Is Commercial Television Dying? (1 Viewer)

[Joe*A]

The question relates to the fact that I'm having a difficult time in watching new shows broadcasted once a week with commercials. I just ran out and bought Heroes on DVD because I heard so many good things about it. I refrained from watching the show as originally broadcasted for reasons explained below.

Benefits to owning or watching the show on DVD:

1. I have total control of the viewing experience
2. No commercials to kill the momentum of the episode
3. Don't have to wait a full 7 days to the next episode
4. DVD comes with great extras - especially deleted scenes not broadcast and in the case of Heroes, it seems to flesh out the story (note - I've only watched the 1st 2 episodes or chapters, as they are referred to)

I know of others that wait until the show is on DVD to watch it - especially BSG fans [ie. Battlestar Galactica]. Is there a growing consensus out there and are broadcasters concerned about this?

Thoughts?

P.S. Now I know why Heroes is so popular - great show.

 

[TravisR]

I think commercial TV is changing and getting smaller but not dying. There will always be millions of people who just want to sit down and be entertained by a TV show (no matter what it is) so there will always be a market for TV.

When it comes to TV, I'm very patient so I don't mind waiting week to week for a new episode. Sorta like I said above, when an episode has a great cliffhanger ending, I think it's fun to have the feeling of "Oh, man. I can't wait to see next episode!". Plus, it gives me time to sit back and talk about the episode online or with friends rather than just go right into the next episode. And when I've watched a show for months (or years, in the case of series finales), I feel that I've gotten to 'know' the characters and the show over all that time so there's alot bigger and better build up to the payoff for me as opposed to just watching all the episodes over three or four days.

 

[Regulus]

IMO Two things are KILLING Commercial Television as we know it.

First, Quality Drama and Comedy Shows are being cancelled and replaced with an ever-increasing amount of Low-Quality "Reality" Shows, Game Shows and News Shows. When you think they cannot get any worse, they seem to stoop to new lows!

Second, the number of Commercials aired during each shows has INCREASED over the years. In 1982 the Average TV Show had about 10 Minutes of Commercials per hour. In 2000 this had increased to 14 Minutes per hour. Now some shows have more than 20 MINUTES of Commercials aired each hour! It's bad enough they've increased the number of Commercials, but to make matters worse, many of the Products being Advertised are items I have absolutely NO INTEREST in purchasing, and or are presented to me in such an obnoxious manner as to downright OFFEND me! (Since I do not belong to a "Minority" Group I have no recourse on what to do about these Ads. If I complain all they say is they have a "Constitutional Right" to Air their Ads. (I wonder how many Insurance Policys a certain Company would sell if their Commercials said "So Easy a (Insert Racist Slur Here) could do it!") That's only the Tip of the Iceberg! I could rant on and on.

Nine Months ago I got so fed up with the Quality of TV Shows I decided to do something about it. I DROPPED my Subscription to Cable TV. I decided why should I shell out $60.00 each month whan they decided to make more money by selling (and airing) more commercials? For what it costs me to subscribe to Cable TV I can buy 3 to 5 DVD Box Sets of my Favorate TV Shows. It is so nice to be able to ENJOY a RELAXING EVENING in front of my TV Set, and not have to keep one finger on my Remote's "Mute" Switch, ready to blot out an Offensive Ad. I have about 3000 Hours of TV Shows Stockpiled for next year. If my calculations are correct next year Commercial TV is going to be downright UNWATCHABLE. A Certain event is going to tale place in the 11th Month of that year, and the airwaves will be DOMINATED by that event as certain people vie for positions that will be up for grabs in that event. They can Talk themselves into Oblivion as far as I'm concerned. I just won't be watching or listening to them. I'll be home, ENJOYING my TV Shows on DVD!

 

[Albert_M]

No. Video didn't kill TV and video got be very big. No TV shows were rarely sold on video but there were concerns then. TV has issues, but DVD I doubt is one of them. I don't understand spending $35-40 on a show that I haven't seen, but if that works for you, great.

 

[TravisR]

That garbage is popular though. When the bubble of its popularity finally bursts, they'll find some other junk to put on for people to mindlessly watch and not think about and so commercial TV will continue on. As the saying goes, no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

 

[michael_ks]

The original quote, by Henry Mencken, actually has 'intelligence' in place of 'taste', which makes it even more apropos where "reality" shows are concerned.

