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Nearly a third of TV ads play to empty rooms
- sunjester 5y agoSo according to a statistics website, on Google, says the television industry is going to profit 80+ billions dollars but Cornell says the ads play to mostly empty rooms. It should be.. A 1/3 of ads played for TVision's audience plays to an empty room.
- gcanyon 5y agoTV ads? What are those? Joking aside, I literally don't remember how many years it's been since I last saw a TV ad (and it's not for not watching TV).
- LeoPanthera 5y agoI am always amazed, amongst the shrinking group of people who still watch broadcast TV, how many of them don't reflexively hit Mute when the ads come on. I've done it my entire life.
- emodendroket 5y agoHow will I know the game's back on if I do that?
- gumby 5y agoAs long as you don’t check your phone you could use a TiVo-ish delay, so you could just jump over the ads and continue
- emodendroket 5y agoGiven how many ads there are that'd have to be a pretty substantial delay
- spullara 5y agoMost of the people still watching broadcast TV are older than people that have had a mute button their entire life.
- prawn 5y agoWent around to friends’ place for dinner the other month and they had TV news and ads blaring in the background the entire time, no one paying attention. I can’t stand TV or radio ads and it was like chalkboard fingernails all evening.
- mrweasel 5y agoWhen you are not exposed to ads constantly it become clear just how obnoxious they are. I think advertisers have been dialing up the attention grabbing features over the years, and those constantly exposed don’t notice. Those who haven’t been watching now experience being exposed to the equivalent of ten babies crying for your attention. It’s truly and attack on your senses and sanity, but you have to remove yourself from it for a time to see how bad it is.
- hetspookjee 5y agoId dream of a raspberry pie plugin that has a mic & IR transmitter that just listens to ads or any semblance of it and just hits mute the moment the confidence interval goes beyond 90% based on the rise in ampltitude. False positives would be straining though, and finding the moment to un-mute is also a bit difficult perhaps. But given that all ads have their loudness dialed up to 11 in relation to the actual program, it might be easy enough to just listen to a large drop in amplitude across the frequency spectrum to hit un-mute. This can be completely off-the-grid with incidental updates if so desired. Could even put some federated learning into the bag for a slight dystopian flavour - and that sweet VC allure - to also listen to people hitting mute & unmute as a semi-reliable labelling feature. Just sample the time window recording of the frequency spectrum and it may be good enough already. It wouldn't be foolproof but just good enough I guess. I'd be willing to pay 200$ for a ad silencing IR transmitter with >90% recall.
- jaycar 5y agoyou should fork sponsorblock.
- stonogo 5y agoHave at it: https://circuitcellar.com/research-design-hub/projects/build-a-tv-commercial-killer/ https://circuitcellar.com/research-design-hub/projects/build... The device you would pay $200 for used to cost $40: https://bgr.com/general/mute-tv-commercials-automatically-how-to/ https://bgr.com/general/mute-tv-commercials-automatically-ho...
- squarefoot 5y agoAI could come to help: a powerful enough dedicated hardware could decode HDMI signals, match the audio/video with the known fingerprint of an ad, substitute it with say a tropical beach or some mountains with a soft jazz music background and a small countdown in a corner "ads end in: mm:ss", then resume the program at the predicted end. The fingerprint would be taken by the users by pushing a button to mark each spot start and end so that the AI can recognize it and upload to a central server that would aggregate all data. The system should have a buffer long enough to allow watchers to rewind to the exact start and end of the spot, and to allow the AI to analyze the data before showing it to the watchers, however a very long buffer could be even more handy to wait for the entire program to end, then process it so that every ad is removed and the program joined back together with no interruptions. Doable? Yes, but would need a lot of work and some money for the hardware. Probably also overkill since pretty much all programs are already available ads free on decentralized torrent swarms.
- jonathankoren 5y agoI find it weird and disturbing that my kids pay more attention to commercials — not even kid commercials — than the actual show.
- gumby 5y agoBack when I used to travel for business I would watch the tv sometimes in the hotel. I just watched the ads, because they had the high production value. While a 30-minute (really 22 minutes) show might cost $3MM an episode, a 30 second ad could easily cost a million to make. And in that 30 seconds was a perfect short story: a crisis, a bit of character development, then a resolution and a denouement. I could watch a bunch of them, usually about products I’d never seen before, and skip the crappy show.
