
Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981) - dgellow
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-invaded-by-commercials.html
======
zxcvbn4038
Im enjoying Hulu/Netflix/Prime Video while I can. My kid has grown up in a
household without commercials and where you get points for who can hit “skip”
the fastest when one does pop up. Commercials were always annoying but when
you aren’t used to seeing them then it really hits home that your seeing the
exact same commercial for floor wax sixteen times an hour and the exact same
commercial for anti-AIDS drugs sixteen times per hour.

You can forgive broadcast TV - someone had money to spend and wanted to hawk
floor wax to the ethos excessively. But lets look at YouTube for example -
their algorithms are supposed to be so sophisticated but I’m outside every
desirable demographic except maybe not dead, I don’t impulse buy, I don’t have
any wax able floors, if I did I would switch apartments before waxing them,
and I downvote, skip, or just kill the youtube app every time I see a
commercial. I should be number one in the lost cause file, but instead they
keep showing me the same stuff that I’ve already downloaded, skipped, stopped
transferring countless times. How do you explain that in the era of machine
learning and no holds barred privacy invasion?

~~~
nolok
> the exact same commercial for anti-AIDS drugs sixteen times per hour.

European here, I will go over my surprise / weirdness about having ads for
chronic disease medication like that, to ask : do you actually, you as the
patient, choose which medication you receive for disease like that? Does your
opinion override that of the doctor? Is it not ultimately a moot choice both
by you and the doctor because the one you will get is the one your insurance
covers?

I have a hard time reconciling what (little) I know about in the US medical
system between insurance behavior, doctor choice, and ads aimed at patient
choice.

I understand ads for non prescription drugs and little things like cough, but
ads for HIV treatment I can't fathom.

As for your question, while the ad might be massively bad targeting for you,
it might still be the best they have where you fit in the restriction set by
the ad publisher, so better they get money on a poor match than no money at
all. Usually a publisher that has terrible targeting.

~~~
xxpor
As an American, what shocked me in the UK was the amount of ads for sports
gambling. Literally every commercial during games was for a betting site. It
felt pretty gross.

~~~
iso1210
You're right, it's shocking, although I think it's mainly during sports (which
sports nerds already pay a fortune for to subscribe to sky sports / bt sport).

The vast majority of TV viewing in the UK is on BBC, amazon prime, netflix or
disney plus, and thus doesn't contain commercials, just adverts for other
shows from the same provider. The rest of the stuff is mainly aimed at old
people sat at home - visited my nan today, who had some terrible channel on
(channel 65 or something). Adverts were almost entirely for stairlifts and to
leave money to charities in wills.

~~~
xxpor
That doesn't sound so dissimilar to the US :)

Ads during the day are either for old people or stay at home moms.

------
klausjensen
I don't pirate because I don't want to pay for content - I pirate because it
is the only way I can get a lot of content.

I wish there was a global way to subscribe to and pay for content in a
market/app-independant way.

If you are not in the USA, Canada or UK, your options to pay for the most
popular, newest content are very, very limited. And if you are in a very small
and/or somewhat impoverished country, forget about it. "Sorry, this content is
not available in your region. Please go fuck yourself".

Luckily, Netflix has improved this a lot (which is why I happily pay for it),
but for a lot of content, it is still impossible to consume in a legal way.

~~~
RedShift1
I've argued about this numerous times: ISP's need to provide customers with an
opt-in p2p license that adds a small fee to their monthly bill. This monthly
fee is transferred to a central authority, the ISP does not make any profit
from this fee. The license would allow users to torrent whatever content they
want. Torrent trackers would be fully legal, their only legal obligation would
be keeping track of torrent popularity and reporting this to the central
authority every month or so. The central authority that receives the money
from the ISP's then forwards the money to the creators of the content being
distributed, divided based on the popularity reported by the trackers. A
minimum baseline amount is provided to each creator to subsidize indie and
struggling creators. And obviously geoblocking should be illegal but as the
media companies would be making more money if they didn't geoblock, it gives
them incentive to not do that.

~~~
slazaro
In Spain we get the worst version of this. Media organizations (the
equivalents to MPAA or RIAA) get a percentage of the price of all storage
devices (hard drives, flash memory, anything) that are sold, implying that
they might be used for piracy. But it's still illegal to pirate! So we're
paying for something we MIGHT do, but we still can't do it.

~~~
hyperman1
The same is true in Belgium. But i heard there is a strange benefit: You are
allowed to copy anything if the source is legally yours at the time of
copying.

So person A lends some music to person B, person B copies it and returns the
original to A. This scenario is legal. The nice thing is person A can be a
library.

Now if person A makes a copy and gives it to person B, this is illegal, even
if the end result is identical. Bits have color.

~~~
kaybe
Same in Germany.

