clo_again

Okay, so everyone in the UK has probably heard about the whole "BBC One ran a cartoon trail of Graham Norton advertising Over the Rainbow across the screen during the dramatic final scene of Doctor Who a few weeks back and a thousand Who fans cried foul". This is a pretty recent thing; the righteous splurge of anger it caused should be fresh in the minds of most UK TV-producing companies right now. People resent having their shows interrupted by untimely reminders of the outside world (I suspect particularly if it comes in the form of a blocky-garish-'toon-Norton) in the form of trails across the screen. I know TV people are gonna keep doing it because it's an ad you can't fastforward or mute and in the era of Sky+ and easy recording, that's a big thing but at the moment you'd imagine the bigwig in charge of chosing when to run said trails would hesitate before hitting that big red button considering the reaction to the BBC's faux pas with Toon!Norton.

(For the record, I HATE trails being run over other programs with a fierce vicious passion. You are voluntarily ruining the viewing experience of something you've paid a lot of money to show. All you'll succeed in doing is driving people to download or in extreme cases, to other TV providers. I am entirely capable of remembering that Over the Rainbow is on after Doctor Who because it is EVERY WEEK. Similarly, Spartacus: Blood and Sand which I am immensely looking forward to lolling at is coming soon on Bravo. I know this because it is advertised during the adverts of Castle, ads I usually fastforward through but still watch closely to check I'm not missing anything. Or sometimes I watch Castle as it airs and cannot ff ads. This? Is a way of advertising your product that will get through without pissing off your paying customers. However, this opinion may have adversely biased me in this particular rant subject, just saying.)

So. Apparently the Prime Minister resigned yesterday? You heard about that? Yeah, it happened about half sevenish; I know because they cancelled EastEnders for it*. So about 8pmish, this news was filtering around the TV channels and everyone mostly was covering it and yes, it was a pretty important thing. About as important as politics news gets in this country.

So, I can understand why Sky One during the 8pm showing of a new Stargate Universe episode would chose to run a trail across the screen about ten minutes in announcing that "Gordon Brown resigns as PM: turn to Sky News for more!". Even though I, like many people no doubt, had recorded SGU and was watching well after this initial news broke, we culd understand that this was a big thing. Some people probably appreciated it and turned over to check it out. People watching later, like me, could simply shrug away the momentary distraction and get back to watching the show. All fine, all good. Anyone who wanted to turn over would've done so at that first trail.

So, Sky. Explain to me why you thought it was necessary to re-run the same banner ad fifteen minutes later (over a rather dramatic moment when someone was trying to reach the Stargate in time to avoid being left behind to die alone)? Did you think the people still watching would go "Well if they've trailed it TWICE it must be worth turning over for!" Or did you possibly think they'd swear at you for distracting them a second time from the show that relies heavily on being tense and building drama?

I don't need to ask what you were thinking when you ran THE SAME TRAIL FOR THE SAME THING a THIRD TIME that was even almost OVER by 9pm anyway (by 8:50pm the BBC was just killing time in their coverage because everything interesting had happened) because clearly you weren't thinking; no one could be that intentionally stupid. You couldn't want to ruin the viewing experience of a new episode of one of your Very Important Shows that badly. Right?


Please. TV companies. There are many, many ad breaks during shows. These ad breaks are there for many reasons; to generate revenue, to alert viewers to other shows on the channel they may enjoy and might not know about, to advertise your own products. Your own products like your other channels. Like news channels. Like special events on Sky News. If you felt the need to alert viewers ALREADY WATCHING ONE OF YOUR CHANNELS to a special event being covered by another of your channels, you could've run the trail over the top of your own Sky HD ad which usually shows right at the beginning/end of an ad break. People watching in real time cannot ff ads and would therefore see it. People watching later when said trail would be nothing more than an annoying distraction, would ff past the ads anyway and therefore not have their viewing experience damaged by your stupidity.

In future, please engage some measure of common sense before hitting that button. First trail: okay, good call. Second: unnecessary. Third: actively pissing off your paying customers.

Don't do it again. Or I might just start a Toon!Norton esque Twitter riot about how much you suck.

On the plus side it was a rather excellent episode of Stargate Universe to compensate. I am rather fond of this ridiculous but entertaining (and beautiful! there was a scene with snow tonight that I yearned to icon) show.


*My recent watching of EastEnders is a whole other topic that shall not be gone into right now. ;-) Shush your judgement!

~

That rather longer-than-intended point made, I'm going to bed. Last day of packing tomorrow and I'm not even halfway. Bugger this packing lark. I can't wait to just be moved in already (although we will be without internet for a week which will be both irritating and troublesome but that's because Virgin are lying sods who frankly aren't fit to call themselves an internet provider).

Oh good grief self, ENGAGE BRAIN BEFORE READING FLIST so that when something has obviously been hacked, you do not click the link.

Thankfully my brain did in fact engage about a milisecond after I opened the tab and I closed it before it even loaded but jesus, this is the second time. I need Norton AntiInternetStupidity installed in my brain.

By the way sarahtales appears to have been hacked. Don't click anything, just to be safe. Or you know, YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNEW THAT.

I'm amazed I can be even let out alone sometimes, I really am. McDoofus.

~

My Chinese food was excellent and also huge, so I'm thinking I'll take the leftovers with me for dinner tomorrow. More money to spend on souvenirs in Christchurch (except I really shouldn't. Eh)!

Good News Week is so good that I have four minutes of it left and I've stopped watching it to do other things so it doesn't have to be over. There should be another podcast uploaded by tomorrow, assuming there's an episode on tonight but I have no idea what kind of internet I'll have in Christchurch so I may have to wait. Somehow this translates to me withholding the last four minutes from myself.

...I don't know either.

My hostel is really cold. I do like it but there is no heating. I think tonight is a thermal-underwear to bed night, which I thought we'd moved past by now. So much so that I sent my thermal leggings home in the box I posted last week. Yeah, regretting that.

Tomorrow is my last day on Magic bus. That makes me kinda sad, because it has been an awesome way to get around New Zealand. I liked it so much that I went there, did that, BOUGHT THE T-SHIRT :D (in an ideal world that would have a picture of me wearing my Magic t-shirt which I amn, in fact, wearing now. I don't care enough to actually take the picture and upload it right now. It's not a perfect world.)

I've now put off exhausting my supply of Good News Week for as long as possible. Back to my last four minutes! (How can you tell I have good internet here? Because I'M SPAMMING YOUR FLIST WITH POSTS, mwahahahaha!

:D)