Downloading your favorite TV shows

as mentioned before, I'm a slashdot reader. I came across this article yesterday and thought I would offer it up for discussion:
Battlestar galactica
I love the series, but I seldom get the time to watch it. I also have not invested in a tivo, nor the time to make my own pvr. The alternative to keeping up with my show is downloading it.
So the article claims an increase in viewership, but as anyone can figure out, statistics can always be bent in the direction the story teller wants. What are your views on the situation. Do you think downloading his helping or hindering the profit margin of TV media?
I personally feel that if I can't follow a show with a heavy storyline (as they have) then I don't watch at all.

With the advent of On Demand and DVR stuff, the way in which we consume TV is starting to change dramatically. I look at tv show d/ling as a natural extension of this phenomena. If anything, the networks shoudl offer tv show downloading with imbeded commercials free of charge - that way they can keep their margins while catering to public demand for on-call media.

Granted i hate commercials, but they're somewhat necessary in this age of advertising.

If the world is changing then so must advertising IMHO. You see commercials as the only way for consumers to see product, but in truth I think the avenues for advertising are growing every day. What about product placement? We see pepsi and coke in everything, shoes and stores on billboards in the movies, the cars their driving. Advertisers are getting more creative and too a certain extent I think we’re getting what they want to sell us whether we like it or not.

True - product placement is surging - however, what we've seen in advertising thus far is the media planner's inability to completely abandon outdated methods. Believe it or not, at the ad agency where I work, Newspaper Ads / classifieds still outsell (gross $$$) the more effective and less costly alternatives like Internet advertisements and targeted direct mail.

It's astounding how much is budgeting for outdated / archaic promotion. It's mostly due to the media buyers taht are still around from like 10-15 years ago (and before). Does that make sense?

Absolutly, yes, of course, your from Chicago. You can't hop on an L, turn a corner without another advertisement in your face, lol.
I'm reminded of a scene from Minority Report (again product placement) but I'm talking specifiacally about the scene where he is making his way through a station and advertisements are actually calling out to him. Lord help us if that's what we come to.
I think one of things that really burns my oil is seeing this trucks (more often in the suburbs) which drive around and serve only as a billboard. the back is too thin to actually be transporting anything. So what it means is that they are paying this guy to drive around wasting fuel to put another ad in your face. I refuse to even look at them, and when I do I make a concious decision never to purchase the product. It makes me that angry.

Those things are absolute ridiculous. I think - even more ridiculous tho is this:

Liek I said, I'm in advertising. We sell alot of bus stop ads. In chicago there are alot of bus stops still standing that no longer being used. Either their bus route has changed or there is no need for the stop anymore - point is, no one is waiting for the bus there. We have alot of clients ask to book these abandoned bus stops b/c the price is 1/3 that of an active bus stop. They are still selling advertising on these things. ridiculous.

Anyone else think that advertising space is grossly overabused? Give some examples you have come across! It'd be fun.

advertising on the back of paper plates given out at a beach festival recently..i ask.. why ? the only way to see that would be to turn the paper plate upside down and let your food fall out ... *sigh* the only way i noticed it was at the garbage dump, one of the other plates had flipped over in the breeze.

Actually that was probably the point. But it does make you think about what product placement says about the product itself, ie trash.

How about the Vodafone ads that ran on streakers at major sporting events in the UK and AUS Selling skin for advertising certainly scrapes the barrel.

People are selling their skin as advertising space here in the states. Temporary tattoos on foreheads, upper arms, women's chests - - it's bedlam.

just look at how popular this has become: linky linky

Boy you two are turning this into your own personal lounge... it's a good thing I came to set you straight.

As for downloading TV I see no problem with it if it's just recently been shown on TV, but if it's older episodes that are out on DVD I don't touch them. As for advertising I don't see the argument that we get rid of them so we should feel bad, how many people flip the channels on comercial anyway.

Rather there will probablly be a move toward in show advertising. It's happened in movies, why not TV.

-MBirchmeier

Oh, so your the one sent to set us straight huh? Well good luck with that. Welcome aboard Birchmeier, good too see some new blood coursing through the viens here. Not sure, but I think DavidBeckam is MSBi (am I right?)
I agree on the side of advertising, simply has to get clever if their going to sell to a synical audience like us. Sort of slip it under the radar.
A lot of stations I watching now seem to do something far more annoying these days with what I equivicate to a giant popup on the screen. An add which pops up on the bottom of the screen, sound and everything and plays while your watching the program. Just seems like a new low to me.

oh those bottom of the screen thingies are the worst! Interestingly enough - they are very expensive, I think sometimes more than a 15 second commercial. WHy? Because there are more eyeballs to be reached during a program. The commercial click out rate averages between 40 and 60 percent - depending on the network.

Here's one little tidbit of information that will get you fuming. VH1 and MTV are owned by Viacom. They've been testing something on saturday afternoons for the past month in which they will jog commercials on the two networks. They
've found that people who watch MTV watch VH1so much so that if they jog the commercials, they will get the viewer in an infinite loop or just watching the two channels.

This coming from the company that builds all of its programs around commercial breaks, so that when a show ends there is no commercial separation between the ending show and a new show. These people have studies on everything! EVIL!

I bet broadcast companies can pay their bills for years by switching to all digital and selling their piece of the broadcast spectrum.

The tech sector (primairly gadgets) has been eyeing that spectrum for years... as of right now the companies are being forced to give them up Jan 1 2006, (I'll find a source later) but if they gave them up and sold them in certain areas I bet they'd find buyers now for top dollar.

The spectrum was picked in a day where very few signals were used, and they were used because they were the best, now they're still used for TV even though there's much better and more profitable uses for them. (WiMAX cell phones, etc)

-MBirchmeier