- chaircher 5y agoMy grandad used to do this! I thought he was the only one. My mother had a really obnoxious attitude towards the television. Probably because of this I don't have a TV at all and am always suprised by the amount of people who immediately notice when they visit my house.
- meheleventyone 5y ago90% of active ad watching in the US is probably from tourists watching with morbid fascination. I know it’s one of the things I do when bored in a hotel room.
- cookie_monsta 5y agoI'm so glad this isn't just me. I especially enjoy the disclaimers at the end of pharmaceutical ads.
- Lev1a 5y agoI wonder if it's the same as in German pharma ads, which end with a grey screen with the following text in white font: "Zu Risiken und Nebenwirkungen fragen Sie Ihren Arzt oder Apotheker." which translates to: "Concerning risks and side effects please ask your doctor or pharmacist."
- cookie_monsta 5y agoOh, no these things are hilarious. They actually name all the possible individual side effects (some of which sound much worse than the original condition) but it's done in a voiceover that's played at like 2x the original speed.
- ako 5y agoNever done the mute thing, but would record everything with a humax recorder, and just start viewing late. This way you can just skip the ads completely. Unfortunately this doesn’t work with tv apps on the Apple TV. So mostly stopped watching tv. Ads completely ruin tv watching.
- thanatos519 5y agoI had no broadcast TV for 25 years until a few years ago. Whenever I encountered TV watchers, I was also amazed that they didn't mute ads, but I still found the interruption extremely irritating. Now, here in The Netherlands with my KPN TV-over-fiber connection, I can skip around in a show, but I can't skip over ads on many channels. The device sometimes doesn't even let me mute during an ad! I can independently mute or switch video inputs, so it's basically forcing me to either hear or see an ad. I pay about the same for Netflix. So obnoxious.
- oneeyedpigeon 5y agoHow do you know when the ads are finished so you can unmute?
- Lev1a 5y agoSometimes the ads are interrupted by a TV show or a movie.
- oneeyedpigeon 5y agoWhich means you either need to pay active attention to the muted ads—something that sounds worse than having them on in the background, imo—or you run a risk of missing part of whatever film/tv show you're watching—again, I'd rather just make the sacrifice of having the ads on and not paying attention to them.
- matheusmoreira 5y agoI mute ads too. I don't understand why anyone would actually want to listen to this noise.
- waynesonfire 5y agohow about the dentist office, playing a traditional over-the-air radio station featuring your favorite Sting song and an ad for car audio system, instead of an ad-free streaming service. Called out my dentist on this and he listened.
- adrianmonk 5y agoI haven't done it my entire life. When I was a kid, TVs didn't have mute buttons or remote controls. Therefore, I got very good at mentally tuning ads out. I can watch an ad 100 times yet not be able to tell you what they said, what happened in it, or what product it's for. Sometimes I mute now, but only when the ad is top 10% annoying. It's often easier to just tune out the ads than to remember to unmute.
- earthboundkid 5y agoI think to be a mute-ant you had to come of age in the 80s/90s after the remote and cable but before DVR and steaming. My wife didn’t have cable so can’t mute to save her life.
- melling 5y agoYeah, and when I don’t head out for a 3 minute commercial break, I have the mute button ready next to me.
- lukeholder 5y agoI have always felt that legacy media; the TV, Magazines, Newspapers had massively over-stated eyeball numbers.
- pishpash 5y agoWhich begs the question, have advertisers ever actually measured effect scientifically, and whether the arms race of acquiring eyeballs for no net position change will collapse.
- spullara 5y agoNot until now, which is why Facebook was making so much money before they got kneecapped.
- shiftpgdn 5y agoHalf my advertising spend is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half.
- derefr 5y agoThen take half of your advertising spend and redirect it into market research. (I.e. add on the bottom of your purchase receipts, email marketing blasts, etc, something like "$10 coupon if you tell us something about yourself"; where "something about yourself" = "which if any of these advertising campaigns did you actually see.")
