Moving the ad breaks around is another symptom of this I guess.

I think the earlier ad breaks are probably sweeter for the sellers. I have no data to back this up, just a suspicion that most TV shows do precisely what the advertisers want.

Do we know the amount of time regularly scheduled for shows over history, to see how much landscape we're losing to advertising now?

I remember reading something at Vidiot.com a while back moaning about how the hourlongs were getting shorter and shorter... whole seconds being lost to commercials!

Liese = hottie

:-)

And Tamara, present company excluded on the gut-less financial types. I'm just a little jaded from having to build a company the hard way.

Tim's (me) biggest pet peeve is unmerited praise. I get sick of uninteresting ideas getting a great deal of support an hype. Actually, technology is a LOT like television. Subjective and almost all of it is short-sighted manipulation and BS.

Then every once and a while a real jewel comes along - i.e. any ME project + WF + whatever Tim's baby ends up being. Same with technology - you have to put up with a bunch of HomeGrocers.com and Value Americas to get an Apple or Sun Micro or SGI.

I think the earlier ad breaks are probably sweeter for the sellers.

I wonder how true that is with so many "commercial skip" features on VCR's and Tivos now. I've noticed that less programmes fade to black before switching to commercial - presumably to defeat such features. Could moving the ad breaks around be an attempt to combat this, as well as hook the "live" viewers in to watching the commercials?

Many of the network shows we do are reedited twice to make more room for commercials--once for network reruns and once for syndication, both times to make more room for commercials. So if you want to see ALL of Will & Grace, watch it the first time it's on.

Someone I'd just met asked me over dinner what sort of TV I liked. They'd never heard of Firefly or Wonderfalls, so after blaming them for the cancellations I tried explaining. Never made it deep into Firefly -- the topic shifted to Star Trek.

The Wonderfalls explanation got responses like "I think they'd like that in Germany." "That sounds kinda psychotic." "HBO, maybe?" but finally a "I think you'd kinda like that ..." "Yeah, I might."

I wonder how true that is with so many "commercial skip" features on VCR's and Tivos now. I've noticed that less programmes fade to black before switching to commercial - presumably to defeat such features.

TiVo doesn't ad skip. And I've been told that the ad skipping algorithms are so fancy that they'll get them without even a fade to black.

Liese, your hair is awesome! It looks great.

And I'd just like to second the praise for Fury's OMWF documentary from the previous thread. It's exactly the kind of thing you want in a behind-the-scenes featurette, integrating the rehearsals and filming with the finished product. Great stuff.

so after blaming them for the cancellations I tried explaining.

Did you yell, "YOU ARE ALL THAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA!"? (I did that when I discovered my friend loved WB Superstar USA.)

Thanks, Robin, and all for the info. Very interesting. And thanks for the sweet words, all you others, too. Very flattering.

I think the earlier ad breaks are probably sweeter for the sellers.

I suppose there's overall tune-out-age, so the sooner you can stick your ad in there, the better the odds it'll get to the consumer. Although for my viewing patterns, if I'm tuning out of a show midway through, I'm probably tuning into something else.

Like a renovation show. Where I get to see the end result. Huh, wonder if the type of show affects where advertisers prefer their breaks, too?

Product placement makes sense to me. I mean, if a character is using a computer, and it's a Mac, well, why not? If it were no name brand or made up brand, that would be jarring. Why wouldn't Buffy drink a Diet Pepsi or a Frappaccino? Why wouldn't Angel slap on some Hugo Boss cologne before a meeting with a hot client? Why wouldn't Lindsey play a Gretsch?

And all that blends in the background and so it's fine. What isn't fine is the "Hey now, that's a snazzy new Ford Focus you're driving, Bill! What's the freeway mileage?"