Sadly, the following video portends the future of television. It is a video clip from a recent “Hawaii 5-0” television show in which the fast-food restaurant, Subway, pioneers a new and alarming approach to the continued degradation of our television viewing experience: full-blown advertisements, whose pitch lines are delivered by the actors themselves, carefully scripted and unscrupulously inserted into the show’s running dialog. It is an embarrassment to watch, and, I’m sure, an embarrassment and an additional degradation for the cast and crew who are forced to partake, which is evident when viewing the clip.
(submitted by Rich)
This new type of shameless encroachment into our personal viewing habits far exceeds the recent introduction of the visual “product placement” types of advertising cropping up nowadays in television shows and movie productions as well.
For example: on the “Fringe” Sci-Fi series (one of my favorites!) last week, during a conversation inside a speeding vehicle, the camera lingers a bit too long on a tight shot of the actress’s finger pushing a phone button on the steering wheel.
The “NISSAN” leather-imprinted logo, clearly visible in the shot, is entirely irrelevant to the scene’s action. I suppose soon — during this type of product-insertion shot and the advent of more Subway-driven abominations — the actors will be carrying on a scripted dialog about gas mileage, dealership incentives, and choices of additional items:
“Well, gee, Peter, while we are busy chasing down that shape shifting maniac who’s hell-bent on destroying our universe, I thought you might like to know Nissan has a super deal cooking for two days only at selected dealers for qualified buyers that lets you choose any seven of their 16 incredible accessories for ZERO down and 6 years to pay! Let’s forget about shape shifters for a few minutes, make a quick detour, and go check out that exciting new candy-apple-red Nissan pickup truck offer before heading over to Subway and checking out yet ANOTHER super deal I saw last night on Hawaii 5-0!”
Shame on you advertisers. Shame on you television networks. Shame, Shame, SHAME!
I think I’m going to puke.
Tim, the NBC show Parenthood is another shameless shill for Nissan, although not quite as obvious as Fringe.
I did notice in the Fringe episode that you mentioned above, almost immediately after doing the close-up of the steering wheel, the conversation did turn to indirect advertising of the mysterious Nissan Leaf that they were riding in, for the first time ever on the show. As Peter fumbles with the GPS on the dashboard, he mentions the distance that he and Olivia will need to travel. Olivia then replies, “It’s okay. We should have enough charge.”
This conversation had nothing to do with the actual plot of the show other than they were riding in an electric car and Peter was worried about having to get out and walk if they ran out of juice.
As far as I know, neither the steering wheel scene, nor the GPS/charge conversation are in the transcript.
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I confess, I DVR and TIVO every show so I can watch at my own leisure. I detest commercials. Now, the commercials are incorporated into the shows, and I cannot stand it.
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I agree. I record everything I watch, too. Basically, we forced advertisers into doing that. Now, we get regular commercials AND in-show commercials. 😦
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I would like to see the persons responsible for ads that scream at you for no reason! There is no reason for the screaming except maybe to get you to mute or change channel! And I still have no idea what they were trying to sell!
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I’ll take Burma Shave ads anytime! lol
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ET had product placement in it when they introduced “The never before seen” Reeces Pieces.
The daytime shows soaps and talk shows alike are doing it too. Might as well just get used to it. Not going away anytime soon.
BTW, I really do enjoy your blog.
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Thank you, Paula!
Unfortunately, Rich’s comment makes a good, yet depressing point! 😦
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Check out the captioning! As I’m deaf, I have no idea what was actually said, but according to the captioning, there’s something about Yeltsin developing symptoms…… LOL! Is there something about the Subway sandwiches we don’t know?????
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Hahaha!
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Unfortunately we created this type of advertising by recording programming and playing it back later so we could edit out the commercials. Since the commercials pay for the programming, the advertisers were not getting their money’s worth. I’m not justifying the in-show commercials, but I understand why they’re there.
The alternative is some form of pay TV where I fear only mindless programming like Wife Swap and CSI Miami will prevail.
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Exactly. No longer can we fast forward through commercials.
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Product Placement – nothing new here. Movies have been doing it for decades. some examples – Harry Potter – Converse shoes
The Heartbreak Kid – Pepsi and Subway
Independence Day – Coca-Cola and Apple computers
I could go on. But, for real product placement on TV look at CSI-Miami. What kind of a car does Horatio drive? Right, a Hummer.
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Reruns, Tim. The answer is reruns. Bet I don’t watch ANY current shows. Wait, I’d have to pay off on that bet. But 99% of what I turn on to sleep to is made up of old, old shows.
Just so ya’ know… this practice is as old as TV itself. Remember the original “Dragnet”? All those cars were of the same maker. Same with “The Untouchables” from back in the day. The shows used to carry a disclaimer at the end, reading something like, “We got big bucks for showing all these Fords in this show”.
Everything is more in-your-face these days. Remember the first time you heard the word “ass” on public TV? Now they’re saying way worse words than that. We could turn the TV totally off and read a book…..but that’s not what I want to do. I want to turn on some nonsensical show and drift off to sleep with the TV programmed to turn itself off after a while.
Even the evening news participates in this crapola. The anchors are forever saying things such as, “And tonight, watch “Dancing With the Stars” followed at nine o’clock by “Who the heck cares reality last man standing gets to marry the bachelorette”. Walter, Chet, and Dave, I hope, would all be above that hawking.
Reruns.
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I know. And WAY back in the 50s even Buffalo Bob Emery had us kids stand up, salute the Flag, and dank a glass of “cattlemen’s milk” while Old Glory fluttered on screen. Man, oh, man, were those “cattlemen” grinning or what?
Product placement is one thing, but, somehow it’s way DIFFERENT when an actor unwraps a Subway sandwich on screen and begins reading an advertising script.
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