The following is something that happens several times with US shows, and this example is from ER on E4 each Thursday.
I know they have three ad breaks, but there's at least 3 places where those could go - where the screen fades to black which is where the US place their ad break, but most of the time they ignore these.
As such, they end up cutting straight from a show into the intrusive '118118' promos, which is a far-from-natural break, and gives the impression that such decisions are taken in an arbitrary manner and looks like sloppy workmanship and they cut from one scene straight into those 118 morons shouting loudly right at me.
I've tried voicing my opinion to Viewer Enquiries and they come back with the usual flannel that the point has been passed on to the people in charge but never an actual answer - and still the problem occurs.
It troubles me more that we often get the first break less than 3 minutes in. At least it means that we can get long sections of uninterrupted ER, I guess. I also hate it when they cut across songs, as music often holds different scenes together and is there for a reason.
I did the same, but never got a reply from Viewer Enquires...!!!
I remember reading somewhere, that years ago, there were only two ad breaks in ER...
Plus, in a half hour show, there is one ad break, so you would expect two in an hour long show.. one for each half hour..
The ads on c4 are 5mins, 5mins and then 4 mins long, making a total of 14mins in an hour.. the max allowed in a hour is 15 mins.. so they are really taking it to the max.
Ethan.
------------------------------ Kittridge: I understand you're very upset. Hunt: Kittridge, you've never seen me very upset.
Originally posted by Ethan: I did the same, but never got a reply from Viewer Enquires...!!!
I remember reading somewhere, that years ago, there were only two ad breaks in ER...
Plus, in a half hour show, there is one ad break, so you would expect two in an hour long show.. one for each half hour..
The ads on c4 are 5mins, 5mins and then 4 mins long, making a total of 14mins in an hour.. the max allowed in a hour is 15 mins.. so they are really taking it to the max.
Ethan.
Yes, there used to be just 2 ad breaks in a 60-min show, then when ITV wanted to move the News at Ten to 11pm or so they got in the ability to increase the number of ad breaks per hour - something which never was revoked when the news went back to 10.30.
This change applied to all commercial channels too.
These days, commercial broadcasters are getting a lot less revenue than they used to because people either watch satellite channels or have other things to do like computer games or, amazingly, even talk to one another!
The broadcasters' response to this is to attract viewers by shouting like morons at them the split second the end credits appear and trying other such underhand tricks.
Broadcasters think this is the way to stop viewers from turning over as soon as the credits appear, whereas they're actually too thick and stupid to realise that people change channels BECAUSE they keep doing this.
Maybe in about 30 years time broadcasters will start treating viewers with respect again. Doubtful, though. There's about as much chance of Viewer Enquiries actually answering my Simpsons query rather than trying to weasel out of it by saying they've replied as best they can (when they haven't answered anything) and that that's the end of it and I should accept it.
I emailed them about the placement of their adverts (not the amount of adverts) after this week when it went straight from the opening credits to adverts. Here is the reply I got:
quote:
We were sorry to hear that you were annoyed by the placing of the ad breaks in ER. Ofcom guidelines state that the centre parts of any soft parted programme i.e. a continuous programme we split up into parts ourselves, must be no shorter than 13 mins each (20mins with a 15% deviation). Therefore, although a lot of soft parted US acquisitions have obvious fades to black during the programme, we are often unable to synchronise our breaks with them, as generally it would not fall within the Ofcom 13min rule.
Also, the US acquisitions we use to fill a one hour slot are often only around 40 mins in duration, therefore, once we have used the middle 26mins to comply with Ofcom (2 parts of 13 mins), we are only left with about 14 mins to split between parts one and four. Taking into account the opening credits of many programmes can run for up to 10 mins, you might find you are only left with 4 mins or less for the final part. We try not to take the first break before the opening credits of a show, or before they have run in their entirety.
Often the audio from one scene continues into the next or vis-versa. We are able to fade music out before taking a break, but if someone's dialogue bridges 2 scenes, it's impossible to take a break without clipping or loosing some of the content.
We hope you appreciate how difficult a job it is to satisfy all the requirements while keeping the programme watchable!
Their problem is they're looking at it from the point of view of: "Oooo how many adverts can we squeeze in within the Ofcom guidelines"... There's nothing about them being willing to skip an advert break to allow them to better partition the shows.
IMO they should "ignore" anything before the credits and only be allowed to take into account "main" part of the show when calculating show length.
They really should just go for 3 sets of adverts instead of 4. I'm sure they'd make them longer to compensate but that wouldn't be as bad as 5 mins, title sequence, ADVERT, 13 mins, ADVERT etc etc etc. Just gives for time for getting another cuppa/refilling you wine glass/Other things ;-)
Just a few thoughts,
Aik/Jeff
Member #1 of the *Fiona_* Fan Club ~~~~~~~ Dr. Gregory House: Like I always say, there's no "I" in team. There's a "me" though, if you jumble it up
I appreciate that US shows are supposed to fill a 60min slot while only been 40min long - however, I'd prefer fewer, longer ad breaks than the current solution of fitting in as many advert breaks as is "legally" possible according to Ofcom guidlelines.
I mentioned to them that with newer shows such as Lost and Desperate Housewives, many viewers decided to stop watching because of the adverts and wait for the DVDs.
Unfortunately we cant do that with ER, the DVD releases are too far behind.
But I did point out to them that they must be losing viewers because of that.
Originally posted by Fiona_: I emailed them about the placement of their adverts (not the amount of adverts) after this week when it went straight from the opening credits to adverts. Here is the reply I got:
quote:
We were sorry to hear that you were annoyed by the placing of the ad breaks in ER. Ofcom guidelines state that the centre parts of any soft parted programme i.e. a continuous programme we split up into parts ourselves, must be no shorter than 13 mins each (20mins with a 15% deviation). Therefore, although a lot of soft parted US acquisitions have obvious fades to black during the programme, we are often unable to synchronise our breaks with them, as generally it would not fall within the Ofcom 13min rule.
Also, the US acquisitions we use to fill a one hour slot are often only around 40 mins in duration, therefore, once we have used the middle 26mins to comply with Ofcom (2 parts of 13 mins), we are only left with about 14 mins to split between parts one and four. Taking into account the opening credits of many programmes can run for up to 10 mins, you might find you are only left with 4 mins or less for the final part. We try not to take the first break before the opening credits of a show, or before they have run in their entirety.
Often the audio from one scene continues into the next or vis-versa. We are able to fade music out before taking a break, but if someone's dialogue bridges 2 scenes, it's impossible to take a break without clipping or loosing some of the content.
We hope you appreciate how difficult a job it is to satisfy all the requirements while keeping the programme watchable!
What a load of old flannel. They'd find a way to change it if it suited them, just like they took advantage of changing from 2 ad breaks per hour to 3, for a programme that lasts an hour. They wangled that when the ITV 10pm News changed to 11pm, but never revoked the additional ad break when it changed back again.
Actually, I've just realised what a load of balls the alleged Ofcom ruling is.
C4/E4 are bound by the same rulings as Five, and after stripping the ads out of last night's X-Rated: The Films They Tried To Ban, the ad breaks come in at 7.58, 27.18 and 41.40, so part 2 runs for 19:20 and part 3 for 14:22.
This type of deal with the ad breaks is what happens to ER as well. So pull the other one, C4/E4, it's got bells on!