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WheelsAtLarge
I will bet a lot that Netflix is headed this way too. Once Netflix stops
growing, it will need to find additional growth, and advertisement will be the
way to additional profit.

~~~
the_duke
There is already plenty of product placement on Netflix.

The smoking is notorious, for example. They cram in cigarettes wherever they
can, often to the detriment of the scene.

I really wish there were laws mandating a very obvious " this scene was
sponsored by X" overlay.

~~~
fergie
Not sure if its region dependent, but my Netflix shows a warning about product
placement at the beginning of the show.

I have to say that it was a bit of an eye-opener- a lot of these ads are not
obviously product-placement at all. The one that shocked me the most was an
episode of "Friends from College" where the main characters went up the Napa
valley for some wine tasting and then stopped into McDonalds on the way back-
it was such a sharp, natural and realistic storyline that I would have never
assumed that it was product placement. It dealt with "McDonalds-shame" in very
sophisticated way that you wouldn't think McDonalds was capable of, and
actually made me feel (as somebody who has been wine tasting in Napa and tries
to avoid Mickey Ds) that a fast food burger is "allowed".

~~~
john_minsk
If you liked the effect of eye-opening I strongly advise to try "The greatest
movie ever sold" documentary. It has such a nice setup and product placement
will never be the same after you see this one.

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bovermyer
If advertising ever intrudes on streaming the way it did on cable, I'll just
transition out of watching TV altogether.

I don't care near as much about keeping up with the zeitgeist as I used to.
Maybe I'm just getting old.

~~~
titzer
Old? I feel like a dinosaur because I still watch _shock_ DVDs. Still no ads.
No DRM. No funky software needed, though, TBH, the bits are encrypted. Not
sure how long optical media lasts, but I am hoping these things last a few
more decades.

~~~
rollingbarreler
I believe CDs and DVDs used organic compounds for their data layer, which
begins physically rotting and destroying the data later

Later disks like M-disc type DVDs and Blu-ray don't use living components and
don't really age

~~~
titzer
Printed CDs and DVDs have nothing but plastic and aluminum. If you are
referring to CD-R(W) and DVD-R(W), these use phase change materials, the exact
composition of which I am not sure. [https://volga.eng.yale.edu/teaching-
resources/cds-and-dvds/m...](https://volga.eng.yale.edu/teaching-
resources/cds-and-dvds/methods-and-materials)

Also remember organic != living. Organic is basically hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen and carbon chains in molecules. They vary greatly in their durability
and may or may not be useful to carbon-based life.

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Animats
Classic ad, run in theaters, against Pay TV:

[https://archive.org/details/Drive-
inSaveFreeTv](https://archive.org/details/Drive-inSaveFreeTv)

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caseysoftware
It's amazing _how much_ commercials have crept in. If you watch an "hour long"
show from the early 80s, it's roughly 48 minutes. If you watch a similar show
from 10-15 years ago, it's closer to 44-45 and in the last few years, it's
more like 42 minutes.

I assume it's only going to get worse as TV ad revenue drops faster with more
alternatives.

~~~
timcederman
Do you have a citation for this? It's been 42-44 minutes of content for at
least the last 20 years in my experience.

~~~
magicalhippo
Checked some episodes from some shows I had available, first seasons, DVD or
Bluray source:

Miami Vice (1984): 48m

Homicide Life On The Streets (1993): 47m

TekWar (1994): 45m

Nowhere Man (1995): 45m

Battlestar Galactica (2003): 44m

Dark Matter (2015): 43m

12 Monkeys (2015): 43m

Lucifer (2015): 43m

There are exceptions though. Legion (2017) episodes are around 50m, and
several of the newer "made for streaming" shows have 50-60m episodes.

~~~
caseysoftware
Thanks. The pattern isn't perfect but the trend is clear. These are Season 1,
excluding pilots.

A-Team (1983): 49m

MacGyver (1985, original): 48m

Quantum Leap (1989): 47-48m

X-Files (1993): 43-44m

Monk (2002): 44m

Eureka (2006): 44m

MacGyver (2016, remake): 42-43m

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sjwright
And the real question is: will history repeat itself with Netflix, et al?

HBO demonstrates that it’s still an open question.

~~~
elliekelly
I’ve recently noticed some Hulu shows that let you know you’ll see ads even if
you subscribe to ad-free Hulu.

~~~
zdragnar
IIRC, the licensing arrangement between Hulu and the network prohibits not
showing ads on those shows, or some such nonsense.

~~~
beerandt
The networks have always entirely _owned_ Hulu. It's that way because they
want it to be.

Netflix has no such network licensing problems.

~~~
tzs
How quickly does Netflix get those shows? I believe Hulu gets them the day
after broadcast. Maybe the network licensing term are different depending on
the delay between broadcast and streaming?

~~~
culturestate
As far as I know, Netflix negotiates those rights independently so it varies
per network. They're doing a new-ish model now, though, where Netflix actually
pays to co-produce content with networks in exchange for getting faster and/or
exclusive streaming access.

