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Notice more TV ads lately? You're not imagining it.
The amount of commercial time on cable TV keeps increasing as networks try to make up for shrinking audiences by stuffing more ads into every hour of television. That's despite years of promises to cut back on ads.
Last quarter, commercial time rose 1%, according to Michael Nathanson, an analyst at MoffettNathanson LLC. After declining in 2017, the volume of ads increased every quarter last year and expanded again in the first half of 2019, he said. Fox was the only major cable network group to lower its ads last quarter, cutting them by 2%, Nathanson said.
As TV viewership declines and more consumers jump to streaming services like Netflix, media companies have only a couple of options to generate the advertising revenue that Wall Street expects: They can raise prices, run more commercials or do a little of both.
"Look at the decline in ratings," Nathanson said. "Everyone's got pressure to make their quarterly numbers. Long-term, it's a very bad decision, but you don't want to miss your numbers and have your stock go down."
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday August 02 2019, @10:07PM (6 children)
These folks make money by showing ads. If they want to make *more* money, they need to show more ads. It's the nature of the business. It's a simple proposition.
cf. The Scorpion and the Frog [wikipedia.org] for details.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday August 03 2019, @04:20AM
Are you saying that Jews cannot control their greedy nature, and will kill the host that feeds them? Racist! Bigot!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by darkfeline on Saturday August 03 2019, @05:20AM (4 children)
A rational actor that doesn't understand human irrationality would be surprised.
These folks make money by showing ads to viewers. If you lose viewers by driving them away with too many ads, you lose money. Simple.
Any company that makes decisions based on their stock price is doomed, because the incentives of the people who buy the stock (and thus set the price) are not at all aligned with the long term health of the company.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:00PM (1 child)
let's also remember most CEOs get their big payday by pushing the company stock price above the strike price of the stock options that are part of their compensation. they have every reason to kill the company with their short-term thinking because when it comes crashing down they plan to be on a beach somewhere anyway.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday August 04 2019, @03:49AM
CEO's simply get their companies to buy their stock using fed's loans at virtually zero rates. While it was always an important game in town, for the last decade or so they do nothing else, period.
This is not the worse though. Across the big pond CEO's get their "feds" to buy their stock directly so no debt on the company books. This is a perpetual money machine, right?
Still not the worse. Democrats are proposing an MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) which basically stays that feds can buy stocks, bonds, anything unlimited because if/when there are too much money in the system government can drain it by taxes. See? We sell bonds and get money, then we tax all of it and again get money. Double perpetual money machine.
Actually, triple, counting the CEO's
Nothing' wrong with this picture, right?
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @12:05AM (1 child)
You will not drive viewers away as the whole market of TV stations will raise amount of ads quickly. So where would they go?
VOD is quite interesting solution, but here, again I pay and I see the ads many times again, even screenplays are polluted with it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday August 04 2019, @01:02AM
Lurking on Soylent News.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Friday August 02 2019, @10:10PM (5 children)
Notice more what what?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 02 2019, @10:20PM
Yeah, me either. I don't even have my rabbit ears hooked up any more.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:44AM
My wife watches some TV, but I watch shows by .....uhhh....other means.
What are TV ads?, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by corey on Saturday August 03 2019, @10:49AM (1 child)
Yeah, I only ever watch ABC (Australia). Public broadcaster, no ads other than future shows on between programs.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday August 04 2019, @01:05AM
But those ads are getting so common... and they're also very common DURING the morning news on 24.
A plot to train us for commercial ads on Aunty?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Saturday August 03 2019, @07:38PM
I do sort of vaguely remember TV and Cable TV. But not in recent memory.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:10PM (1 child)
I remember the early 80s and glorious commercial free cable TV. It was their main selling point! Then a few 'here and there to keep the bill down'. Fast forward to now and it is a total shit show.
We wanted unbundled and basically streaming. Netflix had it about right for awhile, but not so much anymore.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Saturday August 03 2019, @07:40PM
I have said it on SN multiple times before that advertising destroys every form of media that it ever touches.
Newspaper. Radio. TV. Cable TV. Magazines. DVDs. The Web.
Let's not even get into the parasites like email spam or snail mail spam, telemarketing, and robo call scams.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:17PM (1 child)
"Long-term, it’s a very bad decision, but..."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:05AM
I see it like the Campbell soup company hiring some executive who thinks watering down the soup is a smart business move.
Then don their suits and ties to make their business presentation that people are not buying much soup anymore.
