iDemand
February 27, 2007 by Dave Earley
Filed under Broadcast, Media, Online, Videos
If television executives wonder why the online generation wants on-demand video, I’ll tell them.
It is because they regularly run useless game shows up to 15 minutes past their scheduled time, simply to get the viewers who tuned in expecting some other very popular show.
Trying to boost ratings for a terrible show using tactics like these only serve to anger and alienate otherwise satisfied consumers.
If the programs I wanted to watch were available in Australia via a legal, on-demand, online provider I would take that option because it’s one that isn’t forced upon me. Nor would it completely waste 15 minutes of my life.
I’m talking about Australia’s Channel Seven in particular. Desperate Housewives isn’t even a show I’m committed to watching religiously each week, but I certainly can’t stand their mind-numbingly boring game show, The Rich List. It was for good reason the US version was canceled after only one show.
That was really what I was driving at Suzanne. I tape that station for Kate… So when you never know when the scheduled show might ACTUALLY start, you miss the last 15 minutes of the last show if you’re not there to change the tape based on the start time, which defeats the whole purpose…
And yes, it’s purely a tactic! They know EXACTLY when they should finish, and they know they could, but choose not to. It’s infuriatingly arrogant.
it’s not the 15 minutes of my life I lose, so much as the 15 minutes of my show I don’t get to see because I taped it at the scheduled time without indepth cross-checking of TV scheduling, and the tape ended just as House figured out what was wrong. It’s bad enough that I have to ring my GP the same day to see how late he’s running before I come for an appointment… how can a show take 10-15 minutes longer than scheduled? It’s a show. It’s scheduled. Aargh.
Damn straight, Dave! You tell ‘em.