Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 361 posts

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#171

Post by TeMPOraL »

dylan604 wrote: post #69
bovermyer wrote: post #24

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.

In the worst cases of cable/broadcast advertising, at least the content creators could dictate when the ads should be played. Sites like YouTube, just decided by algorithms when to place an ad based on time so you get ads in the middle of sentences. The streaming apps for cable channels also include ads just like watching it live. In these formats, they make it where you cannot skip ahead past the ad breaks, so it's…

I think it was less dictating, and more of being aware beforehand. The shows of TV era all have a pretty distinctive way they're cut, to have breaking points for ads. It gets especially noticeable today, when you're most likely to be re-watching them on an ad-break-free streaming service.

On the other hand, apparently there is a way for the YouTube creators to dictate where ad breaks will happen. I've seen at least two videos in which the person speaking said "and then YouTube will show you an ad right about... NOW"; lo and behold, an ad shows perfectly timed to when the speaker announces it.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#172

Post by zxcvbn4038 »

dataduck wrote: post #170
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #157

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 sixtee…

Maybe Google's algorithms have determined that the floor wax company doesn't look at / understand its analytics reports.

Haha, I think you’ve nailed it

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#173

Post by TeMPOraL »

qppo wrote: post #56
sjwright wrote: post #2

And the real question is: will history repeat itself with Netflix, et al? HBO demonstrates that it’s still an open question.

As long as I am given the option to purchase content without advertisements I will do so. If I can't watch a piece of content without ads, I'll either wait until I can or pirate it. Usually the former. Frankly I think content is just overvalued and the actual creation of content is extremely inefficient, from a financial point of view. My personal experience has been that Hollywood film/television studios are poorly…

> My personal experience has been that Hollywood film/television studios are poorly run businesses with massive losses at each point in the process, but is laden down by individuals who do things because it's the way it's always been done, are hostile to innovation (both technology and in business), and are anti-consumer, anti-viewer, and frankly anti-making-money.

Is it that, or is the industry mind-controlled by parasites to achieve a different goal than delivering quality entertainment cost-effectively? "Hollywood accounting" is a known term, and it doesn't describe being bad at making money - it describes being very good at making money for yourself by purposefully cheating those who actually brought in that money.

(My general heuristic is that, if they're inefficiencies persisting despite competitive pressure, it's because it's these inefficiencies that are the real reason the business is done, and someone is making a good money off them.)

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#174

Post by IshKebab »

fulafel wrote: post #133
the_duke wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even bigger issue (measured in future loss of life years and ethics[1]): cars, there's so much driving. For environmental reasons we should heavily discourage that. [1] smoking mostly is self inflicted harm, GW kills others

Cough White Collar.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#175

Post by TeMPOraL »

alexmingoia wrote: post #44

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.”

> 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.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#176

Post by kinleyd »

klausjensen wrote: post #169

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 ab…

Coming from a very small and somewhat impoverished country, I agree fully with your comment. I enjoy Netflix now, and am warming up a lot to the NBA and NFL's League Pass subscriptions. These three have nailed it for me price-wise and content-wise, so much so that I'm considering switching from European/UEFA football viewing to the NBA and NFL. Outside of this, my only option is piracy - there isn't any other way.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#177

Post by john_minsk »

fergie wrote: post #145
the_duke wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#178

Post by jstanley »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #157

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 sixtee…

FWIW, uBlock Origin is very effective against Youtube. I never see ads on Youtube.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#179

Post by joliu »

imprettycool wrote: post #147
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #39

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.

I doubt it. Netflix doesn't have a monopoly on infrastructure like the cable companies did.

That may be true but as the popularity of Netflix exclusive content grows so does Netflix's ability to display ads without shedding as much of its user base.

Re: Will cable TV be invaded by commercials? (1981)

#180

Post by hutzlibu »

the_duke wrote: post #112
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #39

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.

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.

About smoking, I never suspected that can actually be true, but I remember a Jet Li movie .. where he as the main character had to smoke a cigarette in one scene, which looked so artificial and unvoluntarily, where you could see he clearly did not wanted it, but was forced to. (and shame on him, as he does not seem to need to to this anymore)

And about product placement in general: it seems to be a bigger buisness, than I suspected:

https://blog.hollywoodbranded.com/how-much-does-product-plac...

Post reply on HN