TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: itunes is a RIPOFF

Re: itunes is a RIPOFF

Robert Bonomi (bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com)
Tue, 02 Aug 2005 06:50:45 -0000

In article <telecom24.349.9@telecom-digest.org>, AES
<siegman@stanford.edu> wrote:

> Posters on the first three of various newsgroups, in a to date very
> lengthy thread, have posted:

>>> I stand behind it! My decision to dump TV was a good one and I'm
>>> definitely happy with it.

>> They called the area in which Leipzig or Dresden sits (I can't
>> remember which city) the valley of the dumb during the time of the
>> DDR, as the West German TV was not available to them because of the
>> geography.

>> So if you wish to separate yourself from the world in this way, go ahead.

>> You will regret it one day, I assure you.

> I just got in on the tail end of this thread, but I wonder if
> something I heard (or think I recall hearing) on NPR the other day is
> (a) true?, and (b) relevant -- viz.

> Professional TV producers and other network personnel commonly
> speak of "content" and "fill" in their TV programming.

> To them, "content" refers (really!) to the **advertising** part of
> their programming.

> And "fill" refers to all the rest of stuff (aka junk) that they have
> to (reluctantly) intersperse between the advertising, to get people
> to watch the (much more important) "content".

> Notes:

> 1) If this is not true, apologies. I'm pretty sure I heard it, but I
> was driving at the time and could have misheard it.

> 2 I've added comp.dcom.telecom to the reply list, not to drag that
> group into the rest of this otherwise not very great thread, but because
> there may be some professionals there who know if the above assertions
> are correct.

> 3) Even if it's not true, it's entirely believable (especially to
> anyone who's watched cable TV).

> 4) By this definition, certain TV channels -- e.g., the shopping and
> "infomercial" channels -- have managed to reach the happy situation of
> having 100% "content" and zero useless "fill".

> 5) If it's actually true, and it's NPR who let the secret out, you can
> fully understand why the Bush administration is all out to kill NPR.

It is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that actual _producers_ of programs would use
those words in that manner.

Program producers have no knowledge of, nor control over, nor
(generally) any interest in, _what_ advertising runs during the airing
of their program. They know they have a specified total running time
for the program, and that there will be 'breaks' at specified
intermediate points in that total.

That timing information, alone, is sufficient for program
design/production purposes. It allows them to script 'minor crises',
and/or other 'hooks' to occur just before the 'break', to maximize
viewer retention -- either for when they come back to the program, or
for the eyeball count while the commercials are running, depending on
ones biases. ;)

Similar reasoning applies to network management -- they know that the
programs are what attracts the eyeballs, and it is those eyeballs that
are the 'saleable commodity' that is the ultimate source of all the
revenues generated by selling ads.

People -producing- ads wouldn't use that kind of language -- you
*very*, VERY, rarely see a sequence of ads from the same seller that
have continuity of the 'story' from one ad to the next. That is the
only situation where there would be thought given to what is running
'between the ads'.

It is _possible_ that network staff involved in =selling= ad-space
might refer to events in that manner; however I have never heard it.
And I have (long ago) worked selling TV air-time.

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