Campaign Against Infomercials

[Nick]

One thing that makes me mad is how so many of the so-called 'niche' channels have sold out their late night night programming to infomercials. To me, this is a breach of contract with the viewer. When I sub to a channel or a particular group of channels, I pay them to deliver 24 hours of the type of programming I want to watch. If I want to watch in the middle of the night, that is my business. When I tune to a particular channel for which I am paying my money, I want to see the type of programming the channel promised to deliver, not some mindless shill hawking the latest fake diet product or copycat ripoff bow-whatever.

That my late-night viewing options have greatly diminished over the past three years has not escaped my attention. One of my favorite late-night channels used to be TLC. I would watch it if I was up in the middle of the night. Now, I hardly ever, almost never watch TLC because they have sold their soul to the devil. And frankly, IMO, their day and evening programs have declined in quality also.

I don't know what it will take to get the attention of these money-grabbing programming whores - maybe a class-action lawsuit, or a massive viewer letter-writing campaign to the FTC. After all, what they are really pulling on us is the old "bait & switch", and as far as I know, that is still againt the law!

[Tomsoundman]

Rock on, brother.



:rolleyes:


:shrug:

[TerryC]

This is about as strong an argument as advertisers telling us we are breaking a contract with them by skipping over commercials with our PVRs.

They would show regular programming late at night if it was cost effective, but apparently it isn't for certain networks. They don't exist to entertain you. They exist to make money. I hate infomercials as much as you, and I agree that they're money-grubbing whores. But that's called capitalism, and sometimes, as in this case, it sucks.

[american_2000]

Thats the cheapest time slot that those infomercials could afford. They should have their own channel so we can flip right over them!

[TNGTony]

If I were king :)...All TV stations and cable networks would be limited to 25 minutes of commercials per hour. This includes self promotion, logos, banners, and other paraphenalia on the screen other than entertainment or news programming. Want to show an infomercial? Fine...get it in the 25 minutes then run entertainment or news programming commercial/logo/banner/promotion-free for the next 35 minutes.

It would be good to be the king. :)

See ya
Tony

[Tomsoundman]

The "Self Promotion" drives me crazy too!

[Nick]

"If I were king ...All TV stations and cable networks would be limited to 25 minutes of commercials per hour."

Tony, you are the king!

But even kings can be wrong. I am not willing to give them 25 minutes out of every hour. IMO, that is wa-a-a-y too much. I just finished watching "Good Morning America", part of my morning (mourning) ritual. Out of each hour were an excess of local Atlanta station breaks, local news, and a ton of affiliate (local) spots. I haven't actually timed this, but it seems like the actual network program is less than 30 min per hour. The continuity on GMA sucks because of this, and the program is less enjoyable to me than it used to be.

Oh, King of Charts, most Knowledgeable Master of channel keeping up with, I beseecheth thee, give them no more than 20 precious minutes. Let your decree be knowst across the land by PSA.

[Richard King]

Actually, I am the King. :D

[Nick]

All Hail, Richard, King of Lightning & Thunder, and Leader of the Ancient Gecko Horde. All Hail! :hi:

[JBKing]

I know Kings, and you sir, are no King!

And dare we not forget Sir Rodney, King of Intoxication!

[MikeW]

When NBC's Today Show gives a local break for weather, KVBC Las Vegas now gives about 10 seconds of weather then inserts a sponsored promo. I realize the forecast for Vegas in June will be "hot for the next 7 days", but do they really need to hype the evening news broadcast during a time in which they are supposed to be doing the forecast? As to the infomercials, back in the day all stations simply closed up shop at midnight. Now they've got a way to make $$$ instead of just shutting down. What irks me is the East coast feeds of these networks means my guide is full of Paid Programming here on the Left Coast much earlier than it should be. Give us those west coast feeds as well! I'd even be happy with the Telefutura scenario where they give the East feed to Eastern and Central time zones and West feed for Mountain and Pacific.

[TerryC]

JB is King. Not because of his name, but because of his avatar.