- onion2k 5y agoI think that's a clever quip made by a man who just wanted to keep his marketing budget without being asked to justify what he spent it on.
- shiftpgdn 5y agoIt’s repeated often enough I think it’s well grounded in reality.
- COil 5y agoNot only empty rooms, but also without sound.
- drewcoo 5y agoIsn't that why they're so loud? At least I assume they still are.
- andhuman 5y agoExactly, this isn't really news to the media companies.
- barrystaes 5y agoShit, they found out?
- simooooo 5y ago
- Animats 5y agoI'm surprised that streaming boxes don't pause the stream when no one is looking, so the consumer has to watch the ads to continue play. This could be marketed as a feature.
- shakna 5y agoThat's the plan for the new Moviepass. [0] [0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/akvnba/moviepass-20-wants-to-track-your-eyeballs-to-make-sure-you-watch-ads https://www.vice.com/en/article/akvnba/moviepass-20-wants-to...
- Animats 5y agoAnd it has NFTs!
- tdeck 5y agoIf they haven't seen that episode of Black Mirror let's not give them any ideas.
- tobr 5y agoThey seem more than capable of coming up with terrible ideas themselves. https://www.fastcompany.com/90185994/sony-files-patent-to-make-tv-ads-into-video-games https://www.fastcompany.com/90185994/sony-files-patent-to-ma...
- webmobdev 5y agoYou are an evil genius - I hope you always suffer with ads in your dreams.
- friedturkey 5y agoI'm always fearful of posting my tech nightmares on HN because so many people here work in industries that exist just to fry brains with ads. Probably most are rolling their eyes saying "We're not that evil." But somebody is thinking "Hmmm."
- travisgriggs 5y agoThe sad thing is I can just hear a marketing execs response to this revelation: “Sooo… I guess we’ll need to up our air time by a third, huh?”
- tromp 5y agoTo compensate for losing a third, you'd need to up it by a half: (1+1/2) * 2/3 = 1.
- travisgriggs 5y agoAnd the marketing exec would just stare at you with a glazed eye when that was your response.
- taylorius 5y agoIt's almost as if, despite the millions spent on engaging their audience, no-one wants to watch their crap emissions.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rabuse 5y agoThe last time I watched TV (awhile back), it was an NFL game, and the ads were absolutely unbearable. I'm shocked people still pay for cable.
- ghaff 5y agoI think you answered your own question. A lot of people want the ability to watch sports. (And, while they're paying for it anyway many like the TV as background.)
- russellbeattie 5y agoOnly half of all advertising actually works, the problem is no one knows which half.
- fortyseven 5y agoOh no.
- allenu 5y agoI often sit through ads when watching sports on TV because I can’t be bothered to reach for the remote to mute it. However, when I watch YouTube on my phone, I instantly mute the device and look away as soon as an ad plays. After a few seconds I look back at the device so I can hit the skip button. It always seems like a waste of bandwidth for them to play ads to me, but I assume my behavior isn’t in the majority.
- tifik 5y agoI stopped using the YT app and just use the website with ublock origin enabled. Didnt see a YT ad in years. Edit: typo
- withinboredom 5y agoI’ve been bored and started using my phone a few times. As soon as an ad starts. I stop the app, start it again. Or just watch it in the thumbnail with cc.
- freeflight 5y agoI like watching YouTube stuff on my iPad to fall asleep, but at times the ads can make that real difficult, and I have yet to find a way to block them on the tablet. PiHole allegedly helps with that, but afaik PiHole is only a DNS blacklister, and I already have blocked Google adservers troguh my router, tho that does not seem to help with ads in the YouTube mobile/tablet app.
