Comments on: You can’t watch TV any more

By: Prue

Prue — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:50:41 +0000

I have one of those things on loan from a travelling friend.

The saddest thing is that i’ve set it to record Midsomer Murders…

By: Nathan

Nathan — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:41:05 +0000

Bob, that’s a terrifying thought, and seems quite likely. I remember watching football in Argentina and seeing that they put adverts on, covering half of the screen, during game play. You ended up seeing an advert for cheap van hire whether you liked it or not. Mind you, you were compensated by the commentators very entertainingly shouting “gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolaaa!” when the ball went in the net.

These evil people will get their way won’t they.

By: Niall

Niall — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:26:29 +0000

I live off a TV recorder thingy which unfortunately means I have succumb to one their own TV adverts – “Make your own TV channel”.

Of course you could just download things off the internet. Those nice people cut out the adverts as well!

Eastenders sponsered by Carbon White and Burberry!

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:06:27 +0000

I wonder if we’re missing an arms race thing here.

Having watched only the good stuff, and minus the adverts, there won’t be any money made by commercials. This is happening already: the adverts are poking their way into the actual programmes with product placement and brand names dropped into casual conversation.

So the arms race will ramp up, and your TV recorder thing will have to learn to be able to block out the Starbucks logo (which it recognises from it’s huge anti-commercial spam database) as the protagonists walk down the street. It’ll have to bleep out the brand names that James Bond drops into conversation (“Shaken, not stirred. And it must be made with Gordon’s gin please. And I’ll follow it with a Krispy Kreme donut, thanks. And do you like my Nike trainers?”) Eventually the commercial spammers will fight back, rooting brand names so deeply into the plot that just about everything will be blacked out or bleeped out until you remove the filters and are suddenly drowned in a tsunami of product placement which destroys all concept of honest human narrative.