I am so sick of those vitality pill and bags under the eyes ads I could scream.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:20PM (7 children)
Really, who would watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZVv2AOCnaA [youtube.com]
And think about how the same thing is being done via facebook, etc to manipulate the simple minded...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:23PM (4 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWNUTTPGKwQ [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:25PM (1 child)
Hopefully that is produced by netflix.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:32PM
Hmm, if this type of low quality, ham handed social messaging is what the competitors are going to be doing as well... I am going to have to take another look at NFLX.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @11:56PM
I want a series about Red Claw [wikipedia.org], the hero Gotham's working class needs to throw off the shackles of vigilantes like Kate Kane, who only dispense "justice" according to bourgeois--their own--class interests. Expropriate Gotham's ruling class!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:02AM
That is shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:26PM
Almost all TV advertising recently contains a long list of possible side-effects, and warnings not to use the product if you are pregnant, which seems unlikely given the demographic.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Saturday August 03 2019, @07:48PM
EVERYONE should watch at least 30 seconds of that video.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday August 02 2019, @10:26PM (5 children)
... And inflation happens, too.
But the whole proposition of raising prices doesn't get much traction, either. Ads are bought on the premise of X many eyes watching the program. If X is shrinking then it is very hard to justify charging more for that. It is easier to pack in more ads per hour. Which TFA basically explains.
That said, I'm surprised that the highest average is only about 14 minutes per hour. That said, it must be just commercials and not other breaks like promo spots because this site [waynesthisandthat.com] seems more like reality to me, suggesting that it is much closer to 32% and not 25% in overall not-on-program time.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:10AM
Last week I watched a movie on TV. The last half was 10 minutes of move then 5 minutes of adverts. I can't do the math but it was basically unwatchable and obnoxious. You need at least 3 things on at the same time so you can flick between them. That is the only useful role of baseball on TV, I believe.
(Score: 3, Informative) by kazzie on Saturday August 03 2019, @06:18AM (1 child)
Here in the UK, the legal cap [ofcom.org.uk] is an average of 7 minutes an hour for (commercial) public service broadcasters, or 9 minutes an hour for all the other broadcasters.
I'm convinced this average is set so low because of the existence of the BBC, which (as a non-commercial broadcaster) has no adverts, only trails.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 05 2019, @03:36PM
Thank you! Very interesting to know and so very good to keep in mind that not everyplace in the world follows the dictates of what occurs in the United States. Refreshing and hope generating...
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @07:19AM (1 child)
look at show length (you can do that on netflix).
big bang theory episodes are 22 mins. same as most sitcoms from today. so 44 mins of "useful" programming an hour, minus the 4 mins initial song/credits.
I guess it's worse with sports and news though.
extra comment: star trek original series ~50 mins episode length. star trek next generation ~45 mins episode length.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 05 2019, @03:39PM
Sure, but today those older programs, in syndication, are either given an extra half-hour in broadcast (wow!) and/or they snip and cut away absolutely anything that is not essential to the plot as well as re-editing all the timings.
Nothing sucks more than remembering the dialogue from a particular episode (M*A*S*H is the prime example, but I've seen it as recently in newer series Doctor Who as well) where I remember the dialogue and am playing it ahead in my mind a little bit and all ready to laugh at a particular line I recall coming up....... and they jump cut into the next scene. Arrrgh!
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:27PM
More and more ads, fewer and fewer eyeballs. Outside live events like sports and maybe news/politics, "TV" is on borrowed time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:37PM (5 children)
They sped it up to cram more commercials, sounds like they're on crack. I counted 4 minutes of the show followed by 3 minutes of ads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:21AM (3 children)
We oughta make a "smart TV" with ad recognition technology using the content recognition technologies developed for copyright violation detection, and repurpose it to screen out unwanted content.
I envision a Shazam type interface. Once you tag unwanted content in your TV, it will block it. You may have to watch the show a bit after airing to allow the buffer to close the time gaps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:48AM
Or a smart tv that streams piratebay
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:29AM (1 child)
Worked like a charm back then, no idea if something that simple would still work today, but it might. If so, you don't need to do all the work you're talking about.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 05 2019, @03:56PM
Supposedly there was some furor some time ago about the volume differentials and how it was agreed that it would discontinue but then the ad agencies started using compression to stay within the technical requirements and yet still deliver louder volumes on ads.
Shows don't necessarily fade out to black anymore, either, or one could use that to sleep out with a 'wake up' refresh when the Parental Guidelines logos are detected. One can't rely on in-band messaging either. Maybe have a button to manually suppress out with the automatic wakeup from the v-chip? (But using a DVR and just fast forwarding the ads would likely be easier). Have no idea if it is actually viable or being developed but here is one website [skipr.tv] of someplace apparently still trying to develop technology along this end.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Saturday August 03 2019, @08:02PM
I remember Cable TV! From some time back.
After your 3 minutes of ads, the show comes back on.
Then characters and other bugs and junk appear on the screen right over the top of the show you are trying to watch. Sometimes obscuring important content which is critical to the plot.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Friday August 02 2019, @10:52PM (4 children)
The only "live" TV I watch nowdays is the local news. Everything else is from elsewhere, where either the ads are already cut out or I can skip them easily.
They're killing themselves. The more ads they show the more people tune out. The more people tune out the more ads they need to show to "get their message across". Eventually people say dafuq and quit watching live TV, so they need even more ads to "get their message across".
