TVSquad

NBC is really thinking of new advertising strategies, eh?

First they have all the product placement and product placement plots on shows like 30 Rock, The Office, and Studio 60, and now they've reached a deal with Philips Electronics for the company to be the lone sponsor of next Monday's edition of NBC Nightly News. It's part of a $2 million deal the network did with Philips, and will include other cable shows and their weather network.

Of course, one sponsor has been done several times before, even this season. Smith had an episode that was completely sponsored by The Departed, the recent Martin Scorcese crime flick. It was presented with fewer commercial interruption, or however they phrase it. The NBC Nightly News will be presented the same way. Instead of having fourteen commercials during the 30 minute show there will be three, all by Philips.

Reminds me of the days when one company would sponsor a show. The Colgate Comedy Hour or Milk of Magnesia sponsoring the game shows in the 50s. All that was stopped when the sponsors started having too much input into how the shows were done, but I wonder if were inching towards something similar now.

I wrote about a few of these commercials over at Adjab recently, but I have to mention more of them here because they are really starting to get to me.

Have you ever noticed that TV commercials that run during the summer are particularly annoying? It's not just the actual content of the ads (though that can be quite irritating), it's the number of times that a commercial is repeated during June, July, and August. Toyota can't just have a one or two week sale, they have to have a damn Toyotathon that lasts all summer, so we have to hear that "Let's go for a ride, feel the sunshine, let's go for a ride in the summertime" song 300 times a day. Dunkin' Donuts doesn't just have a few summer drinks, they now have summer drinks for every situation and personality, and America runs because of them, so these ads run 200 times a day.

Now, some of this might be because I get paid to watch TV for a living and watch a lot more of it than most people, but I think that even the most casual TV viewer sees these ads over and over and over again, to the point that they want to change the channel. Have you noticed that summertime ads run a gazillion times a day?