I was watching TV recently and noticed on a variety of channels, most notably local stations, that their local promos were butted up against the return to the programming. A lot of times this position coming back into the show is a newsbreak that is 10 or 15 seconds long.Even though I work at a TV Station, I'm all news, no traffic, no sales, no beans. But I am always wondering about things related to my job so I pondered this; Why is this important position ajoining the programming littered with a local promo that is not a revenue maker? And your question back to me may be; Why do you say this is an important position?
The answer is because this is the age of the DVR. That position just before coming back into whatever show someone is watching is the place where the viewer is most likely to see at least the last bit of whatever commercial is playing. It's inevitable when FFing past the commercials that the viewer will miss the intro into the show and have to Rewind back into the last bit of the last commercial. Since it's tough to cue to the exact moment of the re-entry so the viewer is almost always stuck watching a bit of the re-entry commercial making it valuable ad real esatate that is being given away for free.
The first few seconds of the entry into a commercial break could be argued to be the second most valuable real estate based on the time it takes to initiate the FF.
1 comment:
At least in Sydney and regional NSW (Australia) the position butted against the return to program has ALWAYS been a station promo.
It is rare to see an actual advertisment before the return to show, and its usually a 10 - 15 second spot.
How else would we know when to drop back to play, or unpause the recording ;-)
If they do show an ad then its usually the second half of a 'top and tail' where you see a 60 second at the start of the break and 10 seconds at the end to mentally reinforce the spiel... and you still know when the break is going to end!
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