 

[Joe*A]

Travis R, I truly understand the gratification for the "oh shit scene" [will this phrase make it to pop culture lexicon?] But I get the same gratification without the commercial - and that's because the producers do insert "act enders" where you know a commercial would sit. With time such a commodity, I just find that DVD has upt the anti with respect to getting the most for the time allotted. I'd rather sit thru another episode of something I WANT to watch rather than sit thru a commercial.

I'm also getting spoiled with the Television on DVD for the fact that I feel that I'm getting more than the episodes, with the inclusion of extras, commentaries, etc. It seems to be a full package instead of bare bones television broadcast viewing.

I know this is probably not the place given it's a television forum, but with the Simpsons Movie out, I'm foregoing the theater experience for the DVD experience because of the fact that I'll get much more for my dollar than the theater owners could deliver. I'll get the Simpsons Movie PLUS oodles of features to go with the film. And I could watch it anytime I want.

To answer Albert M, the reason I dished out $50 Cdn for Heroes Season 1 is because it wasn't worth renting it and I could take my time and watch the show in my own time. And to justify, $50 Cdn is usually the price of a half descent dinner for two. I'd rather spend the cash on a DVD, even if I've never seen it before.

 

[Bob Hug]

That pretty much sums up my thoughts on cable TV, as well as much of the programming on free broadcast TV. With TV-on-DVD, you are the programming chief . . . for me, the vintage TV-on-DVD releases from the 1950s and 1960s (and some from the 1970s and 1980s) have effectively changed the way I watch television. It's no longer the question of which channel(s) I'm going to watch tonight, but rather which DVD(s) will I pop into the player? Just last night I watched a few obscurities from the 1950s/1960s ("The Vise" and "Assignment Underwater") and capped off the evening with an episode of "The Fugitive." The funny thing is that I would watch and even pay for a cable channel like American Life, but it isn't even offered in my area. Not only have the DVDs allowed me to revisit childhood favorites, but also "discover" shows that I've never seen before. It would take a major change in programming on the part of the cable operators for me to ever consider going back to cable.

 

[michael_ks]

Sums up my thoughts exactly, Bob. I dropped my subscription to Direct TV a little over a year ago and have never looked back. We're down to just one network at my residence: Michael's nostalgia channel

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Commercials are irritating but what really drives me bugshit is all the graphics and station icons that clutter up the screen while watching a show.

 

[Jason Seaver]

No. Even the most successful home-video release of a TV series is just a small, ancillary bit of income compared to what a successful show makes during broadcast/cable runs. I certainly doubt that DVD alone could support shows with the production values to which we've grown accustomed.

Besides, there's more original programming on than ever before, between five broadcast networks and multiple cable networks (basic and pay). Oh, and where networks used to have two or three nights a week set aside as movie nights, now it's pretty much all original programming. And while I see the inevitable jabs against unscripted programming have already started, it's worth remembering that the most popular, long-running examples tend to be pretty appealing. Also, relatively low-cost stuff like that allows the networks to concentrate more money on shows like Heroes, 24, and Lost, which probably would not have been able to afford their large ensemble casts, location shooting, stunts, visual effects, and generally high-gloss production values in "the good old days".

 

[Corey3rd]

you did have to wait a whole year to see the show.

for all the ragging on Ads, my favorite bonus feature is always ads featuring the stars of the shows - especially if they're pimpin' cigarettes like on Gunsmoke or Lucy. Has anyone broken down the march of ad times? Seems like on Season 4 of Miami Vice, the episodes lost a minute or two.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Actually, most shows lose money during their initial runs. The license fee paid by the network/cable channel almost never covers the actual production cost for the studios, so most shows are in the red for their entire original run and only turn a profit when they're sold into foreign markets and for syndicated reruns. Syndication is where the real money is, and this has been the case since the 1960s. (Star Trek was a big money loser for Paramount until it started airing 5 days a week on local stations.)

