Pollywogs!

Ok, read this:

The change was driven home, Sweeney said, when Disney-ABC entertainment executives were congratulating themselves following the 2004-05 season, when hits such as “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost” had resulted in a “fantastic rebirth” of the network.

“It was a joyous moment,” Sweeney recalled. Then an executive from the cable group popped in a DVD, and the group watched on the conference room’s plasma TV the last episode of the season for “Desperate Housewives.”

The executive had downloaded the episode for free from an Internet site, just 15 minutes after the show had aired. The episode was crystal clear, and all the commercials had been taken out.

“Talk about taking the air out of the room,” Sweeney said.

“Piracy is a pretty darn good business model when you think about it,” she added. The product is free. In this case, it was available within 15 minutes with excellent quality. And distribution to consumers, over an Internet site, is easy.

From : http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/11549

These asshats were so close to touching the truth…the show was doing great, the network was doing great, and piracy went on side-by-side. It wasn’t a problem until someone pointed it out…well then, it wasn’t a problem at all?!?! If anything, it helps build the product by allowing those who might not have watched it otherwise view their show, which builds buzz and recognition. And…last time I checked, you could put an antenna up in any large city and watch the show if you happened to be in the same room as your TV at the correct time…and if you were up for it, you could force yourself to not watch the commercials…so, what is the result? Sounds like 0+0=0 to me…

These asshats need to realize they have something which is worth nothing to consumers. The valuation is in the advertising to pushers of consumer goods. A TV show? Sounds like a $0 product to me. What subsidizes it? I don’t know, I have TiVo…heh… How are we doing to pay for TV to be produced? Good question…I think those who create advertising need to find new ways to get me to actually want to watch their advertising…something they aren’t doing now. How? Contextually accurate advertising wouldn’t hurt, perhaps flavored with my preferences…I know there are commercials that I would actually sit through and watch, and ones which I wouldn’t…perhaps TiVo could watch me watching commercials and see what I like and what I skipped, and feed that back into the loop to help those who craft such things make better mousetraps (well Bob, that one tanked, 95% of our demographic is spending less that 3 seconds before skipping over it, etc etc).

I think advertising is WAY over-valued myself. Personally I was thinking today it would be nice if I could post what I wanted and have potential service providers examine my needs and offer their bids for the work. This could apply for anything from à la carte TV channels to someone grinding a tree stump in your front yard…craigslist in reverse, if you will (you read it here first, right?).

Advertising…billboards…spiels…95% of it worthless, crap you already knew…or crap you don’t care to know! Since when did I care if I could crack open a Mustang? Or that a goldcrafter crafts gold? Or that McDonalds serves fast food???!!! Tell me something I DON’T KNOW, but that I WANT TO KNOW. Like new movies coming out that I’d be interested in. Or new books or music which I might like. ‘They’ don’t need to know my name and address, but they can feel free to lump me into a demographic and cater to my paticular configuration…This is the year 2006…we’re supposed to have flying cars and robots straight out of BladeRunner and I’m watching commericals straight out of 1955!