The Ad's The Thing

Tyler Cowen with a disturbing projection: "By the way, the net effect of TiVo will be more shows with ads; if they add commercials to The Sopranos, the people who hate ads can take them out themselves." I think I'm not really an ad hater as one can tell from oft-inefficient ad-skipping when I use the DVR. This, however, largely misses the virtue of advertising-free television, which is less that the ads are so bad than that the need to fit the ads changes the narrative flow.

On non-commercial television, the scenes just unfold the way the writers want them to unfold. On advertiser-supported television, by contrast, you need to have certain predetermined breaks in the show which constrains how you can pace your episode. That's the problem. Sports broadcasts, which are mostly able to fit the ads into fairly natural stoppages in play, are in some ways enhanced by the advertising breaks which give you a chance to chat with your friends, urinate, grab another beer, etc.

Comments

Sports broadcasts, which are mostly able to fit the ads into fairly natural stoppages in play, are in some ways enhanced by the advertising breaks which give you a chance to chat with your friends, urinate, grab another beer, etc.

You must have been watching a different NFL playoffs than myself. I had time to chat, urinate, and ferment my own beer during some of these "tv timeouts." I know everyone needs to get paid, but the playoffs this year were well nigh unwatchable. This is infecting the big three American Sports, and filtering down to college hoops; ad breaks are changing the game.

Posted by Gregorio | March 1, 2007 2:11 PM

I too have found sports to be much more boring when constructed around ads. Payperview sports games are much more entrancing.

Also, I think the primary upside to non-ad supported content is that the economic model really changes the target audience. Premium channel shows (and DVD ones) are just so much better because they value high-loyalty over mass-appeal.

Posted by Tony V | March 1, 2007 2:15 PM

I think it's much more likely that the primary impact of TiVo will be more ads *in* shows -- particularly product placement, bugs and crawls. How long until the corner of your screen goes from the NBC logo to the NBC logo next to the Snickers logo?

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | March 1, 2007 2:18 PM

I agree that commercial breaks during games give you a chance to get thing done around the house if you're watching the game on TV, but they make the timeouts seem interminable if you're actually at the game. Especially if they try to fill the dead time with noisy "entertainment."

Posted by mrgumby2u | March 1, 2007 2:22 PM

I find the notion that HBO will add advertising implausible. The decision isn't driven merely by the aversion of some viewers to advertisements. Anyway, DVRs don't seem to be having the full effect some had feared:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F2061EFF3F5A0C758DDDAB0894DF404482

Posted by minderbender | March 1, 2007 2:40 PM

Eh, act breaks, and thus the need for strong act outs, make sure you actually have something interesting happen in any given episode. Without them, shows like Carnivale or the early episodes of Big Love can invest so much attention into setting up the seasonal arcs that they pretty much forget to have a payoff in any given episode. So I wouldn't call them an unmitigated evil, writing-wise.

Posted by Senescent | March 1, 2007 2:48 PM

He doesn't make any attempt to explain why he thinks there will be more shows with ads. Sounds implausible to me (at least as far as more commercial break ads).

Posted by Mike | March 1, 2007 2:57 PM

I hope Aaron is right. Who cares if there are product placements strewn all over a show? It doesn't affect the quality of the story. I guess I'm the eternal optimist, but it would be great if they can get rid of ads.

Posted by Jim W | March 1, 2007 2:59 PM

Not long ago I was watching some taped UFC fights on Spike TV and the commercial breaks between rounds were three minutes long. Quite a stretch, as the UFC uses one-minute breaks between rounds!
If I'm not mistaken, NFL games have 15 minutes of commercials per quarter. That's far more than the natural breaks in the action.

Posted by Peter | March 1, 2007 3:01 PM

Another reason soccer is superior to American sports: no advertising breaks during the game, other than halftime.

Posted by Al | March 1, 2007 3:12 PM

I don't think there's any good way to measure how many viewers you lose due to the commerical breaks in sports. But surely you lose some.

The problem is incrementalism. The league always thinks 30 more seconds isn't going to break the camel's back, and then next thing you know, it's 30 more minutes.

Posted by moriarty | March 1, 2007 3:18 PM

Another reason soccer is superior to American sports: no advertising breaks during the game, other than halftime.

I usually subscribe to the watch-until-the-next-commercial-break rule of sports. On plenty of Monday nights, I've found myself watching the EPL instead of the NFL just becuase there's no good time to switch away from the soccer match.

Posted by moriarty | March 1, 2007 3:22 PM

The MLB postseason games are interminable, and the commercials are at least a big part of the reason. They're able to get several commercials in those breaks between the half-innings, so I'm guessing the 17 half-inning breaks are at least 2 minutes long apiece.

Plus they do the same thing for pitching changes, and with complete games having yielded to a sequence of starter, spot reliever, first short man, perhaps another spot guy, setup man, and closer, that gives them another 6-10 commercial breaks.

Memo to MLB owners: Four hours is too long for a postseason game that doesn't even start until 8pm anyway. I don't think I've seen the late innings of a postseason game since 2004.