DVD has actually made it possible for shows that produced less than 80 to 100 episodes (the usual minimum needed for weekday syndication because shows - especially one hour dramas - tend to "burn out" quickly as they cycle through episodes over and over) to make money. A number of "one season wonders" have been released on DVD to moderate success, and thus provided income to the studios that had long since written off their costs elsewhere. (One reason why even successful shows are perpetually in the red according to the studio books is that the deficits from flops - which the studios never expected to see a dime in profit from - were charged to the accounts of shows that were hits. Since in every season flops well outnumber hits - and that's not even counting unsold pilots and projects that never even make it to the pilot stage - the overall profit picture of the studios' TV divisions is less rosy than it might appear if you only see the huge numbers from the syndication sales of a show like Seinfeld or Friends. For most of the history of TV the studios had to eat the loss on a dozen Smiths for every Magnum, P.I. they managed to find.)

To answer the original question: No, I don't think TV on DVD is having much of an impact at all, and for the reasons Jason mentioned. (And that's why all this railing against advertising is so silly. Look, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Shows cost money to produce, and somebody has to pay for them. On commercial television, the advertisers pay the frieght. On subscription television and pay-per-view the subscriber does. Your cable bill is a charge for providing you access to the content and certain exclusive content and interactive features. You are really not paying for the programming on Food Network or A&E. You pay for the content on HBO and Showtime - and if they were our major source of televised comedy and drama TV-on-DVD would scarcely exist.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[bobraleigh]

i don't know if commercial tv is dying, but it certainly is different. i think it has to adapt to the current marketplace or it will die. the world isn't the same place when there was usually just one set in the house and 3 networks to choose from. that worked for awhile and now we can re-live that experience by watching our favorite vintage shows.

i too dropped cable about 2 yrs ago and the only thing i really miss is TCM and
ESPN when they carry my college's team basketball game. but then that gives me an excuse to go visit my friends who have big screen Hi Def tv's, eat their food and drink their beer, then leave

still though, there is a difference in the way stories were told on vintage shows as compared to today. the ones i have been watching are like littlle movies, while today's shows seem to love that documentary feel, and not that Dragnet/Adam-12 docu style

 

[JeremyErwin]

TV on HD-DVD/Bluray will kill Commercial Television. Until then, the networks have the resolution advantage...

 

[Corey3rd]

But that's why TV now focuses on "here and now" programming. You don't want to see a rerun of Deal or No Deal. Same is true with Dancing with the Stars or American Idol. It's all about having something to discuss the next day or right after the show on the internet. Same with why they go with sports. Look at how NBC is getting a 4th hour out of the Today Show.

The big reason why HD-DVD won't kill commerical TV - because people would rather click through the channels than get off the sofa, look at their DVD shelves, pick out title, put it in the machine.... If you could load your discs onto a hard drive, and let the system basically create stations using your programming, that would kill TVLand.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Actually, I'd rather not see Deal or No Deal, rerun or no rerun.

 

[Kenneth V]

CBS and NBC are terrible for this. You watch a tv show and along the bottom are ads for other shows. To me this just seems pointless and distracting. networks need to cut the promos within the shows.

 

[Ron68]

It's slowly dying for me. I don't watch very much network TV anymore, mainly because I keep missing episodes of shows I like because of time changes and things like that. I keep forgetting the new times and missing the new episodes. This happened with Lost the last 2 seasons, so I'm just going to watch it on DVD from now on. I like it better that way, watching the show when I want and how often I want, plus all of the extras and better picture quality too. Only drawback is having to wait a year between seasons. The lack of commercials is great too, It annoyed me greatly watching the first half of season 3 and having all those commercial breaks, it seemed like there were more ads than I remembered there being from the previous season.

I find myself watching more TV shows and movies on DVD now, especially shows that I can't see on TV anymore. I'm going to continue buying shows like Smallville and 24 because I love them and have only seen them on DVD. I'm going to blind buy Heroes soon, because it was the show I was most interested in seeing that premiered this season,I'm sure I'm going to like it. I've been mostly listening to the music only channels on DirecTV now, with occasional views of documentaries, movies and TVLand. I can't find myself giving up satellite yet but I can see it happening one day. I have a large library of DVDs to watch and I'm looking forward to rewatching them.

 

[Shawn_Sm]

It's in flux right now. Nothing will kill it, it will just be part of the giant web of intertainment (that's internet entertainment, you heard it coined here first ) that we will have in the future. Everything will be integrated. We're already on our way...