Sunday, February 19, 2012

Advertising in TV Shows

Advertisements don't really bug me that much. Usually. I mean, they have become a necessity in order to produce the shows I love. Plus, with all the new technology, it's becoming easier and easier to bypass a lot of commercials with watching shows on the internet or recording it for later.  With that said, I would like to point out a portion of advertising that I despise. Something that in fact makes me cringe like no other.  Commercials? Fine I can live with them. But when advertising crosses the line into my actual TV show, it really really grinds my gears.

As I watching the show Awake for my earlier blog post, I realized this topic in which I have never talked about.  It's something I hate with an utter passion because it completely messes with the dynamic of the show and frankly makes the show about money and not about the art of entertainment.  If you're wondering what Awake has to do with this, the pilot subtly showed many computers at the detectives stations bearing the Microsoft logo. This may not sound like a big deal, and honestly its not that bad.  But I hate that all of a sudden my eyes are drawn to the logo and lose focus of show. I understand broadcasters need to make a living, but throwing in ads into our favorite shows is not the way to go. I mean, shouldn't consumers be able know when people are trying the sell us crap?

The kind of advertisements in TV shows that I hate the most are when they actually make actors talk about the products.  Okay, first all that is really demoralizing. These actors probably worked really hard to get where they are today, and just to earn some money for the show they have to go back to their commercial acting roots? Secondly, it never ever EVER makes sense in the plot nor does ever sound natural. There is nothing more awkward then having the main characters of show randomly get in a car and start talking about the random features that it has and how much they love it. I'm not making this up by the way, I watched a Royal Pains episode on USA where they did exactly that. It's so awful!

Honestly there is no need for a show to sink this low. I understand some shows have tight budgets and need to pay the bills, but I really don't they should be doing things that make the show suffer. I mean, I guess it's fine if they characters are driving some random brand of car or something, but when it comes to advertisers shoving their logos down our throats, or eyes I should say, I think that is a sin against the television industry. For now there is not much I can do but complain, but hopefully in the future shows and networks will find more creative and less invasive methods to attaining their money.

No comments:

Post a Comment