What p*sses me off… TV, and more specifically, Aunty

These days (nights, I suppose I mean) telly viewing often gets me cranky, because the program content accessible to me is limited. My own fault: I’m one of your Never-Watch-Commercial-TV people.  I simply can’t stand the ads. It’s not just the things themselves, they’re bad enough, but the constant and increasing interruptions to shows’ content that make me fly into a temper. And believe me, I mean A TEMPER.  I have been known to leap to my feet in rage, causing the cat to fly off my lap then rush away, terrified, to hide under the bed for a while. Such occasions are now virtually done away with.

I recently had a Eureka moment – quite different from my usual Senior moments, and started to record the odd show/movie on SBS that I wanted to see, thus being able to speed through those ghastly ads, later (and on SBS, they really are ghastly, are they not?).

Anyway, you have by now deduced that I watch the ABC and only the ABC in terms of what’s being telecast at any time.

I reckon it’s pretty true to say that this largely keeps me … happy? content? placid? … most likely the last of those three adjectives. Aunty doesn’t usually raise my ire – EXCEPT by her non-program material, which is getting to the point where it’s almost as bad as the other channels’ commercials.

Let me itemise the non-program stuff you see on Aunty:

1. TV promos (promotions) are trailers for forthcoming programs; and are excerpts from actual program material, whether already shown or forthcoming.

2. TV ads (advertisements) are compiled by a small team of production personnel for the purpose of selling something.

3. TV idents (identifiers) are also compiled, and are the most creative of the three: they’re themed images clearly associated with Aunty, often spread across many of her programs, and used just before a program starts (which means that can also be a playoff, signalling a program’s end).

The first, the promos, have long since become so horribly flogged that by the time a program gets to air we feel as if we know it by heart, even though we know bloody well that the promo has only been a couple of minutes from it. But those couple of minutes have been screened and re-screened so frequently in the week preceding that it’s easy to feel we’ve seen so much we must’ve covered the whole spectrum, surely …? Because we don’t actually watch the damned things – I do wish I could persuade Aunty of this – after the first viewing.

The second, the ads, are simply awful. I can’t recall a single one that’s tempted me for a nanosecond to purchase something from the ABC Shop (and I mean even if I didn’t know that anything non-Aunty-specific I can buy more cheaply from just about anywhere else). Aunty would never agree that these are “advertisements”, of course, but they are: that’s what advertising is! – and how she thinks she can fool us, I don’t know!

The third, the station I.D.s (idents) … well, dunno about you; but I get as sick of them after a few weeks as I do of the promos. They’re so … so … UBIQUITOUS. The ones that make me crossest are the compilations of the whole kit’n’boiling: I detest seeing bits of every single one. And I always feel as if whatever is the current theme has been running far, far longer than any other: by which I mean that the thought bubbles of today seem to’ve been drifting all over my Bravia for about ten years. 😐

As well, these can come badly adrift, as per the complaint on an erstwhile ABC messageboard (see? – it ain’t just me), as quoted:
“I am really sick of those station ID’s that are run before each ABC1 program… I feel like I want to scream when I see and hear that farmer, conductor, SES worker, midwife, architect and Andy Murihead for the millionth time!”

Those several years ago no-one had any idea of the forthcoming hideousness to befall Aunty’s “Collectors”.

In spite of this grizzle, I do comprehend that the basic problem is one of airtime. Most program material is made for commercial television (even a lot of stuff from the UK) and that means roughly 15 minutes of … well, space left over in terms of an hour’s schedule. Aunty sometimes manages to come up with series of little shorts to fill these with, of which “Minuscule” is everyone’s favourite – except that we reached the point where we were seeing some for the 6th or 7th time …

And therein lies the heart of Aunty’s infuriatingly relentless re-showing of whatever she has the rights to.  She won’t acknowledge there are people watching her every evening, over several hours, and she schedules her promos, ads and idents as if we simply pop in from time to time.
Come to think of it, she does it with programs, too! – how many of you saw that episode of “Grand Designs” about the couple of architects who built a house next to a railway line, with blue sandbags on one of its walls, as many times as I did …? I reckon it was five, minimum! 🙁

Do you grapple with similar TV dislikes?  Do you agree? 

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