[opendtv] News: Super Ads, Average Def for Super Bowl
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 08:47:38 -0500
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6415576.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP&nid=2228
Super Ads, Average Def for Super Bowl
By Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/11/2007 11:34:00 PM
Advertisers may have agreed to the record $2.6 million for a
30-second spot during CBS' Super Bowl XLI broadcast. But not all were
willing to cough up the premium-perhaps an additional 10% in
production costs-for delivering their spots in HD.
By our count, 22 of the 69 Super Bowl commercials ran in SD,
including those from luxury brands like Mercedes-Benz and technology
companies like Motorola.
Ten of those standard-def ads, such as Blockbuster's "mouse" spot,
were in the 4:3 aspect ratio used by analog TVs. The rest were shot
in widescreen but "letter-boxed" for 4:3 screens. So on a 16:9 HD
screen, the ads appeared as a smaller widescreen image, with black
borders on all four sides.
Since less than 15% of TV households receive HD, it's understandable
that some advertisers passed on the cost of hi-def-even for the Super
Bowl, which typically features far more HD ads than normal
programming on the broadcast networks.
But some standard-def holdouts were surprising-and more than a little
ironic. Toshiba, for one, ran an ad produced for conventional screens
that touted its HD-DVD high-definition disc player-a product designed
specifically for widescreen HDTV sets.
A Toshiba spokesman insists the spot was produced and broadcast in
HDTV. But it sure didn't fill our screen.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
Other related posts:
- » [opendtv] News: Super Ads, Average Def for Super Bowl