Posted by RT | March 1, 2007 3:34 PM

There are many aspects of European Football I prefer; in addition to the disturbing but efficient integration of ads into the field of play (mention not NASCAR— it is anathema), the points-based playoff system is much fairer as well, as Bill Simmons has been harping recently regarding NBA playoffs. Ads go on simply too long for Basketball and Football to sustain tension. Maybe onscreen ads during huddles and measurements for NFL, but a full cut away for such paltry points of order is disruptive. The NBA needs to sustain the momentum of its games; further dilution of the action will only lead to more yawns, especially considering the abysmal pacing of the Leasterns. And baseball is too long. Superimpose ads, whore out announcers, but save us the minutes of Meineke ads por favor. No 9 inning baseball game should be over 3 hours. Period. Exclamation Point! Tilda~

Posted by Gregorio | March 1, 2007 3:35 PM

If a network like HBO started to depend on advertisers for additional revenue, then they would also start worrying about scaring those advertisers away with controversial content. After all, even though the FCC has no regulatory power over cable TV, none of the ad-supported cable networks have HBO-like adult content. I assume that's in order to meet their customers' (that is, the advertisers) demands.

Posted by michael | March 1, 2007 3:37 PM

I'm with Senescent, I think. Your argument can be construed as, "The problem with sonnets is that the writers have to use fourteen lines." Constraint's not always a bad thing.

OTOH network sitcoms are about two minutes shorter than they were when I started, and that is a bad thing; and, in comedy, now some networks wants three or four acts (shorter but more frequent commercial breaks), and finding that many act breaks isn't a good thing either.

Posted by delicious pundit | March 1, 2007 3:39 PM

You really notice this when you watch a show like BSG or The Shield on DVD, the obvious breaks in scenes where the commercials go. The writers must go nuts having to force all scenes into 14 minute chunks or whatever it is.

Posted by Eric | March 1, 2007 3:42 PM

On advertiser-supported television, by contrast, you need to have certain predetermined breaks in the show which constrains how you can pace your episode. That's the problem.

This is just crazy talk. The imposition of structure isn't a bad thing, and doesn't prevent skilled writers from producing good drama. See, for example, Shakespeare who's plays run like clockwork and don't seem to suffer from it.

Posted by dr | March 1, 2007 3:50 PM

I actually used to go to college basketball games and the number of ads, the incessant stoppage of play, has just about ruined it. Even watching at home, the number of times the game comes to a halt is just ridiculous. It's ruining the game.

Posted by SteveH | March 1, 2007 3:59 PM

The imposition of structure isn't a bad thing...

True. Most things out of Hollywood are in fact highly structured, and it's not just because of commercial breaks. Movie scripts typically follow a three-act structure, with act one ending about page 25, a reversal around page 60, and a final act beginning around page 90. Most comedies run a little more than 90 minutes, dramas a little under two hours. There are exceptions, of course, but most films follow those general guidelines pretty tightly. The three-act/beginning-middle-end structure isn't new though. Aristotle wrote plenty about it.

More likely the placement of commercial breaks is dictated the needs of the story. If it's a good story, no one notices. If not, it'll seem formulaic.

Posted by JJF | March 1, 2007 4:37 PM

Structure is OK if the creator is permitted to choose whether to use the structure. Shakespeare sometimes wrote poems in sonnet form. Sometimes he didn't. Netowrk TV writers don't have a choice about structure.

Posted by Al | March 1, 2007 4:48 PM

Structure is OK if the creator is permitted to choose whether to use the structure. Shakespeare sometimes wrote poems in sonnet form. Sometimes he didn't. Netowrk TV writers don't have a choice about structure.

Absolutely. Limitations aren't intrinsically bad, nor are they intrinsically good. They can be a help or a hindrance. Imagine Seinfeld on HBO: the episode about the "Master of Your Domain" competition would never have been written because why be coy about it when you can already be vulgar? Imagine Curb Your Enthusiasm on NBC: how many episodes - I have in mind, in particular, the Tourettic chef episode - would have to be scrapped entirely because the concept depended on the freedom to be vulgar? An artist makes the most of the context she's given. For my $, the ideal situation is where an artist's limits are primarily self-imposed, and they have the willpower to mostly stick to them, because it gives deviations that extra oomph. There's nothing preventing the writer of an HBO show working with a three or four act structure, they just have the option not to, and certain sorts of stories are going to work better without that constraint, especially as a contrast to the norm. And you just can't do that on network TV.

Posted by Quarterican | March 1, 2007 4:54 PM

I dunno; dramas and comedies are still largely written by act and scene, leaving room enough for natural breaks.

Posted by Kriston | March 1, 2007 6:05 PM

Also, I think the primary upside to non-ad supported content is that the economic model really changes the target audience. Premium channel shows (and DVD ones) are just so much better because they value high-loyalty over mass-appeal.

True. It's pretty likely that if HBO had commissioned Firefly instead of Fox it would still be on the air.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | March 1, 2007 6:13 PM

"This is just crazy talk. The imposition of structure isn't a bad thing, and doesn't prevent skilled writers from producing good drama. See, for example, Shakespeare who's plays run like clockwork and don't seem to suffer from it."

