Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Quick question: given the fact that commercials per hour are going up this fall (to 15 min/hour in both US and Canada) and, as I understand, in two years they'll be going unlimited, what impact do you think this will have on the length of dramas, comedies, and basically anything written for TV?

I dare say they will be shorter, and more disjointed. Nobody is crazy about the new five act structure except advertisers, and I hear writers complaining that they hate the ABC six-act structure. It's hard to get up a head of steam in such short bits between commercials.

The more commercials they push, the more people they will push to buying a DVR and skipping the commercials entirely. That will force TV entirely out of the advertising-supported model. The shift is probably inevitable, but what's the rush?

It's interesting to note that J.J. Abrams "Fringe" this fall is only having 5 minutes/hour, which I'm suspecting means each episode will be chock full of delicious product placement.

I dare say. But I'd rather have product placement -- so long as I can choose what products I'm placing -- than ads. I don't care whether the character drives Ford or Toyota, so long as the environmentalist can drive a small car and the selfish jackass single guy can drive a big SUV.

Labels: act structure

8:47 PM

1 Comments:

Same is true for Whedon's Dollhouse. And both shows are going 50 minutes, not 44 minutes per episode. Very UK.

I thought this new model worked really well in the Fringe pilot. The commercials were short enough that I didn't find myself clicking all over the dial waiting for the show to return.

By  deborah Nathan, at 9:30 AM  

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