International Presentation

Or pre-1995 Sky?

TV4 causing a bit of a stir on the internet today - apparently showing adverts during programming by muting and shrinking the programming to show the commercials:

https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/b8lxrs/this_tv_channel_minimizes_and_mutes_the_currently/

However, I’m pretty sure this is an overreaction to a technical gaffe? Looks like something that is usually played at credits.

I do think it may be likely a technical fault, there's no way that this practice would stay. And even if it was intentional, why didn't they just add a banner at the bottom promoting other channels? Sure, it'd interrupt the viewing but at least you could still technically watch a program without being bombarded with ads.

It is usually played during credits. I suppose if you're not well versed in the whys and wherefores of TV like we are on here, you could be forgiven for thinking that that was done on purpose. To me, it was pretty obvious that that was a mistake. Someone who works for TV2 in Denmark wrote this:



I'm assuming where it says 'this was a case of intentional asshole design', it should read 'this wasn't a case of intentional asshole design'.

Good old problem of pre-recorded continuity and incorrect time codes.


Someone's who's been on the playout side has done a blog post on this issue:
http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/01/on-automation/#rf1-3311

This has happened to me, when a programme in the broadcast system has incorrect been flagged as being able to take a Credit Squeeze.

They sure need to put their pitchforks down then! I knew it looked unintentional, only thing I can think of that’s similar is TV billboards I think they have in Australia? But that’s where the show is zoomed out slightly with an ad/sponsor shop played around - unless my mind is playing tricks on me and I’ve just made that up

Yeah those advert pop ups (not promotion - literally, adverts) are commonly used on Canadian Television, as well CTV and Global to be exact.

Japan had on-screen advertisements a long time ago. Here's a passage from The Universal Eye, a 1972 book about television around the world by Timothy Green:

"[...] with Japanese flair they have developed simultaneous programmes and advertising; the message is superimposed over the continuing programme with no commercial break. So just as the samurai drama reaches its climax, a caption flashes up FLY JAPAN AIRLINES, BUY SAKURA COLOR FILM, or DRINK HONEY WINE, before the struggling swordsmen on the screens. Sponsors normally have three of these plugs in each half-hour. At news time, the sponsor's name is superimposed over the breast pocket of the news reader as he gives the headlines. The blending of ads with programmes may well seem the nadir of commercial television, yet in some ways it is much less distracting than an actual commercial break at the crucial moment in a film or play, especially as the ad is never more than a three, or four-word caption. It is not more worrying than a subtitle in a foreign movie."

I remember similar on-screen advertisements during live ski jumping coverage in 1980s Slovenia -- and Slovenia was still a part of communist Yugoslavia then!

Is this not the same (or similar) to what’s done on BT Sport just before kick off in a Premier League game, where Ray Winstone pops up with an ad for bet365?

Remembering that Malta does this all the time too on TVM especially during Eurovision preshows - Look at around 0:15

ARD never used to close down with the (West) German national anthem until May 1985. Originally, they'd play the anthem with the words to it on screen, and by 1987, a vocal version was played with aerial shots of western German cities including Hamburg, Kiel and Hanover. They'd often change the images shown during closedown to static images of various sights.

In 1989, the anthem film showed various political figures in post-war German history like in this video.
Here's an example of a closedown from 1994 with a beautiful violin version of Deutschlandlied, originally used once on the 20th July 1979 to commemorate the anniversary of the 20th July plot attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler by Claus von Stauffenberg.


Here is the special 20th July plot version as well. The anthem starts at around the 5:39 mark

At one point Bayerisches Fernsehen went to the trouble of closing down with the Bayernhyme, the Deutschelandlied, and Ode to Joy for good measure.