The march of progress yields for no one and industries that do not adapt with technology will be left behind.
Cable companies have been falling all over themselves in alarm at the stampede of subscribers cutting the cord at growing rates year after year. One would think that such a trend would force companies to rethink their business strategies and adapt with technology to avoid becoming as obsolete as the VHS tape, but instead they tenaciously dig in their heels and seem to think instead, "how can we squeeze more revenue from the customers we have left? Oh I know! More ads!"
When analogue television broadcasting was introduced television was free and showed advertisements to pay for the service. A cable subscription meant that those users did not have to watch the ads. That was the trade-off: free TV meant ads, and paid TV meant none. What went wrong?
According to a study done by Nielsen, an organization that monitors consumer viewing trends, commercials have indeed been increasing in duration and frequency with each passing year. Consumers are now being inundated with advertisements, despite the hefty cost associated with a cable subscription.
Then the technology gods heard our prayers and the digital video recorder (DVR) was born.
But the cable companies will not go gentle into that good night. Instead, they have begun to insert ads along the bottom, while the actual show is playing, often obscuring a section of the picture, subtitles, or any other text that appears in the bottom quarter of the screen.
It isn't as though TV is the only culprit in the avalanche of ads. News media has largely moved to online platforms, and their websites are covered with advertisements not only along the top and sides of the page, but embedded within the stories themselves at regular intervals as well. Many of them are video commercials that auto-play with sound unless you have the setting disabled.
Between social media targeted ads, billboards, radio and television commercials, YouTube, and even professional sports team jerseys, consumers are tired of being slapped in the face with ads everywhere they look.
If companies want consumers to view their ads, they have to adapt with the times. People are not going to sit through your commercial breaks. They are not going to keep using services that bombard them with advertisements at every possible turn.
There has to be a balance, and the sooner companies realize that more ads in more places isn't the answer, the happier everyone - company and consumer alike - will be.
Darlana Robertson is a twentysomething writer from Calgary and a former Central Alberta resident.
