watch a show, rewind whilst recording it and return at any time. It also has a function that recognises advertising and removes it altogether.
We might be seeing Richie eating McDonalds, drinking Coca Cola, chewing on a Uncle Toby’s bar, whilst flicking thorugh the latest edition of Womans Day!
Very clever, very annoying and could be costly.