TV advertising sucks

It's worse when it's on public television! Barista has covered the move to have advertising during programmes on SBS television very well, so I thought I'd plug it here. (Also, see his earlier post here.)

Barista notes that while industry insiders are appalled at the move, they are:

…desperate for money, and culturally valuable television in Australia is deep in crisis caused, simple and entire, by the federal government’s brutal refusal to fund it properly at a time of huge surpluses.

I was appaled to hear it, but strangely not as appalled as when I heard the rumour (quickly quashed) earlier this year that advertising was to be introduced on the ABC. Perhaps that is because we have gotten used to ads between programmes on their chanel. The early critics of advertising on SBS were right: it was the thin end of the wedge.

What is so frustrating is that we are getting more and more dismayed at the consumerism and advertising on TV - especially when our five-year-old son watches commerical television. We already try to limit his television viewing – especially how much commercial TV he watches.

We felt that at least ABC and SBS could be our family's shelter from the belowing crassness and jingoism of advertising, our last footholds against consumerism. That's what makes this latest move so frustrating. What next? Turn off the TV?