So, there you are watching The Godfather on TNT. Michael Corleone is in Italy, and you’re following the dialog by reading the captions. All of sudden, you can’t see the captions, because TNT is playing an advertisement for some other program which will be on a few days from today. Characters from this other show are walking up and down the bottom third of the screen, blocking the view of the program you’ve actually tuned in to see. Another viewing experience ruined.

Does this happen to you as much as it happens to me? Does this infuriate you as much as it does me? If you answered “Yes” to both of these questions, don’t plan on getting any relief any time soon. The networks are going to continue to advertise in this fashion for a long time to come.

Kyra Sedgwick, star of “The Closer” on TNT, walks under a police tape and scans the screen with her flashlight. And every time she does, she makes Gretchen Corbin, a technical writer in Berkeley, Calif., irate.

The promotional ads for “The Closer” run in the bottom right of the screen during other TNT programs — a graphic called a snipe. But for Ms. Corbin, who sometimes watches movies that have subtitles, the tiny images block the dialogue.

“Some ad just took over the entire bottom of the screen so I missed what the characters said to each other,” said Ms. Corbin, describing a recent experience. “And it’s TV, so you can’t rewind.”

Snipes are just the latest effort by network executives to cram promotions onto television screens in the age of channel surfing, ad skipping and screen-based multitasking. At first, viewers may feel a slight jolt of pleasure at the sight of a new visual effect, they say, but over time the intrusions contribute to the sense that the screen is far more cluttered — not just with ads, but with news crawls and other streams of information.

For better or worse, viewers say, the additions are making the experience of watching television more closely mirror the feeling of using a computer.

That may be so, network executives say, but the extra content is here to stay. The snipes — not to be confused with bugs, those network logos that pop up in screen corners during shows — are important enough to the beleaguered television industry that the networks plan to tolerate the backlash.

As you have probably guessed, the almighty dollar is behind all of this:

This fall ABC is introducing the “ABC Start Here” campaign, which consists of a series of icons in the lower right of the screen that direct viewers to related content in other media, like books, DVDs and Web sites. At the end of “Ugly Betty,” for instance, a shopping icon could direct viewers to places where they could buy Betty’s shoes, or an iTunes icon could invite them to that site to buy episodes of the show. The point, said Marla Provencio, an ABC executive vice president of marketing, is “to accommodate viewers’ multimedia, multichannel habits and still lead them back to ABC.”

Apparently, the money to be made from this is such that the networks are willing to take a PR shellacking in return for the profit. You didn’t think that content was the most important ingredient in a television network’s success, did you?

All of this appears to be a clumsy answer to VCR’s and TiVo, which allow you to fast forward through the advertisements so you can just watch the program. Placing the advertisements within the program itself prevents you from escaping them. However, listen to this:

ABC tested the icons in July and will introduce them gradually this fall to get viewers familiar with the shorthand. To minimize complaints, ABC will keep the icons and all similar visuals silent.

“We do not want to invade in the viewers’ space so much that we intrude on their experience,” said Ms. Provencio.

Promotional content on what the industry calls the “lower third” of the television screen is “the way of the world these days,” Ms. Provencio said. ABC, she said, tries to make sure that the embedded ads do not interrupt, say, “a dramatic moment on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ ” but the network does want to remind people they are watching ABC.

Viewers say that snipes and bugs are degrading their experience of watching television. Even some performers seem to resent the assaults on their work’s integrity. At last week’s Emmy Awards, the comedian Lewis Black delivered a blow against screen clutter, yelling, “We don’t care about the next show. We’re watching this show.”

Network executives say that the trend toward busy screens is an attempt to cater to the tastes and habits of younger viewers, who reflexively toggle among screens, online and on cellphones.

They are already invading and degrading our viewing experience! How are you supposed to focus your attention on a dramatic moment with characters from another show gallivanting across the screen urging you to tune into something else? As far as being “the way of the world these days,” the only reason that is true is because all of the networks have decided that it is the way of the world these days. It isn’t like anyone is forcing them to deface their programming with these intrusive ads. They just want to make more money, plain and simple.

Then again, I’m 44 years of age, so the television industry doesn’t really care about me anyway. All they care about is the 14 to 35 year olds demographic. Apparently, the networks are of the opinion that since I turned 36 years of age, I no longer spend money on consumer goods or services, so they stopped paying attention to my wants and needs. You’d think that with the baby boomers all starting to hit the 45 to 50 years old mark, they’d wise up. Well, you’d be wrong.

So, what can be done about this? Not a lot, unfortunately. I stopped watching programs on networks like TBS, TNT, and USA. If I can’t enjoy the program, why waste time watching it? I don’t tune in to see what else is playing on that channel later; that’s what the on-screen cable guide is for. I tune in to suspend my disbelief and enjoy some escapist entertainment. I can’t do that when characters from other programs are constantly invading the world I’m trying to be a part of.

Looks like I’ll need to purchase some more DVDs.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 5:30 pm by Nick, and is filed under Bad Ideas, Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.