Netflix saves children from 150 hours of commercials annually

http://exstreamist.com/report-netflix-saves-children-from-150-hours-of-commercials-a-year/

28 12 10 years ago

tracker1• 10 years ago

This is a very good thing... Given that how susceptible we all are to commercials, children are particularly trusting of commercial information. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day..." "You need milk to grow, and build strong bones and muscles..." Not to mention ads for toys, candy, fast food, etc.

Although I'm skeptical about the amount of TV that everyone watches (myself included), having mostly ad-free sources of entertainment for children is a great option imho. And by mostly, I'm meaning product placements, and products based on a given title itself.

brador• 10 years ago

Very naive. Commercials won't go away, they will be embeeded within the content. Product placement, paid sponserships, influencers.

You will always get ads so long as it remains profitable.

dalke2• 10 years ago

There are some workarounds. There are old shows, where the product placements are no longer relevant. "Mom! The Shadow says we should buy Blue Coal." (Yes, that's a radio show; how about the Zima sign in a Babylon 5 episode?)

Or old shows which were funded by other sources, like Fraggle Rock.

There are also foreign shows, like ones from the BBC, which aren't allowed to use product placement, or where the products aren't available local.

That said, most kids want to watch what their friends watch. I doubt "The Vicar of Dibley" will be popular among US kids, making my proposal mostly theoretical.

After thinking about it for a bit, if such workarounds prove popular, the provider will likely start inserting product placement into the shows digitally, after the fact. So, umm, nevermind.

anonbanker• 10 years ago

You're making the best case for piracy, which is still the superior way to watch television currently. I've been a cord-cutter since 2002, and my children have seen remarkably few advertisements in their lives. Combined with identifying embedded advertisements like you described, I've been able to raise media-savvy children thanks to piracy's superior experience.

superuser2• 10 years ago

My suspension of disbelief is blown every single time I see a laptop with its logo removed, de-badged car, fake name substituted for a real store or news outlet, etc.

It's tacky when they start taking about the benefits of some product, or use something inappropriate to the context, but I want to see actual products (appropriate to the period, location, characters, socioeconomic status, etc) because the alternative is so bad.

fwn• 10 years ago

That's probably good - unless all the advertising money goes to comparatively hidden ad formats as native ads or stuff like product placement.

Because if ads were not to disappear, I wouldn't know whether I'd necessarily prefer hidden formats.

benologist• 10 years ago

... and then Ashton Kutcher makes absolutely sure you can see the Muscle Milk logo every episode of The Ranch.

timthorn• 10 years ago

s/Netflix/BBC/

smashmiek• 10 years ago

It's a great point, but consider that most of the shows for kids are just ads for the toys they'll see in the toy shop.

Netflix saves children from 150 hours of commercials annually

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