Bunch of overpaid clueless assholes if you ask me. Show fewer ads, charge more for them, and it's not as tempting to skip them while you make the same amount of money. Then again, I write software for brain surgery so I'm far too stupid to understand the advertising world.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @10:58PM
The local "news": https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=32926&page=1&cid=874859#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Friday August 02 2019, @11:11PM
News and sport too for. "live" TV but when the local MLS soccer game was broadcast the commentator started reading adverts while the game was playing. WTF - Zap - Off, I won't put up with that pollution. Even though I have access to OTA and streaming channels I download TV series from usenet that have their adverts stripped out and this makes for a shorter and much more enjoyable viewing experience.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Saturday August 03 2019, @03:41AM (1 child)
Local news is even full of ads. They scroll the bottom and even have "sponsored content" breaks with people sitting on a couch talking. That said I do like all of the sub channels that play mostly old programming.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday August 03 2019, @04:25AM
I love the scrolls at the bottom. Local station scrolls traffic reports, one constant is "67 SB between Broadway and 8 stop and go". Um, first that's maybe 1/4 mile. Second, there are traffic lights there. Of course it's stop and go, if it wasn't then everyone would be running red lights all morning.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @11:18PM
Noticed the same trend with NPR/public radio stations. They keep calling themselves "commercial free", but about 1/3 of their air time is sponsor promotion and pledge begging.
(Score: 2, Funny) by doke on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:01AM
Did they consider attracting more users with better quality content? </sarcasm>
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:09AM (1 child)
I bet the commercials are better than the show at this point.
I cut the cord ( literally.. didnt go with a streaming service ) years ago. its all crap. The occasional movie, ill just buy on a DVD.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:39AM
There exists many, many, many alternatives to spend your time doing. Recorded "entertainment", like trying to eat boney fish, just ranks lower and lower as the value perceived no longer commensurate with the time invested.
It takes the extraordinary insight of a Business Degree to see the advantage of the destruction of your own market. Even more.so to hire someone else to do it for you.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:25AM (4 children)
Nope.
When the cable company started showing ads, I cancelled my cable and sold my TV. Haven't had once since.
Legacy media is dying, and deserves to die.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:44AM (3 children)
Legacy media is dying, and deserves to die
Have you been saying that since the early 80s? I would posit you were wrong and still are. In fact I would posit you are wildly wrong.
If you think for 1 second that the existing media companies are going to go away you have not been paying attention.
Disney is bigger than ever. So is ABC, NBC, FOX, and HBO etc etc etc.......
Linear TV is dying a slow death. The companies that made things for them are doing the best they have ever.
The only thing dying is the old middlemen. We are replacing them with new ones who are vertically integrated with the old guard.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday August 03 2019, @04:32AM (1 child)
But today, they're scrambling, they're losing, they're dying and they don't even seem to be capable of understanding why.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:11PM
that is true, and was already true ten years ago. my friend is head of programming at Starz. he complains how he has to fight and scrape everyday just to stand still.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday August 03 2019, @03:11PM
Financially bigger than ever, while also less influential than ever.
"Kids these days" don't understand that in the 70s, successful TV shows had like 1 in 4 people watching them, very culturally influential because its normal to meet people with similar entertainment backgrounds. Now a days a wildly successful show might have 1 in 30 people watching, there's no cultural impact anymore.
Like... when gen-X was young, we non-ironically talked to each other about watching the same shows; now a days nobody watches that crap but we're still socialized to talk about how "we all" watch some nonsense or another, even when basically no one watches statistically.
Financially, sure, its possible to grow in dollars and cents at a rate vastly slower than the overall economy while becoming less influential over time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:59AM
>you don’t want to miss your numbers and have your stock go down.
Why? You never want anyone to buy your stock?
Buy low, sell high.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday August 03 2019, @03:19PM
There's a major typo in the article:
Should be
The average age of viewers is exploding upwards, as you could guess by the contents of commercials. Some of the statistics are simply crazy. The majority viewers of some pro sports (baseball, golf) and some dramas (doctor shows, especially) are post-retirement age and continuing accelerating upward. TV is for old people.
Sentient 20-somethings will not tolerate seeing the same ad inserted three times during the same commercial break, but "forgetful" elderly literally can't notice because they're forgetful. This also shows up in impact of legacy TV ads which is plummeting, if some elderly viewer literally forgets what they saw in 30 seconds, the ad isn't going to have much impact on real world sales months later, unless you can get them to write themselves a note or something.
At some point in the next decade or two, the last TV viewers will be eighty-somethings with Alzheimer's and financially its going to be a significant struggle for legacy commercial TV to make a buck off them. Expect to hear calls for government bailouts much like some of the whining recently for bailouts of legacy newspapers (another legacy media which skews extremely toward the elderly)
Strange thought experiment that all forms of media eventually die like this with only old people "participating" so some day MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc will meet the same fate. Imagine 4chan being nothing but senior citizens, weird, but inevitable.