Fox TV to mix cartoons in with ads

Filed in archive Business Trends on April 9, 2007

I have a problem with Nielsen Ratings for each commercial aired on television. Philosophically, the media provider is responsible for delivering an audience and the advertiser is responsible for showing some commercial that might actually connect with or inform that audience. To penalize the media company for ineffective ad copy seems misplaced.

Anyways, that is an opinion that I did not express here until now. What brought this on is that Fox is debuting a new animated program tonight. But it will have an unusual time slot - sandwiched between the television commercials.

You read that right. Fox plans eight-second animated clips that follow a half-Greek, half-Lithuanian taxi driver named Oleg - whose hobby is trying to identify from which store stranded shopping carts came from while whipping by them at top speed.

Oleg's adventures will be shown as Fox tries to keep viewers entertained during commercial breaks. Since the ads don't appeal to you, then maybe Oleg will convince you not to press the fast-forward button.

OK, Nielsen, when do we start having commercial interstitial ratings, too?