I'm not sure what those idiots over at TBS are thinking.
One of the shows I record and watch is Family Guy. Family guy runs on four networks in my area. TBS, the local Fox affiliate, USA and the Cartoon Network. So if I want to watch it, I've got a lot of options. TBS isn't offering anything I can't get somewhere else.
So what's different about TBS. Well the first thing is that during Family Guy, TBS will pause the show -- in the middle of a scene -- and run an ad for the Bill Engvall show. It's not bad enough that most advertising is awful and makes me actively resent the products being offered, but to pause a show in the middle of a scene just seems to show a total lack of respect for the viewer. And I'm not alone, searching for "Bill Engvall ads" on google brings up four complaints about the ads and one negative review in the first five google results. I'm not sure that a network could be more out of touch with what their viewers are thinking.
Consequently, I've taken TBS out of my DVR. You can only shit on your viewers when you're the only game in town. When you're offering something that I can get three other places, I'm going to get it somewhere else.
Normally I'd write some big long thing about creating value for your viewers as opposed to extracting value from them but in this case, it seems so obvious.
And I know the counter argument, that there are a lot of people who will watch TBS and not get annoyed enough to stop watching it. But if you think about it, TBS is running a pure numbers game here. They didn't create the Family Guy franchise; they're not making any money from DVD sales or any of the intellectual property associated with Family Guy. The only revenue stream is selling ads around Family Guy content and ads are priced on how many viewers they get. So in theory, every person like me that they piss off is a dollar they lose in ad revenue.
That's your business lesson for the day. Don't be TBS.
Edit to add: This is an interesting phenomenon. I know this is just an angry rant on my blog and we can all sit around and discuss how arguing on the internet is akin to winning the special Olympics but what happens when someone like Maddox shits all over orbitz? Does it matter when 2.6 million people see the article? How about a million? How about 500? At what point can you afford to just say "fuck that guy and everyone he is talking to?" Maybe I'm below that point, but is Yahoo! Answers?
Posted by Ben Corman at 8:27 PM