Told You So! Sponsored Animated BANNER ADS During The TV Broadcast...

have finally arrived.

In the past, when the networks and cable channels would overlay those annoying HUGE banner ads during a broadast... it was always some sort of self-promotion. --- For example: the text was something like "Coming Up Next: Bewitched" or "You're Watching The Simpsons!" or "Don't Miss The Season Premier of ER".

NOW it's starting to transition into SPONSORED banner ads!!! Last night I watched a (recorded) episode of "Mail Call" and there it was... big as life... a HUGE animated banner ad scrolled onto the screen letting me know that 'Mail Call' was being sponsored by VERIZON!

This was NOT a "bumper" ad... this was not a between-commercials ad... it was DURING the show. How nice! -- Nice and distracting. Nice and annoying.

Here's my next prediction: Eventually "regular" TV will look like a "Bloomberg News" broadcast. Where only 1/4 of the screen is the actual program. The other 3/4ths are devoted to scrolling text ads, static ads, and slideshow or animated ads.


Bloomberg screen capture.

Further predictions: Music radio will have songs interrupted MID SONG with a 5-second "sponsored by" announcement. Police will arrest suspected criminals and will say "Your Miranda rights are brought to you by Smith & Smith Bailbonds..." or something similar. HBO already shows commercials (of a sort) when they go "behind-the-scenes" to do interviews and promote current box-office releases... so it won't be long before they add scroll-on banner ads.

I predict TV's with multi-tasking processors that have pop-up or pop-over advertisements that require the viewer to move an on-screen pointer to click a "close" button... or to press a special "close ad" button on their remote control.

Maybe I just watch too much television. That must be it. Normal people aren't as annoyed by this as I am. Surely that's the case.

Thank you for listening.

-- Allen

You are more optimistic than I, my friend.

During the movie. (They are already doing them before the movie)
After, we are all a captive audience there. :mad:

... so I completely forgot about that.

You're right... aside from product placement ads, we'll have scroll-on ads during the movie (or full blown COMMERCIAL breaks). Back in the day, longer movies used to call them Intermissions.

-- Allen

that now we can't even concentrate solely on the content of the TV show. We have to have other stuff hanging around so we stick around to that station. That's what its all about.

Ever watched CNN for long spans only because you were trapped reading the scrolling news at the bottom? I have had dirt bike racing on ESPN2 on only because I wanted to see the scores on the ticker...

:eyes: