Stuart Elliott: "Pod" People Finally Come to Their Senses

quotWe have overstuffed the birdquot Kevin Reilly president of the TBS and TNT cable networks declared last week at a session of the Television Critics Association winter press tour quotWe need to create a better viewing experiencequotReilly pictured above who is also Chief Creative Officer of Turner Entertainment was referring to heavy commercial loads which he said not only make it less enjoyable for viewers to watch TV but also diminish the value of the spots that advertisers are buying Talks are underway Reilly told journalists to reduce commercial loads by more than half in three new drama series for TNT which will give audience members more of what they actually tune in for program contentOnly three new shows Well to repeat the punchline of an old joke about lawyers it39s a good startIn another sign that TV honchos are having second thoughts about the debasement of their medium Turner executives discussed at CES last week another form of decluttering The idea is to reconfigure commercial pods with fewer longer spots to be produced in the vein of branded entertainment or native advertising amp160The focus would be on spots that last two or three minutes each for instance a trailerstyle commercial for an upcoming movie rather than traditional commercials that run 15 or 30 seconds apiece So a pod could be composed of one threeminute spot instead of crammed with six 30s or a dozen 15sTo promote a new sitcom quotAngie Tribecaquot TBS plans a 25hour commercialfree debut on Sunday of all 10 episodes of the first season on cable and online The commercialfree aspect of the premiere is being touted almost as much as the series itself And truTV a sibling of TBS and TNT under the Turner umbrella has announced that effective in fall 2016 it will significantly reduce ad loads Instead of 18 to 19 minutes per hour devoted to commercials promotions and other nonprogram content the amount will be slashed to 10 to 11 minutes per hour The additional time is to be turned over to the programming department so that shows will run longer again giving viewers more of what they came to see in the first placeTurner is climbing aboard a band wagon with passengers that include Fox Broadcasting which has been scheduling fewer commercials during episodes of series such as its hit drama quotEmpirequot To make that possible Fox has signed brands like Lincoln and Pepsi to sponsorship deals that involve product integration events and other types of pitches that are less interruptive or invasive TBS enlisted sponsors for the adfree introduction of quotAngie Tribecaquot A plotline of several quotEmpirequot episodes this season was devoted to a leading character Jamal Lyon being chosen to make a Pepsi spot in a nifty moment of life imitating art imitating life viewers eventually got to see a real Pepsi spot called quotJamal Lyon39s Train Ridequot during a commercial breakSteven Burke the chief executive officer of NBCUniversal said last week at CES that he was surprised by the considerable declines in cable viewership over the last couple of years He blamed the falloffs on schedules filled with too many reruns and the propensity of viewers to use DVRs to timeshift what they watchOf course viewers use DVRs not only to watch shows when they want regardless of when networks schedule them but also to avoid commercials I39d suggest to Burke that if he hasn39t done so already he ought to sit and watch in real time some of his own networks39 programs and see for himself just how annoying heavy commercial loads can be TiVo even has a new offering TiVo Bolt that enables users to skip entire commercial pods at the press of a buttonThere39s another way to skip commercials either individually or in pods that is fast catching on with audiences streaming video services When people are asked why they sign up for Netflix they often cite the absence of ads It39s no coincidence that networks are thinking twice about commercial loads just when a competitor without commercials is growing so rapidly Hey that39s how capitalism is supposed to work rightIt39s a good moment for TV moguls to do something about pods crammed with commercials given that demand for commercial time is stronger than had been expected If advertisers are willing to spend more on spots perhaps they39ll also be willing to spend more per spot in that when commercial loads are cut back the remaining spots usually cost moreamp160Another timing issue With 2016 a presidential election year political ads are going to flood the airwaves Wouldn39t it be nice of brand advertisers to give viewers a break by stepping back a bit from peddling their waresI believe that one of the biggest issues this year for Madison Avenue will be figuring out how to counter consumers39 increasing frustration with and disdain for marketing as evidenced by the brouhaha over ad blocking and by a magazine subscription offer I received the other day which proclaimed quotWhy you39ll never see advertising in our magazine We publish Cook39s Illustrated to help you succeed in the kitchen Not to sell you productsquotDoing something substantive about cluttered commercial pods will be a big step in the right directionThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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Stuart Elliott: "Pod" People Finally Come to Their Senses

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