Wednesday, February 04, 2004
I know it's not a sci-fi series, but I thought I'd say a few words about the season 3 premiere of "24" next Thursday (12 Feb) on Sky One.
The real-time aspect of the show always jarred slightly on BBC Two/Three, since the episodes ran for around 42 minutes instead of an hour due to the lack of adverts. The fact that Sky One does have ads is therefore arguably an advantage since if it sticks to the original break pattern and length, it will remain in sync with the clock on the show.
The season 3 premiere was shown commercial free in the States, with the episode lasting around 51 minutes. Since the *average* amount of ads Sky can show in an hour is 9 minutes, they could have shown it with ad breaks (assuming that the episode actually covers 1pm-2pm rather than 1pm-1.51pm) and still stuck with the clock on the show.
This would have meant dropping the Sky trailers at the start and end of each ad break (which don't count towards the ad minutage), but would this really have been that much of a hardship? Okay, so a larger than usual Sky One audience would have missed the same trailers that are shown during the rest of the primetime schedule, but unless "24" is the only Sky One programme they watch, they will see them at other times anyway.
Of course, this was too much effort for Sky. No doubt in an attempt to cram in a few more ads (upto the *maximum* 12 minutes per hour) and trailers, we're getting this episode in a 75 minute slot, which completely blows the real-time aspect of the show out of the window - for this episode at least (and probably future ones as well since I sincerely doubt that Sky will bother keeping the show's clock in line with the real one.
And Sky wonder why people think they're just a bunch of money grabbing bastards?
The real-time aspect of the show always jarred slightly on BBC Two/Three, since the episodes ran for around 42 minutes instead of an hour due to the lack of adverts. The fact that Sky One does have ads is therefore arguably an advantage since if it sticks to the original break pattern and length, it will remain in sync with the clock on the show.
The season 3 premiere was shown commercial free in the States, with the episode lasting around 51 minutes. Since the *average* amount of ads Sky can show in an hour is 9 minutes, they could have shown it with ad breaks (assuming that the episode actually covers 1pm-2pm rather than 1pm-1.51pm) and still stuck with the clock on the show.
This would have meant dropping the Sky trailers at the start and end of each ad break (which don't count towards the ad minutage), but would this really have been that much of a hardship? Okay, so a larger than usual Sky One audience would have missed the same trailers that are shown during the rest of the primetime schedule, but unless "24" is the only Sky One programme they watch, they will see them at other times anyway.
Of course, this was too much effort for Sky. No doubt in an attempt to cram in a few more ads (upto the *maximum* 12 minutes per hour) and trailers, we're getting this episode in a 75 minute slot, which completely blows the real-time aspect of the show out of the window - for this episode at least (and probably future ones as well since I sincerely doubt that Sky will bother keeping the show's clock in line with the real one.
And Sky wonder why people think they're just a bunch of money grabbing bastards?
