Apr 09
2
No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived
of his property, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor shall we
go against him or send against him, unless by legal judgement of his peers, or
by the law of the land.
What Law of the land says that you have to watch TV
advertising ?
Who decreed that we would all be required to “voluntarily” give
up one fortieth of our lives to brain washing, mind drilling, mostly
irrelevant, ear splitting spam ?
Regular readers would have noticed that I spend a lot of
time analyzing why, how, when and how much.
Each of us values his/her life experiences differently.
Economists for some time have been attempting to develop the
full-proof “fit all situations” Hedonic Economic Value (HEV) formula.
Just as the smell of the leather in a new car adds to its
Hedonic value (i.e. would you buy a new car that didn’t have the smell of new
leather?) Unpleasant events can cause a perceived or real decrease in the value
of a product. For example a ten minute group of adverts in the middle of
“Psycho” – just before the shower curtain screen would certinaly in the eyes of
most folk be a negative experience. The
disappointment by the viewer has a Hedonic value even if it is negative. We
call this the Compensating
differential.
When I was 5 years old, I saw my first Television
advertisement. It was an endorsement style advert read by the News announcer
before the 6:00 pm News Broadcast. I
remember it because, my Hungarian mother who’s English was “not so good” asked
me what the News today was (i.e.: what the lady was saying). I answered that I
didn’t think it was the News. It appeared to be an announcement about buying a
product, however, I informed my mother, we would have to wait until tomorrow
night at the same time because I didn’t hear all of the announcement (my mum
was talking to me) and tomorrow night was the earliest that they would repeat
it.
Today’s television “endorsements” come a little more
frequently – in fact so much more frequently that TiVo made the Ad skip button
a major feature of its successful initial marketing campaign.
Alas, as is the norm when the zeros on the end of the dollar
price are enough – many companies sell-out; which, of course breeds a new style
of company, like VideoReDo who have
developed and successfully marketing their advertising removal software.
Two days ago I talked about the lack of time that Americans
had as a result of too many content choices.
Yesterday I introduced the concept of future
mode time-shifting (no – there is no “Future Mode Timeshifting” Wikipedia
entry yet…..) with East Coast users Time Shifting episodes of house into the
future (for the West Coast viewers) and kindly removing the adverts.
Today, on a whim I calculated the value of that “skipped
advertising – which led me to another amazing conclusion.
On the basis of eight minutes of advertising per hour of
television viewing and calculating 85
years of life expectancy with 4.11 hours per day average viewing time (Table
here) – advertisers are stealing 1.88 years of your life.
In my case I am now 51 years old and the actual value of one
minute of my leisure time is
$ 0.12 cents.
In my younger days, when the adverts appeared, I leapt to my
feet and dashed to the water closet or made a coffee or grabbed a beer, or
started making out with my significant other.
But now that I’m fifty, I’m too old to “jump” to my feet,
and I know that if I drink too much coffee or beer after 8:00 pm – well lets
say – it means more trips to the toilet during the night…… and as for making
out…… well lets say that I almost prefer watching the adverts than expending
all that valuable energy.
But in reality – I don’t really want to watch the adverts
which seem to appear between a range of approximately six minute intervals down
to four minutes depending on the popularity of the show.
What can I/we/you do it about it?
Options to extend your life:
Timeshift on a NON-TiVo PVR/DVR WITH an ad remove button
that still works.
Or download VideoReDone content via P2P.
Or Go to the Movies…… (No adverts in the middle of a movie
YET…..)
Or – Copy the content industry and threaten to sue the bastards.
Here is my suggested Take Down Notice ……
Dear Advertiser,
I have recently calculated the cost to my life span of
viewing your un-requested incursions (SPAM) into my private Television/Cable
viewing experience. I calculated that
the frequency of your advertisements over the years, if it continues statically
at the current rate of 8 minutes per hour results in the effective shortening
of my life by 1.88 years which represents 686.67 days or 16,480 hours or
basically almost a million minutes.
At my time of life according to the Tom
Koltai Life Leisure Minutes Value Calculator the value of one
of my leisure minutes is $0.12 cents.
Unfortunately I am no longer young enough and spry enough to
leap up and undertake alternative activity (beyond turning down my hearing aid
– due to the 25 decibel volume increase – by the way, I used to be an
electrical engineer, if there is some way I can help to fix that volume problem
thingy, I am willing to have a go). This then forces me to sit in front of the
screen and watch content that I did not select or choose. It is true that I could switch
stations/channels, however, I might forget to switch back again. So I’m not
really sure which is the better choice. Change channels and to forget to watch
my show, or watch the advertisement.
So can I ask you to either please switch off your
advertising – or if you persist in continuing with this extremely antisocial
and rude behaviour – I may be forced to bill you for the 1.88 years [which
totals $121,020.66 at today’s rates]
which represents a portion of the “compensating differential” that you owe me
for reducing the Hedonic Value of my investment in a large screen TV, a 5.1 surround
sound video system, a twin lazy boy Rocker-chair (His ‘n Hers) and the fact
that the ad-break in Psycho was so long that I fell asleep and don’t know what
happened during the shower screen scene.
It has occurred to me that by forcing me to watch irrelevant
advertising about jeans for young missy (8 years old) from Jag, something that
has no possible interest to me; you are in fact stealing precious minutes from
my life.
So either pay up or stop advertising.
It has occurred to me that you might consider this
take-down-notice the lunatic rantings of stupid old fart or alternatively – you might
elect to respond that under the first amendment, you are merely executing your
constitutional right of free speech. If
so, I would remind you of two things – my constitutional right to bear arms and
that thanks to Ebay, those arms of mass destruction are coming waaaaaay
down in price.
In closing – should you decide to do nothing about this
letter, I place you on notice that I shall use my next social security check to
buy the old folks home, down the road, a computer and I shall install it and
configure it for them so that all of their favourite TV shows will be delivered
via P2P advertisement free.
Yours faithfully,
A Citizen of a Free World.
Clicking the following link will download “The Value of Leisure
Time Excel Spreadsheet” so readers can make their own estimates of the
individual value of their suit against advertisers.