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Analogue TV memories

Memories of analogue television (July 2018)

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KU
Kunst
London Lite posted:
In France, the PSB channels have a rule where they can't show any commercials in prime-time after 9pm local time, so how does France 2 get round it for example?

Between 8.40 and 9pm, there are a series of short fillers and commercials to squeeze as much ad-time as possible.

This explains it

However, PBS stations in France (France Télévision channels and ARTE) still have the rule that they can only show 6 minutes in average of ads with a maximum of 8 minutes in any given hour (this except after 21:00)

In Italy Mediaset used to similarly break the rules as Spain, particularly in the "Berlusconi" era; still in the Berlusconi era, the controversial "Decreto Romani", which still to this day, lowered the advertising limit for pay-TV channels from 12 mins per hour to around 9 mins

However in Italy ad breaks normally are shorter than in Spain
KU
Kunst
dbl posted:
Kunst posted:
Usually, many channels in mainland Europe, with exceptions, tend to show most of their ads inside of the programme, not between the programmes (sometimes there's just nothing between programmes, not even an ident; something called "flow"), which results in typically longer ad breaks, as most European countries (and EU members in particular) have a limit of 12-minutes ads per hour

Many European stations (not all), also tend not to care about having shows on the top of the hour/half hour; a typical 41-mins US drama or a typical US 20-mins sitcom will often be scheduled in 50/55 mins and 25 mins slots respectively (some even use unrounded EPG times like :27, :38; but promos will have rounded times); this may let one think there'll be less "annoying" ad breaks, but this is often not the case

Schedule structure, like presentation (and sometimes TV quality) in many European countries, is an afterthought

The hotel I was staying at had access to German TV channels as well (RTL/ARD/ProSieben etc...) the difference between their flow compared to Spanish TV was vast, much more organised (which is sort of expected, if we're going by country stereotypes)

Yeah I know, Spanish TV has a very "greedy" approach; this is particularly true for the quality of the programmes

I'd say German TV is more inspired by American TV
DB
dbl
Kunst posted:
dbl posted:
Kunst posted:
Usually, many channels in mainland Europe, with exceptions, tend to show most of their ads inside of the programme, not between the programmes (sometimes there's just nothing between programmes, not even an ident; something called "flow"), which results in typically longer ad breaks, as most European countries (and EU members in particular) have a limit of 12-minutes ads per hour

Many European stations (not all), also tend not to care about having shows on the top of the hour/half hour; a typical 41-mins US drama or a typical US 20-mins sitcom will often be scheduled in 50/55 mins and 25 mins slots respectively (some even use unrounded EPG times like :27, :38; but promos will have rounded times); this may let one think there'll be less "annoying" ad breaks, but this is often not the case

Schedule structure, like presentation (and sometimes TV quality) in many European countries, is an afterthought

The hotel I was staying at had access to German TV channels as well (RTL/ARD/ProSieben etc...) the difference between their flow compared to Spanish TV was vast, much more organised (which is sort of expected, if we're going by country stereotypes)

Yeah I know, Spanish TV has a very "greedy" approach; this is particularly true for the quality of the programmes

I'd say German TV is more inspired by American TV

Oh god, don't get me started on the quality of the programmes, so trashy! Very little innovation at all, seems the biggest dramas are literally telenovelas.
LL
London Lite Founding member
Forget about any form of rigid schedule either. A prime-time show on TF1 scheduled for 9pm can start as late as 9.10 to get those commercials in, knowing that viewers will tune in.

News bulletins aren't exactly rigid to time either, starting at around x58, presumably France 2 does that as a tactic to stop viewers tuning over to TF1's news bulletins which are at the same time.
KU
Kunst
I know the feel: Italian TV was so affected by this tactic, that primetime, which used to be at 8:30 back in the 90s, has gradually been moved to 9:15/9:30
BR
Brekkie
Aren't shows in those countries generally longer though with entertainment shows up to 3 hours long. Guess the treat the ads as more of an interval.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Brekkie posted:
Aren't shows in those countries generally longer though with entertainment shows up to 3 hours long. Guess the treat the ads as more of an interval.


The original German show that inspired You Bet! over here (Wetten Dass) apparently regularly ran not only live and commercial free but was also notorious for overrunning as well sometimes best part of an hour, though it only ran on average once every other month so it wasn't particularly schedule disrupting on its own but I don't know if that arrangement was typical or just the norm for that particular program.
JA
james-2001
And the show effectively ended because of a contestant ending up paralysed as a result of a stunt went wrong. It ran for another couple of years after that, but that was what set the seeds for it.
BR
Brekkie
Neil Jones posted:
Brekkie posted:
Aren't shows in those countries generally longer though with entertainment shows up to 3 hours long. Guess the treat the ads as more of an interval.


The original German show that inspired You Bet! over here (Wetten Dass) apparently regularly ran not only live and commercial free but was also notorious for overrunning as well sometimes best part of an hour, though it only ran on average once every other month so it wasn't particularly schedule disrupting on its own but I don't know if that arrangement was typical or just the norm for that particular program.

Going way off topic but think it's quite common for German shows to air every couple of months - know their version of Beat the Star still does.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
james-2001 posted:
And the show effectively ended because of a contestant ending up paralysed as a result of a stunt went wrong. It ran for another couple of years after that, but that was what set the seeds for it.


The accident in question was in 2010, the show was dropped in 2014 due to a fall in ratings. One of its final guests apparently was was the same chap who ended up paralysed in 2010 who has since reinvented his career and now does a lot of charity work for children with spinal injuries.
JA
james-2001
The presenter left as well (as a result of the accident I think) and the new one wasn't as popular which I don't think helped.

When I was on Holiday in Turkey in 2005, one of the things we visited was an old ampitheatre and they were setting up for an episode of Wetten Dass that weekend, and on the day it was made a minibus with the Wetten Dass logo on came to our hotel to pick up some guests who were going to watch it. It's an area popular with German tourists, which is why I imagine they made an episode there.
JM
JamesM0984
The commercial break windows for Eurovision are interesting. Most of them are two minutes, and normally non-commercial channels see some awkward green room banter. However just after the lines close, there's a good 7 or 8 minute window (with the interval act for the non-commercial channels). Do TV stations on the continent really have 8 minute ad breaks?!

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