I am writing today to let television networks and individuals know that I have been repeatedly forced to remove some of my favorite TV channels from my DirecTV guide/favorites list. No, it's not because I don't like or watch the programming. Well, maybe some. :) But usually, the problem is quite different. I watch them all the time. However, the removal is part of a protest statement I am sending to DirecTV...As unsuccessful and pointless as it seems to be.
Recently DirecTV began adding one line advertisements to their TV channels guide. Now while the TV Guide channel makes money this way because they don't have commercials, DirecTV has no excuse for this behavior as we all pay good money for our service. They are colorful one line ads that encourage users to click on them to go to other channels, purchase movies or services, play their games or find information they deem worthy of promoting. Shortly after they started popping up we called customer service and asked that they be removed. We were told that there is no option to do so and the ads and their frequency is solely at the discretion of their corporate office. We told them that such things would be considered when our service contract is up.
Much like recent choices by Sony, it seems commonplace now for companies to force users to endure advertisements on computers, gaming systems or even their television guide in spite of the fact that those items or services are paid for with good money. Am I against tasteful advertising? No. In fact I have tons of applications containing ads on my Blackberry, but the programs were all free, so that's fair.
As a tinkerer it didn't take me long to figure out that the ads are attached to popular programming channels. I found that if I deleted the channel immediately following the advertisement from my list, sure enough the channel was gone, but also the ad attached was gone as well. This has saved me many an ad and annoyance as I flip through my list. Early on the channels were of little to no consideration for me, but now they've figured that out and started attaching to popular networks. I was very sad to see G4TV, GSN, SpikeTV and many others go. Now I don't watch the removed channels during their downtime because it is inconvenient to do so. Without the guide, switching to the channels would be random and pointless unless I knew something I wanted to watch happened to be on.
Since these channels are a meaningful loss to me, using my new technique, and the fact that this travesty is continuing, I decided to write and voice my opinion on the issue. I don't know if there is a compensation to the broadcast companies for adding the ads attached to the channels they use or not, but if there isn't...they are all loosing views and really getting ripped off!
Some feel as though I am being nitpicky. And perhaps rightly so. But I am tired of these situations arising from already huge corporations trying to bulk up their bottom line at the expense of their customers. I feel as though complacency is what got us to this point in the first place. So, if you feel as strongly about corporations continuing to take advantage and tactlessly advertise as I do, than please feel free to post this wherever you'd like or send it to whomever you'd like! Thanks.
David
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