- aceki 5y agoI know AdGuard[0] claims to have the ability of blocking YouTube ads in Safari, but I also believe it's behind an IAP. Alternatively, an Invidious instance[1] will play videos without ads. It doesn't work for music videos (thanks DRM!), and I believe you have to set the video quality to DASH in Invidious's settings for Safari to be able to play it. Not as convenient as YouTube, sure, but if you hate ads enough I think it's worth it. [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-adblock-privacy/id1047223162 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-adblock-privacy/id1047... [1] https://redirect.invidious.io https://redirect.invidious.io
- jurmous 5y agoIt is always funny to see how watching TV can be so differently culturally. With my Spanish in-law family the TV is on almost the whole day in the background, even during big family dinners as background sound. With often news, sports or game shows. With their late dinner times of 9pm they often watch series and movies even later. And here in the Netherlands it is with many a sin to have the TV on in the background if there are visitors and should only be on if you watch something together.
- mongol 5y agoIs it cultural? I see those differences within my own family.
- permalac 5y agoMy family is also Spanish/catalan and the TV is always off, only turned on when seeing something together. Mi wife family, just some km away, they have the TV on during all they long, it freaks me out. My toddler is the one that shuts it down for them, because he 'can not hear them' if TV is on.
- anthomtb 5y agoI spent my entire childhood in the USA. Every friends house seemed to have different TV habits. No TV at all, TV always on, TV on but commercials muted. I don’t think it’s a cultural phenomenon at all.
- nicoburns 5y agoDepending on how you define cultural, it's entirely possible that TV watching culture varies within your family.
- nature556 5y agoI think it's generational as well. I haven't had cable since I moved out of my parents' place after HS.
- skerit 5y agoI'm from Belgium, I hate it when I'm at a friend and the TV goes on (or someone starts to show a youtube video, lol)
- dessant 5y agoSome TVs now come with a camera, brace for a camera-based presence detection API to show up in web standards and TV operating systems. https://electronics.sony.com/tv-video/televisions/all-tvs/p/xr55a95k https://electronics.sony.com/tv-video/televisions/all-tvs/p/... https://electronics.sony.com/tv-video/televisions/television-accessories/p/cmubc1 https://electronics.sony.com/tv-video/televisions/television...
- theGeatZhopa 5y agoThis is truly horrible and dystopian the Sony-Ericsson K800 was the last thing I bought from Sony. Even didn't bought the PlayStation. They need to go down.
- alpaca128 5y agoIt is horrible but definitely not exclusive to Sony. Microsoft's Kinect, the always-on 3D camera/mic that could have been used to read people's facial expressions while watching ads. I'm glad it failed. Google speakers which have a microphone array they use to measure the shape and size of your room. Definitely only for acoustic purposes of course... And some people pay money for that, which makes me fear this might become standard in all kinds of devices. Those things aren't even that great in terms of features. In movies like "I, robot" the machine overlords were at least useful for cooking.
- userbinator 5y agoIt's like the old Soviet Russia joke. Except, it's not a joke...
- danuker 5y agoTo anyone curious: search for "Russian reversal"
- Galaxeblaffer 5y agoYes, blame communism, very clever comment.
- rawland 5y agoFor this research, the co-authors worked with TVision Insights, a TV performance metrics company that developed innovative technology to passively monitor who’s in the room and whether they’re actually looking at what’s on the TV screen, while respecting viewer privacy. Sure... the whole setup is very privacy respecting. "Research" like this makes me wonder how the subject of economics ever entered the halls of academe. While writing this I'm wondering if the Frankfurt school of thought or Chomsky might have explained this actually already.
- withinboredom 5y agoIf I were a kid and my parents signed up for something like that, I’d set up a “fake human” so the camera would think someone was always watching. Or sit off to the side.
- nerdponx 5y agoWhat does this have to do with economics as a field?
- emodendroket 5y agoCan't help but notice that as soon as Web advertising made it feasible to see how much advertising led directly to purchase rates plummeted.
- bruce343434 5y agoIn that sentence, What’s the subject of the verb “plummeted”? Is “purchase rates” both acting as an object and a subject? I’m confused and can’t parse your comment.
- everythingctl 5y agos/purchase/purchase,/
- emodendroket 5y ago"rates" i.e., Once advertisers could measure how effective their ads were, they were no longer willing to pay as much
- TheChaplain 5y agoConsidering how technology develops, I could very well see a future where we are forced to watch/acknowledge ads before the actual content continues. I think there was a movie with something like that, if the guy closed his eyes, the ad would pause and wait until he looked again. I hope I am too cynical...
