[opendtv] The Medium: We Interrupt This Program

From: Monty Solomon <monty@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: undisclosed-recipient:;
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 22:44:43 -0500
The Medium
We Interrupt This Program

By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

The New York Times
January 4, 2009

My video will resume after this ad, in 26 seconds. The video is 
really a movie - or at least it was a movie. I don't know what to 
call it while I'm watching it on my computer screen, with my browser 
set to Hulu, the streaming-video site.

Let's call it "Wimbledon." Released in 2004, it's a romantic comedy 
about tennis that I could have seen for $8 or so in a theater four 
years ago or ordered from Netflix, caught on HBO or bought as a DVD 
for $4 on eBay. But I didn't. In fact, I only now discovered it in 
the modest movie lineup on Hulu. After a rocky start during which it 
was hazed as just another slick effort to upstage the fun, 
do-it-yourself YouTube, Hulu became great. The Associated Press just 
named Hulu its Web Site of the Year for 2008.

However, there are ads. All videos (TV shows, movies, clips, news) 
are prefaced on Hulu by unavoidable commercials; you can't click to 
shut them off or fast-forward through them. With longer videos, ads 
appear at regular intervals - but it's just one ad, usually a tightly 
produced 15- to 30-second spot, rather than a TV-style cluster. Some 
movies have sponsors who offer "limited commercial interruption" - 
about four ads per film. Cutting into "Wimbledon," this sweet, brisk 
British mood-lifter in which Paul Bettany falls in love with Kirsten 
Dunst, is an Ad Council public service announcement for healthful 
eating. Annoying. At the top of the movie, I swear Halls cough drops 
announced that it was presenting this movie without ads. Or was it 
without many ads?

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/magazine/04wwln-medium-t.html

 
 
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[opendtv] The Medium: We Interrupt This Program

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