“Product placement and annoying sponsorship credits will be introduced to British TV shows in February, unleashing a new era of cynical advertising tactics on UK audiences.“
Why on earth would we product placement, sponsorship alerts and all the other possible irritants thrust into our living rooms.
We already have too many adverts on our TVs. ITV throws up adverts at the most inopportune moments in TV dramas and also during sports events. These spoil the flow of the action and can destroy the atmosphere of a great drama. Sky is worse with seemingly unending commercial breaks. The only benefit being that you can leave the room and make a pot of tea during a Sky break.
At least on BBC and Sky you can watch a movie from start to finish without any breaks so you can totally immerse yourself.
Lets not forget that we already have to suffer DOGs (Digital On-Screen Graphics) on most channels these days. These are already being “enhanced” by the addition of blurb previewing up coming programs. We are not stupid, we know that these are there purely to imprint the brand in our psyche.
Despite what the broadcasters say i.e that the DOGs are there to help us identify their channels when tuning our TVs. What a load of twaddle given how smart the current electronic equipment is . My TV was able to tune all the stations in and identify them all without, I am sure, reading the DOG that was displayed in the corner of the screen.
I have experienced TV around the world and we should feel proud that we have pretty much resisted the worst elements. Our generally blind following of US trends and our now apparent migration to the US style of TV is the thin end of the wedge.
The powers that be in allowing product placement to join all this other visual graffiti are doing us, the great british public, a disservice and I for one, do not want it.
WrAnTz 