Les launches into a fine mini-screed on one of my pet peeves: the increasingly obtrusive, large, solid, noisy, obscuring bottom-of-the-screen animated blurbs for upcoming TV shows. The folks behind that are only a small step above spammers, as far as I’m concerned — trying to elbow their way into our vision with a service of rare and/or dubious value. They don’t need to die, but the stocks are a fine idea.
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I think those in-show promos are to torrent-proof the broadcasts from people with PVRs and a willingness to upload the files.
I don’t mind them in my own recordings, but the ones I’ve seen on Canadian broadcasts have been fairly unobtrusive.
First it was the channel identifier in the lower right-hand corner, now it’s not only these bottom of the screen blurbs, but corner blurbs, squished titles at the end, sped-up titles at the end, etc., all in the name of more advertising for the network or for products.
It’s just getting easier to skip television all together or only watch DVD’s. I don’t even care any more if I need to wait a few years to get the DVD’s!
I can definitely understand, and even appreciate, wanting to have the broadcast source show up in a recording off the airwaves/cable. No sweat.
But when it interferes with the actual show — by distraction, or by obscuring credits (or action) — then it’s self-defeating.