Saturday, April 17, 2004
Sky One likes to advertise itself as the place to watch the latest US imports. If you want to watch the likes of "Angel", "Jake 2.0" or "24" first then you have little alternate but to subscribe to pay television, and the dominant platform is Sky's. Even if it isn't, there's no way that you can get away from subscribing to Sky One if you want pay television because you can't subscribe to channels on an a la carte basis.
To be fair to them, Sky One's presentation isn't the worst out there. Admittedly it's idents are crap, but there are worse channel DOGs, and it's red dot "interactive" services are only promoted when relevant, e.g. over the end credits when you can watch a trailer for next week's episodes. And unlike, say, Living TV or Sci-Fi, they seemed to have dropped all this "7 days to XXXX" graphic nonsense that reached its (Sky One) nadir with "The Simpsons" 300th episode doughnut which saw 3 out of the 4 corners of the screen plastered with unnecessary graphics.
Well, until this week, that is.
For at least 3 days this week, Sky One saw fit to tells us "Rebecca Loos / Thursday 10pm" to promote its "exclusive" with somebody who claims to have shagged David Beckham. Now, I'm not going to deny that some viewers will be interested in this sort of rubbish (and given self-styled "Posh"'s constant cravings for publicity it wouldn't surprise me if she was behind the whole thing anyway), but I couldn't give a toss about it. Even if I could, there's no way I'd watch something publicised in this way (which is why I never watch Living TV or Sci-Fi at all these days).
Sky One claim that they had no alternative put to splash this information on screen 24/7 because of the short time between securing the interview and its transmission. Cobblers. It was splashed all over the tabloids, especially 'The Sun', and in any case, they had time to knock up at least one trailer for the programme. The fact that they tried to tap into the allegedly texting aspect of the "affair" and produced a stupid trailer about "golden ****s", "v.b." and "r.l." that tells the average viewer bugger all about the programme should have been their fault.
Instead it was the viewers', with even more of the action obscured by an even more obtrusive logo than the usual "ALL NEW" one, and equally unnecessary. Sky One seemed to realise this part way through "24" as after the first ad break the promo DOG was replaced by the "ALL NEW" one.
Apart from getting in the way of the action, and being a lazy way of promoting programmes, it even more pointless for the growing band of viewers who watch their TV via a PVR such as Sky+ or (the far superior) TiVo. If you can choose when you watch what you want to watch, who's to say that the programme being promoted onscreen won't have been shown by the time you get to watch the programme you've recorded?
What can viewers do about it? Well unsubscribing is the ultimate option, but channels know that this is a step almost no one will take. At the very least, complain to them - tell them that these logos are detracting from the enjoyment of the programmes that you're PAYING to watch. Tell them that promo dogs DON'T encourage you to watch the programmes being promoted, and that they actually make you less likely to watch their channel.
Many viewers seem resigned to these DOGs, arguing that the broadcasters won't listen to viewers' complaints. Well, if viewers aren't even complaining then these things will only become even more and more prolific and prominent as broadcasters seek to push the limits of our patience. Complaining may or may not encourage them to do anything about this graffiti, but at least it has more chance of achieving something than doing nothing at all.
Link: the Campaign for Logo Free TV
To be fair to them, Sky One's presentation isn't the worst out there. Admittedly it's idents are crap, but there are worse channel DOGs, and it's red dot "interactive" services are only promoted when relevant, e.g. over the end credits when you can watch a trailer for next week's episodes. And unlike, say, Living TV or Sci-Fi, they seemed to have dropped all this "7 days to XXXX" graphic nonsense that reached its (Sky One) nadir with "The Simpsons" 300th episode doughnut which saw 3 out of the 4 corners of the screen plastered with unnecessary graphics.
Well, until this week, that is.
For at least 3 days this week, Sky One saw fit to tells us "Rebecca Loos / Thursday 10pm" to promote its "exclusive" with somebody who claims to have shagged David Beckham. Now, I'm not going to deny that some viewers will be interested in this sort of rubbish (and given self-styled "Posh"'s constant cravings for publicity it wouldn't surprise me if she was behind the whole thing anyway), but I couldn't give a toss about it. Even if I could, there's no way I'd watch something publicised in this way (which is why I never watch Living TV or Sci-Fi at all these days).
Sky One claim that they had no alternative put to splash this information on screen 24/7 because of the short time between securing the interview and its transmission. Cobblers. It was splashed all over the tabloids, especially 'The Sun', and in any case, they had time to knock up at least one trailer for the programme. The fact that they tried to tap into the allegedly texting aspect of the "affair" and produced a stupid trailer about "golden ****s", "v.b." and "r.l." that tells the average viewer bugger all about the programme should have been their fault.
Instead it was the viewers', with even more of the action obscured by an even more obtrusive logo than the usual "ALL NEW" one, and equally unnecessary. Sky One seemed to realise this part way through "24" as after the first ad break the promo DOG was replaced by the "ALL NEW" one.
Apart from getting in the way of the action, and being a lazy way of promoting programmes, it even more pointless for the growing band of viewers who watch their TV via a PVR such as Sky+ or (the far superior) TiVo. If you can choose when you watch what you want to watch, who's to say that the programme being promoted onscreen won't have been shown by the time you get to watch the programme you've recorded?
What can viewers do about it? Well unsubscribing is the ultimate option, but channels know that this is a step almost no one will take. At the very least, complain to them - tell them that these logos are detracting from the enjoyment of the programmes that you're PAYING to watch. Tell them that promo dogs DON'T encourage you to watch the programmes being promoted, and that they actually make you less likely to watch their channel.
Many viewers seem resigned to these DOGs, arguing that the broadcasters won't listen to viewers' complaints. Well, if viewers aren't even complaining then these things will only become even more and more prolific and prominent as broadcasters seek to push the limits of our patience. Complaining may or may not encourage them to do anything about this graffiti, but at least it has more chance of achieving something than doing nothing at all.
Link: the Campaign for Logo Free TV