- Un1corn 5y agoIt was in Black Mirror. IIRC he was surrounded with screens in his room and was forced to watch ads
- robert_dipaolo 5y agoThere was a Black Mirror episode 15 Million Merits [1] where you either had to watch the ads (actually look at the screen) or pay to skip them! 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
- albert_e 5y agounder-screen selfie cameras on phones will eventually take us there put 4 or 6 cameras and analyze your gaze to figure out what part of screen you are paying attention to and if your pupils dilate when you see a product/model picture I wonder if some UI and navigation can become interactive based on gaze too obviously it will be ruined just like pop-ups and modals
- danuker 5y agoIf that happens, I'll stop watching said content.
- ghaff 5y agoPeople seem to forget that if you make watching content too painful, opting out is always an option.
- freeflight 5y ago> I could very well see a future where we are forced to watch/acknowledge ads before the actual content continues. I wonder if skipping YouTube ads is already used in a similar way? Pressing that small "skip" button is a user interaction that acknowledges the users attention to the ad, and there is usually a minimum time the ad has to run before it can even be triggered. So having an ad run for 5-10 seconds, with a manual skip, might possibly be a more impactful "impression" then the ads just running trough, without a skip, as most likely nobody is paying attention to them in the very first place.
- ultramegachurch 5y agoTangentially related - there’s a certain sublimity to watching cable tv commercials in 2022. I’m completely converted to streaming, so the only time I see tv commercials is at my parents house. And in that context, I find myself enjoying them? Perhaps it’s nostalgia - they remind me of media when I was growing up. There’s also an element of escapism. Everybody in commercials is beautiful and happy. And then there’s the hyper capitalism Alice-in-wonderland spectacle of it all. Commercials are strange and ridiculous. I enjoy the absurdity of it. I don’t miss cable television commercials. But they provide a unique lens into how strange it is to be a person at all.
- eru 5y agoMight be similar to what many people experience when they browse through old magazines and newspapers?
- ncpa-cpl 5y agoWith so many ads and modal boxes in newspaper websites, I've recently find the paper newspaper a better experience recently.
- eru 5y agoAds in print have always been a better experience than ads in most other media. Newspapers typically get / got most of their revenue from ads, more than from subscription or selling papers. An example I heard a few years ago (don't quote me on the actual numbers): the Economist makes about 10 dollars on ads for every issue they sell. Almost no one would opt to buy a version of the print Economist that costs 10 dollars more to avoid the ads. In contrast, broadcast TV makes about 20 cents on one viewer watching for an hour. Quite a few people would be willing to pay 20 cents to skip ads for an hour. In that sense of (hypothetical) willingness to pay, ads in print are more economically efficient than ads in broadcast TV.
- original_idea 5y agohahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha gasp hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahah
- Borrible 5y agoYes, but compare that with the two-thirds TV content that is empty. If the commercials were of better quality (script, directing and so on), the problem would solve itself.
- nottorp 5y ago... and nearly a third of TV shows play to a sleeping audience.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- m4tthumphrey 5y agoI don't think I watch anything that even has TV ads anymore. Live sports probably are the only thing. Netflix Plex Prime Disney Plus YouTube (I guess they have ads but not the same) Mobile game ads on the other hand... Urgh.
- listenallyall 5y agoIt's not a flex when you "avoid ads" (which you don't, what are the Netflix/Prime/Disney etc home pages except ads for more tv consumption) by committing to $60 per month of streaming.
- cookie_monsta 5y agoSure it's a flex. Avoiding ads isn't about saving money, it's about not having vacuous nonsense pumped into your brain uninvited.
- listenallyall 5y agoLol... look at me, I'm an independent thinker who isn't subject to corporate influence of "vacuous nonsense"! Well, except for Google, Amazon, Disney and Netflix. Can you comprehend how ridiculous you sound?