However if shakespeare had had to write a play where there had to be a totally contrived peak every 13 minutes on the offchance the groundlings wouldn't comeback without it then none of his plays would have survived

Anytime i go to the states i come back more glad than ever for the BBC. No ads and a program lasts for 58 minutes not 42 minutes.

Posted by kb | March 1, 2007 7:44 PM

I... agree with Al?

Posted by Ghlade | March 1, 2007 7:50 PM

I... agree with kb. America, Fuck NO!

Many Americans see 24 as high drama. I see it as an ADHD raddled neocons wet dream/ music video. The only good thing to come out of it is Dennis Haysbert's eerie prefiguration of Obama.

Posted by Gregorio | March 1, 2007 8:10 PM

I'm out in LA writing specs and trying to get into TV writing, and I've read and heard and talked to a lot of drama writers. I've heard none of them* complain about the four-act structure, with commercial breaks. I've heard complaints about premium channel shows, or the new five- and six-act network structures, but that's because no one knows how to plot them out, while all the working writers have already internalized the four-act structure.

Four acts, at least six scenes an act - three A story, two B story, one C story, with the last scene setting up an intriguing/surprising/shocking reveal, usually furthering the A story, though sometimes you can get away with the second act out on B, especially if they intersect a lot.

And one thing that's overlooked here is the pragmatic importance of structure to the production environment. Every week, an hourlong drama has to provide one new script, about fifty pages, between two and four new, intertwined stories. The stories are collectively plotted by the whole writing staff or 8 or 10, and between writing and rewriting, each script will pass directly through around three different people's hands. Having some modicum of regular structure helps keep everyone on the same page, and helps the writing staff to keep the series consistent enough that it feels like a single property, rather than a collection of stories that just happen to use the same characters.

(* with the exception of David Mamet, who had come up as a writer internalizing the theatrical and then feature film structures, so fair enough)

Posted by Senescent | March 1, 2007 8:16 PM

I... agree with Al?

I'm pretty sure it's permitted to agree with Al on the non-politics threads.

Posted by Al | March 1, 2007 8:28 PM

1. Record the game on TiVo.
2. Start watching the recorded game about 30-45 minutes after it starts.
3. Skip commercials, stay with the flow of the game. If you time it right, it'll take about the same time as watching the game live.

Posted by croatoan | March 1, 2007 10:20 PM

I don't understand why they'd begin to include ads on shows that never had ads to begin with, because people can't stop avoiding something they never avoided in the first place. My guess is, they'd do what NBC does when you want to watch a show the network displays online for free: divide it up into acts and show a commercial before each act begins.

"On advertiser-supported television, by contrast, you need to have certain predetermined breaks in the show which constrains how you can pace your episode."

That's true, but I don't think it's that big of an issue. There are many examples of great television shows that used ad-supported formats. And if writers can't work around a minor obstacle like that, then they probably aren't particularly outstanding to begin with, anyway.

Posted by Brian | March 1, 2007 10:25 PM

Of course, the limitation to a half hour or hour in length, which even HBO shows follow, is itself artificial.

Posted by James Kabala | March 2, 2007 9:15 AM

"Imagine Curb Your Enthusiasm on NBC: how many episodes - I have in mind, in particular, the Tourettic chef episode - would have to be scrapped entirely because the concept depended on the freedom to be vulgar?"

That's the content of the show, not the format.

Posted by Brian | March 2, 2007 10:04 AM

Gregorio is right, I wouldn't mind say, superimposed or half screen commercials between plays in football. Not between every play, because sometimes there's a replay worth seeing. No more TV timeouts would be a fair trade. Commercials would come at timeouts, after a score (but not between a kickoff and play), during a challenge, at quarter breaks and halftime.

Posted by witless chum | March 2, 2007 10:51 AM

Semi-off topic, but I think the most interesting development Tivo could have is to allow networks to offer shows that are only of interest to a small number of people (in the same way cable channels do today). With enough DVRs out there, 2 am on a Monday becomes a viable programming slot for a high brow series on a network.

Posted by Doh | March 2, 2007 2:05 PM

Sports? I watch bicycle racing, and the ads aren't too disruptive since the race goes on forever and mostly nothing is going on, and they don't run ads at the very end when all the action is taking place. Formula 1 racing, not so good. Pretty much feels like a commercial break causes something exciting to happen when we can't see it. Occasionally you get a natural break, circling around behind the safety car while debris gets cleaned up, but mostly the ads have to come during the action.

Posted by Michael Pereckas | March 2, 2007 5:40 PM

There's not necessarily a need to fit an hour-long show like the Sopranos into a fixed schedule of commercials. CTV (a Canadian broadcast network) has been showing it basically uncut, but with commercials put in wherever a break seems least inappropriate (i.e. at the end of second or third scene, whenever, they may be). The episodes ended up being about an hour and a half, but it worked pretty well.

No editing the potty words or titties, either. They may have actually enhanced the violence...

Posted by rws | March 3, 2007 2:13 AM