FOM and adverts

The quadrennial FOM (Festival of Monomania), sometimes called the Olympics, is about half over. I've watched more than I thought I would. I had a creepy feeling that I didn't want to see any of it this year. But it isn't the sport, the narrowly focused athletes or the even the repetitive personality features getting dangerously close to being tedious that are my problem. The evening coverage just lasts too long. It's one thing during the day when it's close to real time, and there are several events to switch between if the waits get too long. But the evening coverage here is designed for one thing only: to sell commercials. It's all pre-recorded by the time those of us in the West see it. Take out all the needless shots of athletes standing/sitting around waiting and we could see the same events in three hours instead of four. People buying commercial time don't seem to understand diminishing returns. Are you really going to sell more cars if your ad runs in front of much the same audience 12 times in an evening instead of 9?

I'm well aware that commercials pay for what we see free on broadcast TV. The problem is that commercials and sponsorships during sports have long since turned into a game of their own. The place I was working at was offered the chance to be the official blah-blah business of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. I saw the letter myself. Why a small business, unrelated to sports, half way across the country would want to invest in that kind of advertising, I don't know. But I presume they found somebody in the same business to give them money for the same privilege. That was the year's Olympic organizers. I can imagine the kind of sales pitch major advertisers get from the TV network to buy commercial time.

I don't use ad blockers for the net. Except for awful full page pop ups, I don't care whether there are ads in front of me or not. I've gotten used to pop up information gathering quizzes to get to articles I want to read. Granted I'm never truthful in those (No, I've never heard of Coca Cola. No, I don't shop much. No I haven't seen ads for the product clearly displayed on the parts of the page not blanked out by the survey) and try to be as non-committal as possible. Once every couple weeks maybe an ad comes up on You-Tube I don't automatically skip through. So, yes, I will pay attention to an ad once in awhile. Advertising can be useful. But when I hear about Facebook feverishly battling ad blockers, I just shake my head. They are just forcing ads on people who have already voted not to see any ads. This just gets people disgusted with your service. Remember when there were no ads on cable TV? Is it a surprise that eventually pay TV subscriptions began to drop once there were just as many ads on cable TV as on broadcast?

So, getting back to FOM, would people really miss seeing eight peeks at the same athlete's parents in the stands instead of six peeks? I doubt it. Last night was the only night I've stayed up to the bitter end of the evening coverage this year, and let's face it the results for that event were broadcast on the same network's news before the coverage ever started. Diminishing returns people, diminishing returns.