- cookie_monsta 5y agoNot sure where to start on this one. a) there's some quality content on Netflix, Amazon, Disney. Even youtube has hidden gems, although you definitely have to dig or be in the know. If you choose to watch vacuous nonsense on n those platforms, that's your choice b) and related is that the key word you left out there was "uninvited". I'm quite happy to watch vacuous nonsense when I choose. Sometimes that's what I'm in the mood for. It feels different when it's rammed down your throat Basically, you're conflating two separate but often adjacent things - mainstream content and corporate advertising. The whole point of streaming is that you can have the first without having the second which is kind of unprecedented in recent entertainment history. If your meta-point was to prove how cool you are because you eschew the mainstream then... congrats?
- robertlagrant 5y agoWait for Chrome to get volume control access permissions so YouTube ads can pause if you muted them.
- Sebb767 5y agoYouTube is a strange outlier in that they still tolerate adblockers despite them being very easy to block (at least in the 99% case), so I don't think they'll be the first to implement this.
- jessaustin 5y agoOne suspects that those who run youtube also use it...
- Kwpolska 5y agoNah, I’d expect the entire YouTube team to have premium accounts.
- kzrdude 5y agoIt seems like Twitch really managed to avoid adblockers being effective. And their ads are mostly not insane (game or cinema related mostly).
- endymi0n 5y agoSo what? 99% of print ads go to trashcans unread. That's factored in by everyone buying those as well. If anything the numbers should be "better" for TV these days: As when I was a kid, ad breaks were toilet and toothbrush breaks and I barely watched through any of them. These days modern midrolls are designed to be too short for that, but just long enough to be bearable.
- rcarmo 5y agoI think the advertising industry is well on its way to obsolescence in many ways. I pay zero attention to TV or YouTube commercials (I either skip them or am not watching linear TV in most of the time), adblock everything, and just look for something more interesting the moment I come across an ad. (and I seldom go back to anything, site, app or TV channel, that doesn't let me skip ads.) Then again I'm not in the US and am not a football fan (which I suspect is one of the drivers behind the timing of this article), but I believe we now have, worldwide, two entire generations of people who mentally blank out any form of advertising they come across. It just doesn't register unless it's fun or goes viral, and even then people recognize it for the outright manipulation that it really is. I can't wait for that bubble to burst.
- amelius 5y agoI'm waiting for an AI or collaborative system to turn off the sound/screen whenever ads are playing. Something like Shazam, but for ads, and with on/off control over my TV.
- jarek83 5y agoI wonder always whether the ad buyers genuinely believe that someone is up there to watch an ad, or actually even with extremely low return ratio per money spent they still manage to get measurable more sales in return. Maybe few times in my life I was remotely considering buying something because of an ad, while 99,99% of them make me switch channels, or mute the TV/radio until they end. I'm ad blind on social media, not to mention I use ad-blockers wherever I can. To me it's like buying thin air, and how this market is able to get serious companies spent millions on it is beyond me.
- joelthelion 5y agoBecause contrary to your assumption, it does work. Not everyone behaves like you. And simply hearing about a brand influences our collective decisions, even if no single ad convinces you.
- theduder99 5y agoyeah I think ads can also serve as a reminder. for example I'll typically get a pizza once a month. if i see a little caesars ad on tv it will remind me 'oh yeah I like pizza and havent one in awhile' so the task moves closer to the front of the queue. I may not end up going to little caesars specifically to get my pizza fix but I might..
- jarek83 5y agoSo you are commenting that ads work under an article that just gives some insight that people don't even watch them? Where your assumption comes from?
- DarylZero 5y agoIt takes years to get hardened to advertising and stop spending money based on it. There is a sucker born every minute.
- jordanpg 5y agoAds, in whatever medium, are fundamentally bad UX. Not to mention utterly without value and a waste of precious human attention. It is always breathtaking to consider how much has been built on the back of advertising, I guess because there is no better option. But always remember that it is fundamentally bad UX: content providers forcing consumers to do something unpleasant, that they would rather not do, in exchange for the content. Nobel Peace Prize to the person or organization who figures out the business model to take us beyond this absurd paradigm.
- wodenokoto 5y ago> Ads, in whatever medium, are fundamentally bad UX. I'm gonna take that sentence to it's logical conclusion and rebut it with "I like that restaurants have signs, and I appreciate when I can see the menu from the outside"
- hogrider 5y agoJust let me pay with cash for the damn thing you're selling me with ads currently.
- alanbernstein 5y agoI suppose it's the original "if you're not paying, you're the product". Ads can be an excellent UX for the actual users of the service - the advertisers.
- Lamad123 5y agoProbably 2 3'rds of internet ads play yo sleeping gamers, bots or people taking toilet breaks.
- bshep 5y agoI rarely watch broadcast TV. I mainly watch streaming content with no ads. Whenever I do watch something over regular channel ( ex. my wife wanting to watch something thats not streamed ) the ads disgust me and the interruptions are super annoying, it just reminds me why i dont watch broadcast tv anymore and re-inforces my behavior.
- tonyoconnell 5y agoNearly 80% of emails are unopened
- beepbooptheory 5y agoOften put on various Cat TV channels from YouTube on before leaving for work. They are usually like 8 hour long shots of birds and squirrels eating nuts someone left on log, the cats love it and will watch diligently. They are monetized channels often enough, and its just funny to me knowing that every once in a while the cats, who are otherwise alone in the house, are being treated to a commercial for some sports betting service, or for profit college experience. This entire edifice of targeted ads being directed to two cats who suddenly experience a very human moment in this absurd context. Can't help but feel like they sense it, that they are suddenly interpolated into this thing, subjects to the streams of money and incentived attention. brought down into our inferior world of commodities and money. Have been close to getting the premium YouTube just for their sake, and of course for the sake of the nice people making the videos.
- mastax 5y agoLast I checked YouTube premium doesn't pay out for your views like ads do. It goes into a single pot that is split amongst creators based on their views or ad revenue (can't remember).
- sfe22 5y agoCant be ad revenue, it would be stupid. But going into a pot Spotify style is also evil and not fair.
- thrownblown 5y agoYour monthly subscription fee minus a little off the top is split by your watch time amongst those you watch.
- mastax 5y ago> Currently, new revenue from YouTube Premium membership fees is distributed to video creators based on how much members watch your content. As with our advertising business, most of the revenue will go to creators https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zippy=%2Cwill-creators-still-be-paid-with-youtube-premium%2Chow-can-i-cross-check-whether-my-payment-amount-is-correct%2Chow-is-revenue-figured-out https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zipp... It's pretty vague, but my reading of this is that it's paid out of a single pool based on the watch time of all YouTube Premium Members. So e.g. if you only watch one video a month, that creator doesn't get all of your money.
- citizenpaul 5y agoI think this is common knowledge. Its always puzzled me why advertisers expect the unbelievably detailed metrics and proof of effectiveness for online ads and only want to pay pennies. Yet they are happy to toss millions into the void for TV advertisements. I guess since there is no way to know if the ads work its just "we've always done it that way.
- lamontcg 5y agoA lot of this is due to many services doing autoplay with no way to turn it off (YouTubeTV, ESPN+ on Roku, etc). There's a utility to autoplay for the consumer when they are binge watching a particular series. But when autoplay is picking random other shows to "simulate linear TV" then really its the service scamming advertisers taking advantage of this playing ads to an empty room effect just to get more impressions. I don't understand how advertisers don't bust them for it.
- iamstupidsimple 5y agoAdvertisers measure outcomes, not raw impressions. Because everything is auction based there's a natural market correction based on this, so impressions could e.g. be worth 1/3 less come bidding time.
- sys_64738 5y agoThe greatest invention on a television surely has to be the mute button on the infrared remote control. When commercials are muted then you realize how stupid they generally are and how they think people are idiots.
- jameshart 5y agoI mean, with broadcast TV, ads play regardless, and they play to everyone - to receivers that aren’t even turned on, or are tuned to a different channel. That seems little different to having the ad make it through but only to a TV in an empty room to me.
- jtaft 5y ago> tracked ad viewership using tools that, instead of just monitoring the television, measured actual viewer presence in the room, and focal attention on the screen What are these tools and how do they measure?
- hendersoon 5y agoI haven't watched an advertisement since 1999, when I bought my first TiVo.
- kazinator 5y agoI love the commercials on Japanese TV. They are art. Visually captivating, well-produced, and and also often feature famous actors or other celebrities.