1 of 1- RadioActive
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Would You Openly Advertise The Competition On Air? City TV Just Did
I admit that I rarely watch much morning TV, so maybe this is more commonplace than I realize. But I turned on BT Monday and in their traffic box on the lower right side of the screen I was extremely surprised to see a quick but silent ad for “Battle of the Blades.” It was followed by a CBC logo and then a reminder that you could stream it on Gem, the Corp.’s relatively new online service.
I’m aware that stations are desperate for advertising these days, and maybe this has something to do with Rogers’ agreement on the NHL and Hockey Night In Canada, although I find that hard to believe.
But why in the world would you accept even a tiny placement on your airwaves in essence telling viewers to turn the channel? Can you imagine 680 News doing a sponsored traffic report for John Moore’s show on CFRB? Or The Fan's Jeff Blair having to read a promo reminding listeners that TSN 1050 has the Argos game? It makes no sense and I can’t recall ever seeing anything like that before.
I will admit that it got my attention, so as an ad, it worked. But it got that attention for all the wrong reasons. It was in a word or three, just plain weird.
- Retaw
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Re: Would You Openly Advertise The Competition On Air? City TV Just Did
Amazon Prime, CBS All Access, Hayu and Netflix have bought lots of ad time on Canadian television.
Bell, Corus and Rogers then complain that these companies are hurting their business.
- RadioActive
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Re: Would You Openly Advertise The Competition On Air? City TV Just Did
Retaw wrote:
Amazon Prime, CBS All Access, Hayu and Netflix have bought lots of ad time on Canadian television.
Bell, Corus and Rogers then complain that these companies are hurting their business.
I actually thought of that and I've even seen it on major U.S. over-the-air networks. But at least those require a subscription and you can't just turn them on without some effort. But you're right, they're competition, and I can't figure out why you'd encourage your audience to tune out - especially when figures show they already are.
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Thread Starter- Glen Warren
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Re: Would You Openly Advertise The Competition On Air? City TV Just Did
and there are "CKNT / Mike Richards" spots airing on CHCH TV.
(really, within the last week at least)
- RadioActive
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Re: Would You Openly Advertise The Competition On Air? City TV Just Did
All valid points, to be sure, but that's one medium plugging itself on a totally different medium. One thing you've never heard is an ad for a local radio station on a competitor's radio outlet.
There's only one case I can ever remember when one radio station accepted ads for its competition. It happened when WCFL in Chicago decided to abandon Top 40 for a poorly considered beautiful music format in 1976. Just before the switch, it started airing ads for WLS, which wanted to remind young ears that there was now only one real place to get their music. It was very odd to hear Big 89 announcers paying tribute to the Super CFL legacy and reminding them to tune their dial from 1000 to 890. (I laughed out loud at the jock talking about hearing too many jingles in the video below.)
But the TV thing is different. One OTA TV channel advertising another OTA's shows just makes no sense to me and is ultimately self-defeating. Why do it?
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Thread Starter- paterson1
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Re: Would You Openly Advertise The Competition On Air? City TV Just Did
One that was a bit of a head scratcher was Michael Buble's last TV special which aired on CTV2 and City TV at the same time. Prior to the airing, both cross promoted the show and each other with logos of the two competing networks. I didn't see the program, which also aired on NBC, but I wondered if the two Canadian networks did a simulcast. Does anyone know? And why would they air the same show?
- Radiowiz
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Re: Would You Openly Advertise The Competition On Air? City TV Just Did
It all depends on content, really.
It's okay to tell a die hard football fan that they're missing an all new Frankie's mysteries on CBC.
That football fan might just ignore it, or tell a family member to go watch on another TV in another room.
Where it might be a bad call is if BT were to encourage switching to CBC Newsworld for Federal election news coverage or something that is too competitive with City TV to deserve any mention...
RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person.
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.
- paterson1
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Re: Would You Openly Advertise The Competition On Air? City TV Just Did
I can remember about 25 years ago seeing commercials for CBC radio on the CTV national news. And I might be incorrect here but didn't some private TV stations run some of the CBC Public Broadcaster commercials years ago? They featured celebs stating that they supported or believed in public broadcasting. I remember Moses Znaimer was in one of them.
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CFOS in Owen Sound disaffiliated from CBC radio years ago, and ran a lot of commercials promoting the new CBC Owen Sound radio frequency, and the fact that the morning and afternoon show would be broadcasting live from Owen Sound for one week. Not a huge conflict since CBC radio is non commercial, but they did promote another station, and CBC always does take a healthy chunk of the audience in ratings.
- Prod Guy
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Re: Would You Openly Advertise The Competition On Air? City TV Just Did
If memory serves Rogers once bought a commercial on Mix 99.9 promoting Kiss 92. The ad was short and in another language.
Does anyone else remember this?