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posted by chromas on Friday August 02 2019, @09:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the ask-your-doctor-about-adctl dept.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-02/tv-networks-stuff-in-more-commercials-despite-vows-to-cut-back

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."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:21AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:21AM (#874900)

    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

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:48AM (#874903)

    Or a smart tv that streams piratebay

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:29AM (1 child)

    by Arik (4543) on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:29AM (#874912) Journal
    We used to have a very similar technology some decades back. It was a neat little box you made yourself with plans from popular mechanics - as best I know no one ever risked the lawsuite that would have come with commercial manufacture. The way it worked was simply to sense the change in the base volume. When the stations cut from the show to a commercial, they would also increase the base line volume, an annoying thing to do but it made blocking them super easy. When the box noticed this change, it would simply blank the screen and mute the volume until it was over.

    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

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday August 05 2019, @03:56PM (#876047) Journal

      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.