The Hersch Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Remember how public television didn't have commercials? They'd have crawls, or sometimes voice-overs, thanking various sponsors for financial support, and that was it. Then maybe fifteen years ago, they started letting the sponsoring companies run very short spots, only between programs, with a little plug for the company, maybe ten seconds long, which have been getting longer by the year. Then about four or five years ago, they started allowing actual commercials. Viking River Cruises has been running commercials on public television for several years now; maybe it's okay because the voice-over actor has an English accent. Then a couple of years ago, commercials for current theatrical-release movies started appearing. Still, only between programs, and only 20 or 30 seconds. Well, just now I was watching the BBC World News transmission on MPT2, and right in the middle of the program they cut away, without warning or apology, to two commercials: one for HomeAdvisor.com, and then one for the ever-popular Viking River Cruises. The HomeAdvisor.com commercial didn't even have any English accents! I haven't seen any discussion of this development, but I may just not be looking for it in the right places. The public television stations already have pledge drives going on about half the time, during which they replace all the programs you might want to watch with Suze Orman, Dr. Wayne Dyer, and Best of Do-Wop. What does this invasion of actual commercials portend for the future of public television? Is anyone besides me alarmed and appalled by it? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonRocks Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 What does this invasion of actual commercials portend for the future of public television? Is anyone besides me alarmed and appalled by it? This is fascinating, and I had no idea since I don't have a TV hooked up (although today, I suffered through 88.5 FM's pledge drive). My initial thought is that if public television allows sponsorship, they're in danger of becoming beholden to the sponsors, i.e., problems potentially run deeper than having to suffer through annoying advertisements. Stated in other terms, the deeper they get into this pile of shinola, the further away they get from being public television. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Hersch Posted October 20, 2015 Author Share Posted October 20, 2015 But they've had sponsorship since forever. They just didn't allow their sponsors to run commercials. I don't think sponsorship by itself is necessarily a problem. I think the history of public broadcasting in the U.S. is largely admirable, and the kind of sponsorship that's existed for the whole history of public broadcasting almost never, to my knowledge (maybe even totally never) , gave sponsors any kind of editorial influence over the content they sponsored. I may be naive about that, but I hope not. But a really profound shift seems to be occurring, and it troubles me greatly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Slater Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 You still don't have to sit through commercial breaks every 9 minutes. It doesn't bother me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Hersch Posted October 20, 2015 Author Share Posted October 20, 2015 You still don't have to sit through commercial breaks every 9 minutes. It doesn't bother me. Half-way through the 30-minute BBC World News program, they cut away for two commercials. So every 9 minutes is a deal-breaker, but 15 minutes is no big thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonRocks Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 Half-way through the 30-minute BBC World News program, they cut away for two commercials. So every 9 minutes is a deal-breaker, but 15 minutes is no big thing? Again, just some initial thoughts, but you should time the actual length of the commercials to compare (there may be an article about this online). And also, it's possible that they could be doing this only for their most popular shows to get the maximum possible money. Is BBC news shown live on American public television? If so, are you sure this policy isn't coming from England? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Hersch Posted October 20, 2015 Author Share Posted October 20, 2015 I haven't timed the mid-program commercials on the BBC World News, because they took me by surprise on the only occasion I saw them, which was yesterday. I'd guess each of the two was 30 seconds. Since they show the news program at 5:30 pm on MPT and 6:30 pm on MPT2, they can't both be live (they are the same edition), and I doubt that either one is. However, although this is a BBC product, it's actually called BBC World News America, and is produced for the American market, with the anchors apparently sitting in a studio in Washington. Since Viking River Cruise commercials have been showing up all over the local PBS stations for several years, I doubt that running one of them in the middle of the BBC news program was a decision of the BBC, but who knows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Hersch Posted October 21, 2015 Author Share Posted October 21, 2015 Yesterday evening I sat watching the 6:30 MPT2 transmission of BBC World News America, stopwatch (well, smart phone) at the ready to time the commercial interruption. But there wasn't one. Maybe the day before was a slip-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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