Sunday, February 6, 2011

Super Bowl Annual Whine Updated

I complain every year about the Super Bowl feed in CanadaThis article explains the practice.  I understand that the local broadcaster wants his channel to get $$ for ad revenue.  I also have come to expect Canadian businesses to not really care about what their customers think:
"Every show that you get, and we have a pretty extensive simulcast schedule, you want to be able to max out on it on all platforms because we own the Canadian rights and we want our viewers to be able to watch the Canadian feed and not the U.S. one," Bastien said. "We're competing with the U.S. stations that are brought in by the cable distributors that are not part of the Canadian broadcast system and do not contribute to the Canadian broadcast system. We do."
And if you really need to see the Super Bowl ads, there are other options, says Bastien.
"They can continue to access it over the air with an antenna if they want," said Bastien. "And they'll all be available on the Internet that night or the next morning."

As the has been noted, we now do not "miss" the ads as we can get them on the internet.  And this year, we can get them even before the game as companies push their product early (the VW/Vader ad, for example).

My problem is now not really with missing the US commercials anymore.  It is that the Canadian feed just really, really sucks:
  1. The Canadian ads are usually not only older but played out.  They don't show relatively new ads but ones that have been cycling for months and months.  And what makes that worse is:
  2. The Montreal anglophone market must be too small, since we see the same ads over and over again in a half hour.  In one commercial break, you will often see the same ad twice.  In a half hour segment, you will often see the same ad several times.  So, the Super Bowl is frustrating because I will be watching for 3 plus hours and see the same ads over and over and over again.  What is great about the US feed is not just the newness of the ads but that there are new ads to be seen in the fourth quarter. Up here, we will be seeing the same Canadian Tire (think Sears) for the 15th time.
  3. The feed itself is pretty lousy.  That is, because they are showing a live event but substituting their own ads, the Canadian producers have to leave time after at the end of each commercial break.  So, they show a few seconds of video of one of their TV shows with some lame music.  Again and again and again.  If they had the US feed, you would not have this noise that gets increasingly irritating. 
So, that is my annual whine.  Enjoy the game!

Update at the end of the first half: Old ads with a few of the American ones imported.  No CA tire, better management of the feed with less annoying music/video to fill gaps.  

No comments: