I admit it - I'm a geeky Star Trek fan. I've got all of the episodes on DVD with the exception of Enterprise and that's only because Enterprise isn't out on DVD yet.
Having established that, I note that the modern episodes run 43 min. The original series with Krik et al run 50 minutes. So in 30 odd years (from the 1960s to the 1990s) TV shows "lost" 7 minutes just so they could show more ads!
Now I'm not particularly surprised by this, but it's an interesting trend. What does it say about our society? Are we truly that swayed by television advertising? I would have thought if anything that most people tune out the ads now. With the growing advent of hard drive recorders, it becomes easier than ever to skip the ads.
So why do advertisers bother? Is it like spam - if even just 1% of people respond then you've made massive profits?
Having established that, I note that the modern episodes run 43 min. The original series with Krik et al run 50 minutes. So in 30 odd years (from the 1960s to the 1990s) TV shows "lost" 7 minutes just so they could show more ads!
Now I'm not particularly surprised by this, but it's an interesting trend. What does it say about our society? Are we truly that swayed by television advertising? I would have thought if anything that most people tune out the ads now. With the growing advent of hard drive recorders, it becomes easier than ever to skip the ads.
So why do advertisers bother? Is it like spam - if even just 1% of people respond then you've made massive profits?
