The Korea Broadcasting Commission recently gave permission to the regular TV broadcasters to run more commercials inside their programming, however more civic groups and commission employees are against such, citing that the resulting chaos in competition would degrade programming standards. The commission should also consider that most people hate the excessive advertising that is already seen on cable channels and this action will only hurt programming and active viewing, both of which are already suffering.
When one considers the aggressive price gouging done by Korean cable companies and the poor selection in programming, DVDs and youtube look better and better all the time.
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15 Comments
Actually, the ability to run commercials during the programming should be to the benefit of viewers. The programs remain approximately 42 minutes long for each “hour” of show. Moving the commercials to mid-program means (at least in theory) no more 20-minute waits for the next show.
Of course, they could jam those 20 minutes of commercials into the program, then hit us with 20 more after the show (hell, why not 30?), but then we really would face riots in the streets.
The excessive advertising on cable TV is horrendous. The programmes stop every 10 or 15 minutes to show yet again the same ads as 10 minutes before, and that doesn’t stop the broadcasters to dump 20 minutes of ads between shows. So the only loser here is the viewer without a Tivo, which should equate to, hmmm, 100% of the population…?
I like those 20 minute breaks between shows. It allows you to do something more useful, such as comment on Marmot.
Anyway, to me they should be allowed to do whatever they want. Why is the government dictating commercial policy? You don’t like it? Change the station.
When I first came to U.S., and I found out that my favorite show (I don’t know how I watched it in Korea), The Simpsons, was on every day at 6:30 PM, I was very excited. I immediately set my VCR to auto-record.
What I got was 1 minute of couch gag, 2 minutes of ad, 8 minutes of Simpsons, 2 minutes of ad, 8 minutes of Simpsons, 2 minutes of ad, and 7 Minutes of Simpsons. I was horrified.
And that’s just 6 minutes of ad for 30 minute show. (12 minutes of ad for an hour) 20+ minutes?!?!?! Well, I guess it would help people who wants to quit TV…
I would be interested to see how the “MCs” adapt to the new interruptive ad system.
US-style commercials on tv is evil.
Korean style is better, which I highly suspect to be Japanese style, based on watching Japanese evening news a couple of times on US networks.
It’s a combo of copying Japan and collecting mandatory taxes to run KBS.
Are there really that many commercials on Korean cable TV?
That many commercials, plus the only programs allowed to be aired are CSI spinoffs and re-runs of Spiderman 2.
That’s not true. They’ve been running “Constantine” a lot recently, too. And truthfully, I don’t think it’s that bad of a film.
On Korean cable, they keep putting these jumping or scrolling ads on top or on bottom of the screen, which is extremely annoying, not to mention periodically running ads, which may be short or long. I quit watching almost everything, partly because of this and also because the programming is poor. The food-advertising porn is so bad that it is funny. Watching some ajumma tear into a pepper-paste coated crab with this ecstatic look on her face is indescribable and sometimes pushes me to do spontaneous voice-overs of moaning and grunting.
Due to all of this, I am expanding my DVD collection to classic American TV like the Beverly Hillbillies, just to take up the slack as I patiently wait for the KBC to kill off their viewers.
P.S. contemporary American TV is a dead, walking zombie. R.I.P., with a stake through your cold, tasteless heart.
It’s a good thing I didn’t sign up for cable TV.
That’s it, Koehler. You’re off the cynics list. Poser.
Hehe… Constantine is one of the very few films where casting Keanu Reeves is a good thing. He plays that cold, distant, emotionless hero (or anti-hero) very well. I just find it hilarious when he tries to be in romantic movies.
I do like watching Scrubs, The Office, and Heroes, but it does seem that most of the air time has been occupied by mindless sitcoms, reality shows, and quiz shows with ‘creative’ ’spins’.
I mean, when you cancel shows like Arrested Development and Firefly (… yes, I still hope that some network will pick it up again)… Yep. Dead zombies.
I agree with wjk that the Korean style commercials are better, because it’s almost as if they don’t exist. If you go to the “shupeo” between shows, or do your washing then, or whatever, you’ll have a seamless television experience. Discovery Channel does not count.
HanaTV–not a great deal of selection, but they pretty much have what you’d get on cable, and the only ads run for about 90 seconds while the show is streaming.
The main downside is that all the menus are Korean, and anything “new” is pay-per-view (although not outrageously priced, IMO).
#4,
Try watching Korean cable TV in the evening. A TV show ends on the hour and is followed by 4 to 5 minutes of ads. Then, the logo at the opening credits of the following show pops up for, oh, 5 seconds only to be followed by the same ads once again, and then the opening credits are finally shown in their entirety. But, they don’t show the TV show, oh no. It’s the same ads again, then 5 minutes of ‘home shopping’, followed by the same ads before the TV show finally begins. You’ve basically wasted 30 minutes of you life waiting being bombarded with advertisement…and you sit through it every night because they keep you guessing all the time. Sometimes it’s only 15 minutes of commercials and ‘home shopping’ so you end up missing half of the show because you expected it to begin at half-past the hour.