I completely agree. I’ve been bitching about this for a while and it seems to be worse this year. I have no issue with the commercials existing but they need to find a better time to show them. it appears that the NFL no longer finds its entertainment very family oriented. That’s what commercials for a lot of mature content - horror flicks, CSI - mean to me.
Oddly, it isn’t as big of an issue for me this year as it will be next year or the year after. My kids are 2 and 4. Their interest in football is pretty low. The chances of them peering at the TV while people scream at an approaching ax blade are still relatively small. When they are actually interested in football, it’ll actually be a problem that I’ll have to solve, either with my DVR or another activity entirely.
I should be clear that I’m not looking for the government for help here. The NFL should really want to establish themselves as family entertainment. Let Shawn Merriman’s drug in the arm dance or Reggie Bush’s taunting be the reason I keep my sons away from the TV. Don’t let it be silly commericials that you can push back to 8:00.
Twenty-five years later, Montana’s left knee is essentially shredded. His right eye occasionally sags from nerve damage. His neck is so stiff, he could not turn his head to look at a reporter asking him questions while he signed memorabilia. Montana, 50, turned both shoulders instead.
Clark, also 50, endures sharp pain every time he lifts his arms above his head – the exact motion he effortlessly completed on The Catch – because of a bent screw in his left shoulder and arthritis in his right shoulder. The simple act of turning his head also is a chore, thanks to all those jarring hits on crossing patterns over the middle.
At least in those films the violence is make believe. Football, it’s like boxing, but with teams of men wearing spandex pants and a little padding. I guess at least their salaries make up for it.
It may look civilised, but it’s still a blood sport that goes back generations to places like the Roman Gladiatorial games. We have our circuses, with the bread sponsored by Pepsi. :P
I’ve noticed a large increase int he amount of advertisement for these types of films, SAW III, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Descent, etc., etc… It’s doubled now since a lot of the flicks that came out at the height of the slasher craze early last year are now being released on DVD. I try to flip away when the commercials come on, but I can’t be a remote jockey every second of a three hour broadcast. Luckily, my kids tend to tune out as soon as the commercials come on, so I haven’t noticed any ill-effects so far from the few that get through to them.
Still, I’d really like to see a little less graphic violence and gore during commericals on broadcasts of sporting events. I realize that football is by it’s nature a violent sport, but nobody gets decapitated or has saw blades ripping into their flesh, and nobodys mutilated corpse is on display on the field. It’s no big secret that sports fans are created at a young age, watching the games on TV with their families, and that those associations last a lifetime and directly result in huge profits for sports franchises. Aren’t there enough beer commercials and prescription drug ads to fill the gaps left by culling the handful of gore-laden slasher films ads? Can’t the network make a 30 second spot for CSI or NCIS that is daytime TV safe?
Don’t get me started on Sci-Fi Channel, TNT and other cable outlets either. They are not held to any standard, and will gleefully show commercials for not just slasher flicks and autopsy crime shows, but mature themed shows like Nip/Tuck and The Shield during the middle of an afternoon showing of an otherwise kid-friendly movie.
Um, don’t the networks sell the ad time, and not the NFL? Isn’t the idea that <network> pays the NFL a crapload of money to show the games, and then tries to make that money back selling ad time?
Because they can’t make that money back just selling ad time, they also cram in ads for their own shows, hoping to bump ratings, which in turn increases the rates they can charge for ad time during THOSE shows?
Why does everyone keep saying that the NFL isn’t family friendly because of these ads? Why not direct the frustration at the networks taking money to air the ads? I don’t know if I’d ever have called the NFL on TV in relation to ads “family friendly”. It’s pretty much been beer and sex (which used to be hot chicks, but is now hot chicks, boner pills, and herpes medicine). Which is kind of odd, since the general societal take has been “sex bad, violence okay”. The audience is males from 16-50 (ish), and anyone else is gravy.
Personally, I think this is overreaction. A 3-5 second shot of a cadaver isn’t all that big a deal (kids have never seen roadkill?). I think that ads for Saw are seen as more graphic than the ad actually is because we know about the movie. I also think that the ongoing shift in terms of what’s on TV is involved. Prison Break is on at 8pm (or was last night). Heroes was on at 9pm, and has shown a teenage girl autopsied and then waking up (not to mention Sylar).
