Archive for October, 2009
“The coupon brought me here; the noise sent me away”
Posted by R. Freedman in Audience captivity, Media noise on October 30th, 2009
Responsible media groups like White Dot know how to use the power of the purse to drive change. The group educates consumers on letting business owners know that forcing their customers to watch TV or listen to piped-in audio is losing them business.
For that reason I was glad the newsletter Please PIPEDOWN included a reference to White Dot in its October issue, and even made its own suggestion on how to deal with captive-audience media—including restaurants with blaring TVs and piped-in audio:
Bring in a restaurant’s coupons to show the manager “you have an interest in dining. Then if the background music proves to be too much in the foreground, you could take the coupon to the manager and tell that person you won’t be using it after all: ‘The coupon brought me here but the music is driving me away.’”
What became clear to me in researching Noise Wars: Compulsory Media and Our Loss of Autonomy
Without a doubt many people do in fact like watching TV in a cab or while buying shoes but plenty don’t and some portion of those people avoid places that force that media on them.
As Please Pipedown makes clear, avoiding a business with captive-audience media isn’t enough; you have to let the owner or manager know they’re not getting your business because of it. Money talks, and so does the withholding of it.
Kudos to Ruth Schiedermayer for her Please PIPEDOWN piece on letting owners and managers know when their force-fed media drives customers away.
Victory for media choice: BusRadio closing down
Posted by R. Freedman in Audience captivity, TV Turnoff on October 3rd, 2009
In a body blow to captive-audience media and a victory for those who oppose having out-of-home digital media content forced on them, BusRadio has pulled the plug on its compulsory commercial radio programming on school buses and is expected to make an official announcement next week.
BusRadio makes its money by providing targeted advertising to a captive audience of children on public school buses and has been the subject of intense push-back from parents and others who’ve taken their concern to Congress, the FCC, and to state and local governments.
“BusRadio severely underestimated parents’ determination to keep advertisers off of school buses,” the Center for Commercial-Free Childhood says in a statement. “And now, thanks to all of our efforts, parents no longer have to worry about their children being bombarded by student-targeted advertising on school buses.”
Commercial Alert has also been involved in efforts against the company.
Still on parents’ radar screen is Channel One, which provides free audio-video equipment to cash-strapped schools in return for providing 12 minutes of daily in-classroom TV programming. The programming includes two minutes of targeted advertising.
Parents have long charged Channel One with exploiting mandatory school attendance laws for commercial gain. The company almost went under a few years ago after critics launched a campaign asking companies not to advertise on its programs, but it survived and today has a new owner.
The BusRadio victory shows that the steady drive by out-of-home media companies to fill our common areas with intrusive audio-video content that we haven’t asked for isn’t proceeding without constraint. BusRadio and Channel One are clearly the most egregious and indefensible examples of captive-audence excess, because they involve our chidren. But as captive-audience media expands throughout our common areas and eat away at our ability to lead lives without having unsought content always in front of us, media companies can expect more push-back.
Not everybody wants the distraction of audio and video in front of them wherever they go; having TV screens on elevators and on gas pumps and in restrooms and on buses, trains, and subways, in taxis, and in office and hotel lobbies, and in medical offices, among other places, is creating its own antithesis. As it should. No one owns our viewscapes and soundscapes. No one should be forced to to consume distracting and invasive audio-video content they haven’t asked for.
—Robert Freedman, author, Noise Wars: Compulsory Media and Our Loss of Autonomy
Take our survey
Is TV in public places good or bad? Let us know your thoughts in this Media by Choice survey on the good and the bad of TV in public places such as elevators, taxi cabs, subways, trains, buses, airport gates, doctor’s offices, office and hotel lobbies, and so on. Click here to take survey.
