Commercial Opportunities

Commercial Opportunities was Originally Posted on May 17, 2012 by lavarock

DishTV quietly announced the option to blank out commercials on network shows older than 1 day old. As you can imagine, the networks are not happy and the final outcome may be that DishTV service could cost you more, if the networks decide to up their price to Dish.

This is nothing new. Dish and in fact even my old VCR remote allowed for 30 second skips in programming by fastforwarding the tape. years ago someone created a device that could mute the TV during old movies when commercials came on. (Hint: TV stations were required to turn on the color bit in their signal during color portions, and old movies didn’t have a color signal).

We consumers do a subtle dance with advertisers. They pay for items such as TV shows or online services and we use those services but try to block the commercials.

Many things are commercial sponsored. Some long distance companys gave you free LD as long as you listened to a short ad. Movie theaters advertise the snack bar and even movies and TV shows have product placements within. In fact, product placement is a big business in the movie industry.

My local TV station advertises McDonalds and they get breakfast delivered (as I understand it).

Sometimes there are commercials on non-commercial venues. Public TV and radio is “sponsored” by companies, who pay to be mentioned. I used to volunteer at a Public station that had a yearly week of commercials called a TV Auction. Companies would donate items to the station, who would describe them and the company they came from, then sell them to the highest bidder. Think Home Shopping with an auctioneer. The winning viewer got a deal, the station got the money and the donor got advertising and perhaps new customers. All the while, the FCC allowed it because it was approved by the public as a fundraising event.

When stations started ads in the lower part of the TV screen , I found the ZOOM button on my remote that allowed me to zoom the picture enough to lose the logs and pixies displayed.

Oftentimes websites and programs we use have ads and we accept it as a part of life. Consumerism is rampant and we accept that, yet try to avoid ads if possible. The advertising agencies try to come up with new ways to display ads. Many of us will continue to find ways to avoid them.