Actually, I don’t really mind that too much. It doesn’t seem that obtrusive.
I think I’d rather watch an uninterrupted episode of Friends where they drank Coke, ate Ho-Hos, and had Xerox Logo Wallpaper, then stop every five minutes for a commercial.
I refer you to football (soccer) coverage in the states. They run the game continuously, except that the little score board up in the corner has Snickers or Budweiser next to it for so many minutes.
I also refer you to The Truman Show. I say product placement is the wave of the future.
Funny you should mention sports! They’re currently experimenting with yet another kind of advertising technology. You know how they can magically insert that bright yellow “first down” line on the field? Well, before long, they’ll be able to put digital billboards on the grass, and they’ll be able to change them at will, depending upon how much time the advertiser has purchased.
I can’t wait until corporations take the next step and actually sponsor teams. “The GM Lions take on the Xerox Clones, next on the Playtex Super Bowl!”
Something like this is already being done in European soccer coverage. They can “project” quite some variety of things on the lawn, including virtual billboards in addition to the real ones that are there already.
One can still recognize they’re fake, though.
The issue in that case from 20 years ago was copyright infringement. Basically, the question was, does the home VCR user infringe on the copyright of the program creators/broadcasters by taping the entire show, even when the recording is used only at home to “time shift”? I don’t recall any complaints from the plaintiffs in that case concerning fast-forwarding through commercials; if not watching commercials is a breach of some hypothetical contract today, it was the same 20 years ago. They should have brought it up back then.
Anyway, technology’s gonna change things, and the network owners like things the way they are, so they’re bitching. Well, they need to change with the times. Attempts to prevent the advance of technology are futile. And, as we’ve mentioned in this thread, advertisers and networks are already developing and using new methods of inserting advertising into programming that “skipping commercials” won’t dodge. Networks will have to switch to these new methods, but programming will continue to be advertiser-supported. About all they really have to complain about is, “you’re making us spend money on research so we can keep making you look at ads, and we don’t like that!”
Does this discussion remind anyone else of that old guy in the book Contact? (I think that was the book.) He was an advertiser for something or other, and when a device to block commercials came out, he effectively sued the people for being anti-competitive (or whatever it’s called when they unfairly limit your right to sell stuff). Won a lot of money in the court case, and proceded several years later to come out with his own version of the ad-blocking product, which he then sold and made lots of money from the consumers who loved the product.
Does anyone think that could actually happen in real life? I don’t think you could do both, stop someone from making the product and then turn around and make it yourself, without someone noticing and calling you on it, but stranger things have been done I’m sure.
Actually, this has already been done. (well, not on the grass, but pretty close)
In the 2001 World Series broadcasts, there was virtual billboard on the wall behind home plate at one of the stadiums (can’t recall which). In the centerfield camera shot (which is used a lot), it appeared as an ad. When other camera angles happened to catch that section of wall, it was just a blank green space (which is what those in a park saw).
I have scanned the whole thread to see if anyone even thought of this, and I didn’t see it. So here goes:
Am I completely misled (and I’m sure someone will tell me if I am) or don’t corporations who advertise their products get to write off the millions they spend on advertising from their corporate taxes?
If they do, then they are taking less of a gamble than some posters have suggested. And to the extent that they avoid taxes because of their advertising (which certainly does profit them whether some people cut them out or not), we pay the difference in our own taxes. Who is stealing from whom?
Like some other posters in this thread, I actually enjoy some commercials. But I would love to have a device that could identify and skip only the mind-numbingly stupid and downright insulting commercials that get mixed in so thoroughly with the good ones.
Another point I didn’t see raised in the thread is with regard to “infomercials.” When people are willing to sit through so-called “sponsored” programs (as if all the others on comercial television were not sponsored), it seems clear to me that advertisers are in no danger of losing their shirts from those who zap their commercials with some machine. In any case, I didn’t promise anybody that I would ignore my bladder and/or hunger pangs and sit and watch their commercials in order to be worthy of the regular programming.
That spending isn’t really a “write off” though corporations do not pay taxes on that spending. Advertising is just part of their normal expenses to provide their services, and as such, is deducted from their revenue when Taxable Income is calculated. Businesses only pay taxes on their Profits not on their Revenue.
So, if the tax rate is 35% on corporate profits, the company’s after tax profits are reduced by 65 cents for each dollar spent. Advertising doesn’t have any special status, it is just like every other type of spending.
Thanks, Cheese, but it seems a fine distinction. If a corporation can spend a billion dollars to improve its business by advertising and shield that billion from taxes, it does get a a benefit from the government that you and I don’t get. It may pay taxes on the profits generated through its advertising, but the government has, in effect, helpted it generate those profits.
On the other hand, if I spend a few thousand to improve my house, I don’t get to shield that money from federal taxes just because it made my life better. I have to stand the entire expense alone, and pay sales taxes, etc, on the materials as well (another benefit the corporation gets that I don’t, because sales taxes can be deferred to be paid by the “end user”).
And again, whatever that corporation does not pay in federal taxes has to be made up somewhere. Guess who foots the bill.
Kellner seems a bit off to me… It’s not stealing from Turner in any way by not watching a commercial. their revenue comes from the advertisers, not from us sending in OUR money to the network.
If we skip the commercials, at the end of the show Turner will still have the same amount of money.
What about commercials for products that we don’t use? If an ad come on for BMW, and we fail to buy a BMW, are we still thieves?
Suppose that the commercial is for a product that we use regularly, but don’t watch the ad for. In the end, the sales are still made, but we didn’t watch the ads. Is that too theft?
Theft is defined as: "the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. "
I can see no way in which this can apply to failure to watch a television commercial.
(well, not on the grass, but pretty close)