The most high-profile example off the top of my head is the new Michael Jordan
doc; they split the cost with ESPN, and Netflix gets next-day international
rights and accelerated domestic streaming rights (3 months after broadcast, I
think).

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alexmingoia
The market is big enough for ad-free options.

HBO built a business providing ad-free TV entertainment. The Economist built a
business selling ad-free news periodicals. YouTube provides a paid ad-free
option.

You could look at the Web and say “it’s littered with ads” or you could look
at the Web and say “it’s the largest collection of free information on the
planet.”

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _YouTube provides a paid ad-free option._

It's an "ad-free _" , with a large disclaimer under asterisk.

> _you could look at the Web and say “it’s the largest collection of free
> information on the planet.”*

Or you could look at the way advertising influences curation of information,
and how the viability of ad-based business models mean there's incentive to
create sites with things that promise, but not deliver, information. You could
look at that and say that the Internet is the largest collection of free
_disinformation_ on the planet. Most places that give reliable information do
not show or involve themselves with advertising.

~~~
alexmingoia
I have a different perspective and experience.

Ads have enabled me to access information at little to no cost to me. _Ads
enable us to search the Internet._

I learned to exercise, eat healthy, and much more from watching YouTube. I’ve
learned a lot from newspapers and blogs. I’ve learned a lot from people on
Twitter. Do I _enjoy_ advertising? No, usually not. But from my perspective
it’s a win-win. Companies promote their products and I get to read things for
free.

Look on the bright side.

------
JKCalhoun
They crossed the line for me. Someone wiser than me said they'll put as many
ads as we will tolerate.

Imagine that when "Star Trek" was originally airing, the episodes could be 50
minutes long to allow for commercials in a 60 minute slot.

By the time Star Trek was in reruns in the 80's they were cutting a few
minutes here and there to allow for the longer commercial time.

By the time the cable Sci-Fi (or was it Sy-Fy yet?) aired them "un cut" they
had to put them into a 90 minute slot.

Sometime before the latter example, I ended up cutting the cord: stopped
paying for television. You have to decide where the line is for you and act.

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downerending
It's like a creeping cancer that cannot be stopped.

Back around 1981, advertisers would take a certain percentage of ad pages in
each newspaper or magazine and consider it a reasonable deal. These days, they
absolutely will not accept this unless they get a lot more space, obnoxious
animations, force-play videos, and overlays that you have to click through,
and often various registration walls, cross-site tracking, etc.

They have only themselves to blame for ad blocking. With ML, eventually this
will become pervasive, even into the physical world. (My VR goggles will gray
out billboards, etc.)

~~~
bosswipe
The only reason you can block ads on the web is because there was a small
window where the idealistic academics that built the internet and the web were
able to keep commercial interests out so they were able to use open universal
protocols. The same will not be true for VR.

~~~
sneak
It’s already not true on mobile generally. No view source, no extensions, no
user injected scripts. You get the page the server wants you to see.

~~~
kardos
Firefox is an exception here, which really underscores it's importance

~~~
takeda
yep, and that's why it is set as my primary browser, sadly integrated browser
in the apps is still chrome :/

------
hinoki
There is no global schedule of programming any more, so there is room to have
tiers with and without ads.

So maybe it’s more like “Netflix with special offers”

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tedunangst
"30-minute toy-store shows." Which arrived in 1984.

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sarajevo
This promise did not age well:

>“We won't break programming at awkward times,'' promises Dick Cox, president
of CBS Cable,

~~~
rollingbarreler
What a name to have

------
SamuelAdams
> ''Propaganda masquerading as information'' is the reaction of Peggy Charren,
> president of Action for Children's Television, to such proposed programs.
> Unless there are sufficient safeguards, viewers - especially children - may
> find it difficult to distinguish between the program and the advertisement,
> says Mrs. Charren, raising the specter of ''30-minute toy-store shows.''

It's interesting how a generation raised in war (WWII, Vietnam) was very
sensitive to propaganda and how it influenced their children. Whereas today,
propaganda is spread on TV networks, the internet, and other news sources and
yet very few people stop and ask what the intent of the source of information
is.

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PunksATawnyFill
Funny how far things have gone. "Basic cable" had ads, but it was "free," as
in included with your base-level subscription. But then basic-cable channels
like MTV decided to try to charge for their viewership, AND have commercials.
So now you're supposed to PAY to watch commercials.

But let's face it: The stupidity of the public seems to have no bottom. Look
what Apple gets away with.

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fdgwhite
I worked in b2b publishing for a while. Magazines are just ad delivery systems
so they need to sell ads. But ad buyers need to sell their product too and and
their job is to buy ads. They can’t go back at the end of the year and tell
their boss “look at all the money I saved by not advertising“.

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Jemm
I don’t understand why people pay upwards of $200 a month for a television
service that plays ads every three minutes

