TBS interstitial commercials

launchpad25 · TBS interstitial commercials

Someone brought up this instance during a 'Family Guy' rerun on TBS, where Bill Engvall interrupts the show, and plugs his own sitcom that no one probably watches. Gee, is Time Warner scared to death of the DVR? Just another instance of the old media scared of technological progress. This would make a good topic to rant about in a future VMTV episode.

http://www.kottke.org/tag/advertising

John Gibson

See, what I hate is when I'm watching a show on TV, and characters from another show pop up in the lower corner, and just stand there in front of their respected show title, and below it says "Watch on Monday Night, 8pm".

It's not enough they gotta smear this all over the TV, but they also advertise this in commercials. I guess commercials wasn't enough. They gotta serve as a distraction, while you're trying to watch whatever it is, say on USA network, that's a great example. I don't watch much of their programming, but Monk or some other show will be on at the moment, and then you see the characters from Law & Order: fill in the blank in the left hand corner of the screen. Get out of there, and let me not enjoy what I'm watchin. LOL

I wouldn't mind discussing this on a future show. I got so much ranting to do, it's not even funny. It's a matter of figuring out when to do them.

Splodge

Man, I'm glad I don't live in America. The amount of breaks and advertising would kill me. We have a fair bit here but not so much that it's annoying. There's no gaps between the opening credits of a show and the show itself for instance.

Still, England has the right idea. The BBC has absolutely no ad breaks during shows. They get all their money from TV license fees, so the only thing you see is information about upcoming shows, and that's always between programmes.

John Gibson

You know what I hated when it first began? I remember this happened with the Simpsons frequently, and they even parodied it.

During the ending credits, the screen would shrink, and turn sideways kinda, and a preview of the 10 (or 11) o clock news would come on, or something else we didn't really care about. It would either turn some funky way, or they'd just split the screen down the middle somewhere.

Now, on the Simpsons episode where Bart became Krusty's assistant, he had his name in the credits of Krusty's TV show. Bart was trying to show his friends he's got his name in the credits, but then the screen splits, and you see anchorman Kent Brockman, and then you can't see a single name in the credits. Son of a bitch.

launchpad25

John Gibson

We may not be doing opening skits anymore. But they may appear in the middle somewhere.

It's a new thing we're trying for Season 3. I would love to do more skits every once in a while, but my well of ideas is sorta running dry.

But I'm intrigued by the skit idea of this. What would it involve? Set it up for me. Smile

launchpad25

My idea is this. Your talking about the idiocy of networks advertising their programing in the middle of the shows, and while your doing so, various video game characters would show up on the bottom of the screen promoting the latest episode of say 'American Idol', or 'Jerry Springer', or 'Eat At Joe's'. (Looney Tunes reference) In response, you'd pull out the NES zapper, and threaten to shoot them if they keep interrupting your topic.

John Gibson

LOL I love it!!!

jakdin

Oh man!!! I haven't heard/seen this type of guerilla adverts until reading this thread just now!!! Holy crack batwoman, they've FINALLY found a way to get the peeps that DVR shows to watch ads now! I bet that's why they've started doing this, to counteract the people who don't watch the ads anymore, they FORCE you to watch it now.

And I thought that it was distracing and stupid when TV channels first started putting their g'dammed LOGO in the bottom of the screen. We haven't seen anything yet: next they'll run the show you want to watch split-screen with nonstop ads on the other side of the screen!!!! LOL. I hate TV, and that's one reason I haven't watched it in over a year and a half. Long live Netflix and torrents (oops! I didn't say that, did I?). Wink

KT Kore

I don't mind the logos in the corner. But that's where it should stop. I really hate it when the whole lower third of the screen is covered in some kind of scrolling advertisement, or some HUGE animation advertising some new show or special event or whatever it is. It's gotten so ridiculous. And now some channels even have paragraphs of text ABOVE the logo for the FULL DURATION of a show advertising something. It's very annoying.

Unfortunately, as a future motion graphics designer, maybe one day I might actually be designing some of that annoying shit they interrupt the shows with. *evil laughs*