Get Your CRAP Off My Screen

(This picture is completely fictitious, and in no way represents an actual broadcast. It is merely designed to illustrate the ridiculous lengths that modern broadcasters would go if given the opportunity. Click on the picture to see the full version)

Did you know that you are an idiot? Well, if you ask any modern television broadcast company, they certainly think you are. The proof is in the answer to a very simple question: “Why does your company feel the need to put your logo on the bottom of the screen?” Ninety-nine percent of the time the answer will be that they do this so that their viewers can remember what channel they are watching. To me, that sounds a lot like “Our viewers are far too stupid to remember or even know what channel they are watching, so we need to remind them” more than anything else. Of course they don’t seem overly worried about you remembering what channel you’re watching while the commercials are on - because that’s the only time they ever take their logo off the screen. Apparently, it’s perfectly okay to tread all over the screen blocking subtitles, distracting viewers, and ruining a program or movie – but don’t even think about upsetting an advertiser! I guess we know who’s more important though, don’t we?
While researching this phenomenon I have found out that the on-screen logos are actually called ‘bugs’ by the industry. Supposedly this trend was being used for a number of years in Europe (originating on the Italian television station RAI), and in the U.S. it is reported that VH-1 was the first to adopt it, but I thought that it was MTV who paved the way – who knows. The British call them DOG’s (Digital On-screen Graphics) which I think is a better name, but who am I to judge – after all, I’m just a stupid viewer.
Those pesky (and ever-increasingly annoying) little banners that pop up to intrude on your viewing in order to inform you of other programs & website opportunities are called OSN’s (On Screen Next). This is where things get ugly. As far as I am concerned the OSN is nothing but visual Spam. When I am trying to watch a show having some flashing animated banner pop up all over my screen to tell me what I am currently watching, what’s coming up next, and what will be on next week I get disgusted. Nothing is more obnoxious than this disastrous trend – and its getting worse. The latest corporate ‘me too’ sheep to adopt this insulting little habit are the premium movie channels – you know, the ones we pay extra for? Even they have decided that our collective intelligence hasn’t been insulted enough, so now they are joining in the game.
The week before Easter this year Showtime was running an advertising campaign to announce that they were premiering Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ on Easter Sunday. For the whole preceding week, every time Showtime broadcast a movie in letterbox format they ran a banner along the bottom of the screen (inside the lower black letterbox border) that advertised the upcoming premier, and their website SHO.com. I recently caught Starz doing one better during their ‘Big 80’s Weekend' promo. Starz didn’t even have the courtesy of waiting for letterbox movies, and ran a similar banner across the bottom of the screen (over the visible picture) advertising ‘Big 80’s’ trivia happening between movies, as well as on-line 80’s trivia at Starz.com. I guess the Term ‘commercial-free’ seems to escape some people.
A few years ago I got into a rather heated session with a Discovery Channel “customer service” rep via email about their new-at-the-time habit of squishing up the screen in the middle of a show and running advertisements for upcoming programs, more info on the current show available at discovery.com, and in a few cases – even a ‘this program is brought to you by’ message on the lower 1/3rd of the screen. Anyway, I got fed-up with the tactic and emailed them to complain. What I got back was an email stating that my cable or satellite provider was responsible for the commercials – not Discovery. So I emailed them back stating that I wasn’t talking about the commercials, I was complaining about what the Discovery channel was doing during the actual broadcast content, but the response was the same. They either didn’t get it, or more likely, didn’t want to get it. This went on for several emails until I finally gave up. They simply refused to address their actions, and as a result I have pretty much stopped watching the original Discovery channel (although I have to admit that I’m a huge fan the Military channel – which is a member of the Discovery family).
In Europe (well, at least England anyway) they run these bugs and OSN’s on the top portion of the screen, which led to the broadcasters being inundated with complaints by angry viewers over the practice. Because the bugs and OSN’s were in the upper portion of the screen they were effectively blocking out people’s faces in some instances making any attempt at actually enjoying a television program a futile effort.
To me, this whole practice is a disgrace. What if other businesses followed the lead and started introducing invasive advertising techniques into their products as well? Let’s use the US Postal service as an example: what if your mother sits down and writes you a nice letter, puts a stamp on it, then mails it off. While in postal custody, they open the letter and insert a few pieces of junk mail, then re-seal the envelope and deliver it to your mailbox. Would you stand for that? I know I certainly wouldn’t! But ultimately, is it any different then hijacking paid television?
What puzzles me most about this is the fact that there is so little resistance or complaints made by the creative community that makes the very shows that the broadcasters are trampling all over. Could you imagine spending a grueling year or more in a place like the Amazon jungle, or the Gobi desert making a documentary about a particular passion (scientific, educational or artistic), only to have the Discovery channel completely ruin its premier by pulling this crap? I personally wouldn’t stand for it for a second!
Then there is the argument of paying for our television. 25 years ago people were watching television basically for free. You had to buy a set, then there’s the cost of electricity to run it, but the point I’m trying to make is that we didn’t pay for having the 6 or so channels that were available brought into our home. These days, most television viewers get their programming via a paid service like a cable or satellite provider. Because we are paying for the privilege of having these extra channels, where do the broadcasters get the right to interrupt said paid service by effectively advertising right over the top of an actual program? Isn’t that the whole purpose of having commercial breaks in the first place? You watched a show while it was on without interruption or distraction on the part of the broadcaster until it was time for a commercial break. As it stands today, one can’t even watch movies on premium movie channels like Showtime and Starz – who advertise and bill themselves as commercial free movie channels – without being interrupted and distracted by intrusive bugs and OSN’s? What’s next? Are we going to tune in to HBO to watch a classic movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark with a giant Pepsi watermark covering the screen?
Where will this end if we don’t stand up and fight back? Write your congressman, the broadcasters, the FCC – anybody who might take a step to quell this most recent invasion on our rights as paying viewers. There is only so much we can take, and if we don’t act fast, eventually we will be watching our favorite shows in the upper right corner of the screen in a two inch box, while the rest of the screen is filled with advertising. Mark my words – its coming, folks!