When you’re watching something on-demand it’ll go to this screen and play over and over, sometimes for a few minutes at a time.
I expect commercials. Pluto is ad supported. But what is the purpose of constantly wasting minutes of peoples time with this pointless splash screen?
Maybe they don’t have a paying ad to slot in but the slot is still there?
Some other channels have repeating messages where commercials could be inserted, but they don’t always have the available spaces filled.
Oh. I guess that sorta makes sense. Strange that it’s that difficult to find an advertiser. Seems like if it were an unpopular slot they’d just lower the price until someone bit. Some revenue is better than no revenue.
Their system doesn’t seem to be particularly sophisticated. Often, I’ll get an ad for the same plumbing service twice in a row, for example.
I’d guess that whatever algorithm they use to place ads occasionally fails to load anything, so Pluto tosses up a message rather than a blank screen.
I’m not complaining. I would rather see a simple message than hear about the latest miracle drug for moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis.
True. I’m not sure whats worse, drug commercials or any of the current plague of commercial’s that use whistling in their jingle.
Just for the record, I see similar messages on many other streaming channels, especially ones that likely have more minor audiences. I think the one I encountered it on the most was Journey, during the brief period they were streaming Bourdain’s No Reservations.
So yep, my vote is with @Babale - most streamers use 30 minute to one hour slots, and the TV shows are already built with time for commercials, they try to see the time through the show, but may not have all slots sold. When @Quintas asks “why?” though, my IMHO (sorry, I know it’s FQ) is that it’s part and parcel of the fragmentation we have noted in the streaming market. There are a LOT of places you can dump your advertising, and with the sheer number of streaming channels and providers, it makes sense there are gaps.
There shouldn’t be, though. There are still the same number of people spending the same amount of time watching TV. If they’re spread out over twice as many shows, that means that the expected audience of any given show would be half as large, and so the slot should cost half as much. Unless the market is so inefficient that the networks don’t realize this, and they’re still charging the same rate for advertising.
I personally (and again, this is more IMHO territory than FQ) don’t think the assumption in the sentence is correct. Most of the younger people I know don’t watch TV, they binge shows, or shorts, or use streaming channels for background. While anecdotal of course, this seems to be common enough that a lot of traditional cable channels are doing layoffs and staff reductions in current news.
So the ‘TV’ market is competing with Youtube, TikTok, the streaming only exclusives on the ‘big’ channels, and all the specialty/narrow streaming channels on aggregators such as Pluto. Do you place your adds on niche Pluto channels that complement your product? Do you throw them on major networks that may skew older?
Do you go for local channel broadcast because you’re not a national business, or instead throw at the equally at-risk radio channels?
So yes, you’re correct, there are tons of advertisers, but I suspect that they’re trying to figure out where to get bang for their buck, and especially in light of inflation and COVID reduced business, are even more unwilling to with a more shotgun approach to advertising.
But I could totally be wrong, the only FACTS I can bring are that major networks / providers are cutting costs substantially to meet fiscal goals, which leads to my assumptions above.
There aren’t as many advertisers who want this advertising time. Rates are falling as viewership continues downward with all the alternative means of entertainment. The rates for shows that have popular in the past are still falling. I expect most of the streaming channels to be consumed by others or go down the drain.
I’m considering all of those part of the category of “watching TV”.
Okay, I don’t, not any more than I thing going to a movie or even renting a movie is watching TV, but I grant the similarities. Eh, time will tell, and probably sooner than later based on the recent news.
Keep in mind that for online streaming (like websites, and unlike cable TV) every serving-an-ad-to-unique-viewer opportunity can be auctioned off in real time to the highest-bidding advertiser. So the fact that you aren’t seeing an ad in a given slot doesn’t necessarily mean that nobody is.
Well, they’re all “watching TV” in the sense that they’re all opportunities for selling space for video ads, which is what counts in this context.
Okay, I’m not sure if we’re agreeing or disagreeing, but I’m bringing your earlier point back up if we include all streaming options as ‘Watching TV’. And I’ll leave out premium streaming services (such as Pluto + going back to the OP) where you may or may not have commercials depending on what you watch.
Yes, the same number (possibly even more if you consider non-Americans viewing streaming options!) are ‘watching TV’. But unlike my childhood (3 Networks, 18 hour broadcast day roughly), youth (cable with 20-30 channels, only 1/4 of which were 24/7), or early adulthood (cable with 40-50 channels with more than half 24/7, increasingly specialized), we now have anywhere between a hundred (many cable packages) and hundreds plural counting streaming only channels. And that doesn’t count the ‘channels’ on services such as Youtube which further subdivide it’s content.
It’s not that the number of viewers have gone away, granted. It’s that which of the hundreds of buckets does the advertising money flow into. And is there enough money to flow into each and every bucket? My feeling is no, and that leads to less popular / mainstream shows and time slots to possibly be empty.
Another factor is the ability to purchase commercial free TV. I pay something per month for Hulu so I can watch shows without commercials. Hulu makes a profit from that while advertisers lose advertising consumers.
I’m surprised they just say “We’ll be back” - You’d think they’d have something
like “Your AD here - Phone 01234 567890” or something.