Just recently my wife and I picked up the first two seasons of “Smallville” and settled down for a few weeks of four-show-a-night binging. After skipping the whole 3rd season for medical reasons we wanted to look back and remind ourselves why we watched it in the first place (Hint: Lex).
Soon afterwards the new season started and, fresh from our newly reawakened “Smallville” appreciation, we eagerly tuned in to the WB’s Thursday night. And we hated it.
Not the show, mind you. The experience of regular broadcast television.
We couldn’t click past the theme song! We couldn’t fast-forward past the whiny Lana scenes! (Although Lana’s getting better; we’d probably fast-forward past the Lois scenes instead.) We have to wait a whole week or more for the next one! There are so many commercials you can go watch another show while waiting for this one to come back. I’m sure there’s some reason not to turn it off and wait for the DVD release but I can’t think of any. And neither, apparently, can many other people.
“The Sopranos.” “Seinfeld.” “M*A*S*H.” “Roseanne.” “Chapelle’s Show.” “Friends.” In 2000, industry analysts said the studios made more than $100 million from television show DVDs. Last year they made more than $2 billion and they’re expected to clear $3 billion in 2006, probably just from “Lost.” Studio execs are diving into their vaults scrambling for anything they can cram onto a disc because we’ll buy it and spend hours glued to our sets watching it.
I mean that literally. Thousands of viewers are choosing to absorb months of entertainment in long weekend runs — especially such plot-heavy shows as “24” and “Lost” — leaving such quaint concepts as “social life” and “hygiene” far behind while teams of trained emergency rescue personnel break out the crane-mounted reciprocating saws to cut through solidified wedges of almond roca, Mountain Dew, and kettle chips and lever encrusted viewers out of their couches before untimely bathroom-related disasters erupt.
This is, rather understandably, worrying advertisers. If I can get my shows in a single ad-free gulp, or TiVO them, or download small ad-free versions the next day on iTunes, how are they going to get my attention?
Some advertisers like Ford Motor and XM Satellite have tried sponsoring commercial-free shows. Gabrielle’s Buick on “Desperate Housewives,” Subway’s chicken parmesan sandwich on “Will & Grace” and half the challenges on “The Apprentice” demonstrate the growing appeal of blatant product placement. What’s left? Sponsor patches on Simon Cowell’s jacket? Is this the beginning of the end for television advertising?
Instead, I see it as a new beginning.
You can’t inject advertising into our programs any more; we’ll just find new ways to block it. But you know where to find us. We’re at home watching the second season of “The L-Word” and if you show up with a tempting, ice-cold Coke we’ll buy it off you in a heartbeat. Before long we’ll need to.
We won’t be going to the gym or the park any more, not when we’re chain-watching “Lost” and Walt’s just been kidnapped. Soon we’ll be unable to leave the house at all. Due to our collective, obsessive need to see every episode of “Oz” without a break our bloated bodies will adapt to fit perfectly into a La-Z-Boy recliner or across a Sleep Number Mattress (even as our eyes evolve the ability to change channels by blinking) and we’ll need a vast army of service personnel ready and willing to fulfill our sedentary needs.
Bring back the door-to-door salesman.
Bring us breakfast, lunch and dinner from your agencies’ fast food clients. Sell us soap and shampoo even as you help us reach the awkward places. Bring your company’s beer and clothing and mortgage lenders and male enhancement drugs to our houses and we’ll buy them because we won’t be able to go shop for anything different. Sales will go to those advertisers that can get to our door first and fastest. Throw a celebrity in your car and haul him or her around to yell endorsements through our windows.
Not only will your sales improve, you’ll stimulate the economy and lower unemployment. You’ll finally have the captive audience you’ve always dreamed of.
And, frankly, we could use the interruption to grab a bathroom break.