SONY: Stop The Stupid Ads!
Apr 19th, 2008 | By Aditya | Category: Top Stories
Sony is doing a horribly incompetent job with the IPL coverage. I mean, I understand that they’ve paid a lot of money to get the rights of broadcasting the IPL, but don’t go overboard with the advertisements for Gods sake! As soon as the last ball of the over is balled, you don’t have to cut into an ad! If it was a six or a wicket, let me at least watch the replay before showing that irritating ad for the 100th time!
And what’s with the incessant advertising between the balls?!? As soon as one ball is balled, the live telecast goes into a corner to show me yet another ad in the rest of the screen. But that’s not all, the ad has audio too, so now I can’t hear what the commentators are saying! And what’s the point of showing the same thing over and over and over again 500 times during a game? Vodafone has cricket updates on its phones. I got it the first time. Don’t show it to me again and again! And as if that’s not enough, there are on-screen ads during replays. All said and done, I think actual cricket content is < 25%
And its not just the advertising thats messed up. For a good part of the SuperKings vs Kings XI Punjab match, the aspect ratio of the telecast was messed up, with Jacob Oram appearing so fat that he looked like he weighed 300 Kgs! And someone has got to talk to the commentators. Especially in today’s SuperKings vs Kings XI game, all the commentators could plug were the corporate sponsors. “OOhhh… What a beautiful DLF SuperSixes award contender“. “Oh! That would have been a CitiBank Moment of Success!” Stop it for god’s sake. If you don’t have anything intelligent to say about cricket, just keep quite and let me watch the match.
They’re doing so many things wrong that I could almost write a book about it. If I, a blogger sitting in front of the TV can see the stupidity so obviously, what are the executives at SONY doing?
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I agree to the Letter T with you…it is absolutely atrocious to do that…
Harsh
http://www.mantrablogs.contentmantra.com
Actually they have to say DLF max sixes or whatever, because they are told to do so by their bosses. It’s their job and possibly a part of the advertising agreement between IPL and DLF (with DLF also being the chief sponsor.) Just like we had the Appy Fizz fact during the India-Australia series — the commentators said Appy Fizz fact every single time. So this is not new.
Another fact is that the IPL is only 40 overs in all, unlike ODIs which runs for 100 overs — meaning a less relaxed environment for showcasing commercials.
When Sony came looking for sponsors the sponsors were initially unsure as to how much to pay and how many ad slots could be accommodated — after all it’s an entirely new format. So in-between balls advertising looks fairly logical from Sony’s point of view. Of course they are extremely intrusive for our viewing pleasure, but in an entirely corporate backed and run tournament, this is inevitable don’t you think? We’ve embraced it from the outset, so it would be a little rich of us to be complaining about commercials.
Remember that saying about having and eating cakes… or something to that effect?
it is as good as watching it in the stadium….chances that u will miss more thn u see and u will get a chance to see u missed are not many
yea, they are overdoing ads..
but that is the main source of revenue for sony and a bigger platform for advertisers.
and as it is, i dont think any international players are taking these matches seriously.. the main aim behind having IPL is creating healthy relationship between international players and giving a chance to local players to play with international players (thats what i believe (other than economical aspects ))….
so, its ok, its business!
u can always refer to papers next day if all that is inconvenient to u!
In fact who is watching these matches, For an average people, who watch and enjoy cricket at their homes, the ads are the biggest scorer, as they keep hitting their TV screen, instead of Dhoni and Shewag. The constant popup of ads on the TV screens and Computer screens, have taken me too far from my childhood game. From computer I cannot go away as i have to work for my livelihood. But, please stop these fucking ads, or fuck the IPL that has copied ICL.
No, I completely agree that SONY has to make its money back by showing ads, but I don’t agree with what they are doing. Why can’t they be more efficient about it? They can use a more efficient system to sell ads.
Like Aditya R pointed out above, the advertisers were unsure how much to pay for the ads, since it is a new event. So, why not use an auction? Lets say there are 600 seconds of ads available, and auction off the 30-second slots before every match. This way, SONY can extract the maximum possible revenue because of the auction, and the viewers will remember the ads better because the matches are not all cluttered with them, and the advertisers are happy because their ads are being remembered.
This is the model Google uses to sell advertising on its search pages. The ads on google are never intrusive, but they still make truckloads of money from it. SONY should learn something from there.
I’m not alone! The ads are annoying, is a mild way of putting it. The one thing I appreciate about T20 is that they have embraced the entertainment factor of sports nowadays and are working on giving a complete package to the public. But the utter greed with which they are doing it, ugh!
I’ve sent in my comments to feedback.max@setindia.com. Have no idea if anyone even reads these feedbacks. But do send in yours too.. Maybe some sense might prevail.
I am really glad I am not alone in being annoyed!! If they really HAVE to show those banner ads, they can be muted and shown only when nothing specific is happening on the field. This will ensure that the commentary does not get drowned and the viewers are not distracted during key moments of the match. Similar banner ads for Happydent used to be shown during a series last year, and I vowed to do my part of the protest by never buying Happydent again
Have stuck to my vow till date.
And thanks for the SetMax feedback email ID Chica; I have mailed my feedback. I believe that enough people like you and I can change things.
Thanks for the feedback email ID Chica. I’ve sent my feedback too! I think all of us that are annoyed should send them the feedback. Hopefully they’ll notice!
You can watch the match live on IPL’s website http://www.iplt20.com without any annoying ads. Enjoy!
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