You pay for cable, don’t you?
I hope you are bing sarcastic. Television networks are not in the TV show business. They are in the TV commercial business. Advertisers pay money to have their commercials shown on TV. You do not pay anything to watch them. In fact, the only reason stations show actual programming is to make sure someone is there to watch the commercials.
that second guy wasn’t Diogenes, but mystic2311. Cable is TV, so counts as such, i pay extra for HBO, sans commercials. With the high price of movie tickets, putting commercials in is just overkill.
I thought I made this distinction before, but there is a world of difference between commercials AFTER the scheduled movie time and the ones before. The comparision to TV, magazines, and newspapers is not a valid comparison.
If halfway through LOTR they stopped the movie part and showed 30 minutes of commercials, without warning you before hand, you’d have a cause of action also. And that comparison is much more on point than one for cable-TV.
In that case, smith537, they should pay us to watch TV.
I can’t understand why anyone would sue over 5 minutes of lost time at the movie theatre. I think ads at the movies are great.
They provide you time to get settled down, find a seat, have a chat with your date/friends before the movie.
They mean that if you are running late then you actually don’t miss the start of the movie.
Everyone knows that there are ads at the start of a movie, it’s one of the conditions of watching it, just like having ads on TV or buses or anywhere. As a private business the cinema can do whatever they like within the law, and if people are uncomfortable with it, they don’t have to spend their money there.
If people don’t like it, then rent a video.
Yes D_Odds, you are right. Like I said advertising is a complete waste of time, and they would be better off putting the money in the bank. I don’t know anybody that would buy something because they saw a commercial for it. I simply would not even hang around with someone so brainwashed. And it is amusing to hear people on this thread seeming to defend the right of corporations to waste our time with commercials.
SMith537, what you are saying is absurd. You mean that TV stations spend millions on producing shows whose sole purpose is to get us to watch commercials? Why would they waste all that money on quality actors, directors, producers, screenwriters, and cameramen when they could just show any trash and people would still watch it?
Waitamminnitt…you are right! That explains the programming on Fox.
I wonder how the lawyers actually plan to argue it. IANAL, but it sounds like it would have to come under contract law. If there is not a reasonable expectation of having to sit through three extra minutes of commercials as an obligation to seeing a movie, then there is a case. Unfortunately, I think nowadays it’s become a reasonable expectation.
Wait 'til they start dubbing in 15 minutes of commercials for every 45 minutes of movie. :eek:
No they should not mystic2311. Without advertising revenue, you would have to pay far, far more for any form of media you use. Advertising revenue subsidizes all forms of media, including this one (the reason you don’t see advertisements here is that they are in the print copy Chicago Reader and presumably on its website).
While cable companies dos pay for some of a cable-only stations budget, it is not the stations only source of revenue. Take advertising away, you would have far fewer channels (not necessarily a bad idea, unless they remove the 5 or so I like) and much higher cable bills.
One place where I think people should get paid for advertising is on clothing. I have very little (mostly gifted) clothing bearing obnoxiously large logos. I don’t buy clothing to be a walking billboard for a fashion designer. But here, I vote with my $$, just like people can at a movie theater. At home, people can vote with their remote and on/off switch. But if you insist on watching Joe Millionaire, understand that msmith537 is 100% correct; it is a conduit for advertising. No advertisers = no Joe (which does have more than a little appeal).
People need learn to get to the theater on time. screw 'em if their late.
Didn’t see your follow-up post, mystic. I’m not swayed by advertising either. But it works, and it pays for TV shows I like to watch (but not enough for Farscape 
), papers and magazines I like to read, and websites I like to visit. I’m happy there are people who respond to advertising, else all the above and many more items would be significantly more expensive.
What a lot of people don’t seem to realise is that the only reason the entertainment industry really exists is to be a place for advertising.
TV networks, magazines, newspapers, (with the exception of the movie industry) are all businesses who derive most of their revenue from advertising. TV stations want popular shows only because their popularity means that people will advertise with them.
Unless you pay for cable, the only reason you are watching anything at all on TV (or reading the news or a magazine) is because businesses want you to see their ads and buy their products.
Gotta love capitalism.
Here is an interesting story from the Electronic Frontier Foundation website:
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=1517
“In the April 29, 2002, issue of “Cableworld”
magazine, Turner Broadcasting CEO Jamie Kellner
describes personal video recorders (PVRs) like TiVo
and ReplayTV as devices designed to “steal” programming. Kellner refers to some imaginary contract we have with television networks that is breached when we don’t watch the advertisements. He also says there’s a “certain amount of tolerance” for bathroom breaks.”
How’s that for hubris?
Check out this article, “Top Ten Copyright Crimes.” It’s hilarious. One of the crimes mentioned is “sneaking into the movie theatre between the commercials and the movie.”
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=198
mystic, rereading my post, it does sound like I’m defending ‘the rights of corporations to waste our time with commercials’. I’m defending it from the viewpoint of a capitalist (jobs, tax revenue, free market and all that) and more importantly, I’m defending it because it brings cheaper products and services to me (which I guess is also as a capitalist).
I don’t necessarily like advertising. I may find certain ads amusing, but I really don’t pay close attention to commercials. I hate how advertisers are constantly coming up with new gimmicks to get me to pay attention to them when I don’t want to. I openly loathe how marketers target children with advertisements. But that doesn’t mean “first thing we do, we kill all the marketers”. We reserve that option for the lawyers (and yes, I know that quote is being taken out of context - allow me my fun please).
D_Odds, and others. I guess it is about setting boundaries that are reasonable. Remember the arabic saying, “once the camel’s nose is in the tent, pretty soon the whole camel is in the tent.” Once you let corporations intrude into your life a little bit, next thing you know, you are being sued for breach of contract for going to the bathroom during the commercial. OK, that is an absurd extreme, but read what Kellner said in the above articles. Filing a class-action lawsuit about adverts in a movie may sound silly but we have set the boundaries of what we believe is reasonable and just. Otherwise we just turn into brainwashed robots.
OBEY AND CONSUME!
**
There was a time when cartoons and newsreels were also part of the movie going experience. Things change.
Marc
The James Bond franchise shills so many different products that it is more commercial than movie. Can I sue to get a movie instead of paying for a 2 hour ad?
Marc
Those are examples of things going from the theater to the TV. It should not be a two way street. Plus what is wrong with changing it back? And i want Cartoons during the movies, and Flash Gordon shorts, and Movietone news…
The point is that what is standard in theaters has changed over the years and it will continue to change. It doesn’t matter whether or not it goes from the movies to television or from television to the movies. Hell, Star Trek went from television to the movies.
The first time I saw a television ad in the threater was the Dr. Pepper Godzilla ad right before Teen Wolf. (Don’t laugh.) They’ve been inserting tv ads before the movie starts for many years now. Not that I actually like seeing them.
Marc
I don’t understand why this is “frivolous”. Theaters advertise that a movie starts at a specific time. Well, the movie does not start at that specific time. It starts quite a bit after that listed time, which is false advertising. Commercials before the film are bumping that time back even more.
Trailers are a valid part of the movie experience. How many people went to see a crappy movie just to see some of the new Star Wars trailers? Movies need to be advertised at movie theaters–it just doesn’t compare to seeing a movie ad on TV or the internet.
Roger Ebert is more concerned about another insidious development. Movies generally limit themselves to about 2 hours of runtime so that they can be shown the most number of times per screen during a business day. With the increase in commercial crap before the film, does that mean directors are going to be encouraged to shorten their films?
As for the lawsuit, no massive damages need to be paid out. Theaters should simply be required to advertise the “lights down” time and the “film starts” time.