Film at 11 (actually 11:30)
Towards a new kind of privacy...freedom from ads. I've written about this before, but it keeps getting worse. I went to see a movie this weekend (Oceans 11, don't ask) at my local multiplex. The movie was supposed to start at 7:05. Okay, I know the drill--get there close to the time, but a little early, otherwise you don't get a seat at all. So I get there a little before 7 with my popcorn. The local ads were in full rotation. Insurance agents, ambulance chasing lawyers, teeny delis, car dealers and flower shops. Each ad was 5-10 seconds long. That means a minimum of 6 ads per minute. Well, it'll stop at 7:05, right? Time for the previews, which I don't mind at all. Nope. The local ads ran til 7:25, followed by 5 minutes of national ads, then 10 minutes of previews. This means that the show did not actually start until 30 minutes after the published start time. Meanwhile I was bombarded with (do the math), at least 120 rube commercials plus a couple of slick Pepsi ones.
BTW, here's a link to an article saying that we're about to see more nanoads on tv and presumably in theaters. These are only a few seconds.
What do we do about this? Does anyone have an idea? Is it even illegal?
Posted on June 18, 2007