But it’s a free country. I’m not bagging on people who don’t like it, I’m just saying I don’t have a problem with it. Call <network> and let them know you’re not happy. They’re certainly not going to read your mind or change course on their own.
Yes, but the NFL has a lot of control over their product. They’ve spent a lot of time protecting and nuturing football. The NFL is the one who would react to such an appeal, not the networks who are really only interested in this year and this year’s stockholders.
It’s not the prime time games that bother me, it’s the ones that are on in the middle of the frickin’ day. The Seahawks/Bears playoff game a few weeks ago was on Sunday morning, and they still worked an ad for The Hitcher in there. You know, the one that features the guy tied between two trucks, about to be ripped in half in front of his sobbing, shrieking girlfriend.
My three year old daughter was in the room playing Angelina Ballerina or something. Fortunately, I managed to divert her attention while that trailer aired, but I was definitely not expecting to see shit like that at 12:00 noon on a Sunday in the middle of what is ostensibly a family broadcast.
Ok, I guess. Only their product isn’t the commercials. If the NFL told a network “You can pay us 1 billion for broadcast rights, but you can’t air violent ads”, the network would tell them to blow it out their ass.
The NFL isn’t going to react to such an appeal. Why would they? Because you’ll stop watching? The NFL has contracts signed with the networks, they’re getting their money if you watch or not. If you contact the NFL, they’ll say “we don’t control what networks do with their ad time”.
The Networks care about ratings. If people don’t watch, ratings go down. Ratings go down, less money comes in. Less money comes in, stockholders get upset.
You are so wrong man. The networks fight over the NFL TV contracts. There’s a reason that MNF hopped network this year, and SNF got invented, etc. There is no way a network would tell the NFL to blow it out their ass. They might say they couldn’t offer quite as much for the broadcast rights with a condition like that, but they would NEVER EVER tell the NFL to take a walk.
Again, you are ignorant of how protective the NFL is of their brand and how hard they work to promote it and spread it. If something was riling up middle class America, their bread and butter fans, they sure as fuck would fix it quick.
MNF jumped from ABC to ESPN. Both are owned by Disney. It was moved because ABC was losing money hand over fist on MNF because of the cost involved relative to the ratings and whatnot.
They lose less money overall with it on ESPN, even though it reaches fewer viewers because they’re showing stuff in the freed up ABC spots that help offset the loss better than what ESPN could have shown. This freed up Sunday nights for NBC to buy the rights to.
Remember NBC giving up on the NFL, letting FOX get involved? Why’d they do that? Oh, that’s right, they were losing buckets of cash on the deal. They told the NFL to take a walk.
The NFL squeezes every last cent out of the Networks, under the idea that they can make it all back by stuffing the games with ads for their weekly shows. It doesn’t always work, so ABC shuffles MNF to ESPN, or NBC gives up trying to reach a reasonable deal with the NFC because FOX is willing to eat a bigger loss. To even suggest some sort of content control over ads is going to be met with “and how much less will you charge us?” by the networks. To which the NFL would respond with “Nevermind.”
I’m not the ignorant one here. But hey, by all means. Call the NFL offices, and complain about the ads being shown during games. Organize a group of people to do the same. Threaten to boycott games if the NFL doesn’t respond. I’ll bet the response at most levels is “Uh, you really should be talking to the network, they sell the ad time.”
So what happened was, something objectionable ran and then people complained to the network that ran it, and the network apologized. Yeah, that’s not at all what I’m saying should be the case. Why didn’t people call the NFL?
The NFL limited it’s involvement to “Yeah, that was in appropriate.” I don’t recall the NFL punishing ABC at all for it. Also note that Tagliabue’s “crackdown” on suggestive content was especially effective here. The FCC hitting the networks (and affiliates) is far more effective at stopping objectionable content than the NFL. I don’t recall the NFL getting fined for Janet Jackson’s boob.
Interesting we should bring up the desperate housewives thing. Trying to refresh my memory on the particulars of the NFL response to this one I found this article:
I think it’s sort of funny (if pathetic) the way people who don’t personally appreciate the sport of football have descended on this thread with disingenous trollish questions and outlandish proclamations.
