Has anybody else noticed that if you watch commercial telly, every advertising break includes at least one government-sponsored advert, whether it's about contraception, Change-4-life, NHS stop smoking services, direct.gov.uk, paying your car tax online, catching benefit fraudsters, the dangers of alcohol, employing 'illegal' immigrants, drinking and driving, keeping your valuables safe, claiming tax credits or various fakecharities like the British Heart Foundation or Act On C02?*
Surely it wasn't always like this?
* As opposed to the BBC, where it's constant government-sponsored propaganda, of course.
Tuesday 9 February 2010
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22 comments:
They're toiling to get genuine commercial ads. There's a depression on, you see.
I shall do some random sampling on this and report back...
And they then use it to split the commercial ads which have a maximum time limit.
Also the Ministry of Justice is running ads on commercial radio. One came on last week whilst I was in the pub. It was a 1984 moment as the pub went silent during the broadcast but afterwards all the talk was about how everyone hates the Government. And this is a so-called Labour safe seat. Roll on the election.
Not to mention commercial Radio
Stop Shouting At Me
Not for nothing is HMG now the UK's largest advertiser.
D, then they could do proper advertisers a favour and stop it, thus reducing the price charged to proper businesses.
OC, it's particularly noticeable on Channel 4. I don't watch ITV much.
JH, that's the funny thing, I think the propaganda ones are always first up or last up in each block.
BW, what was that one for? I don't listen to commercial radio at all, really, although I do remember hearing one asking people to dob their neighbours in if they were possibly committing benefit fraud (like, how are you supposed to know?).
Commercial radio is even worse.
Anyway who are "Directgov.?"
How many does "Directgov" employ and where? what's their funding?
Somebody must know!
paulo
PC, OK, I'm a bit slow on the uptake :)
P, Direct.gov is just a general government website funded by all the departments and none.
Yes I have and no it wasn't.
every advertising break includes at least one government-sponsored advert
That's an understatement (depending on the time of day/channel, of course.)
It sometimes seems that at least every 5 minutes, someone on the TV/radio is telling us to do something, or not do something, that the government has enforced/proscribed.
Smoking? NHS tell you to give up, the pharma sell you nicotine.
Obese? Those stupid Morph-like adverts, eat 5 fruit/veg a day. Get some exercise.
Salt/sugar/cholesterol/semi-skimmed milk(!! Yes, really!), the list goes on.
And this morning it was teaching 5 year olds how to use the internet and stay out of danger.[1]
And that's just the news and the BBC.
The adverts themselves are worse!
[1] I mean.. WTF? Why aren't the f'ing parents supervising their little crotchfruit, or have the government so removed the responsibility of being a parent from parents, that even things once considered a duty of a parent are no longer necessary and that the government will dictate what you should be doing, and if it's not a dictat, you needn't do anything?
MW - the Ministry of Justice advert instructed us to go to a website and check what offenders are doing in our area, dressed in their high viz. Stop them escaping from
the local open nick at Prescoed would be a start.
I'm surprised Mark, you either don't watch / listen to too much commercial TV or Radio.
Or it proves just how rubbish and ineffectual the Govt Ads are.
Apart from helping safeguard their friends (and their own future) jobs in the Meedja
L, good, hold that thought.
PJH, let's not even talk about secondary propaganda, like Niquitin patches, how much BP cares for the environment, supermarkets and washing powder people giving so-many-pence from every purchase to A Worthy Cause, whole-grain-wheat shite and so on.
BW, so did anybody do it? Or was that just part of the government's campaign to create a Climate Of Fear?
PC, no, I mainly watch BBC News 24, I prefer my propaganda undiluted, and yes, there have always been govt adverts, like the Tufty Club or clunk-click-every-trip and so on, but not exactly on the same scale, or as expensively done.
Who said we do not have a Ministry of Truth?
The MoT must be the only govt dept/quango/fake charity not listed!
Surely it wasn't always like this?
Indeed, back in the day British Leyland could not afford to advertise! and everything else the state owned was a monopoly, so why bother?
Bin your television. After a short while, you'll not be able to understand how you ever found time to watch it.
There are more benefits.
The BBC gets none of your cash.
You can get lots of fun by f***ing over the TV licence-chasers, and cost them loadsa money. (I speak from experience)
"Whether it's about ... catching benefit fraudsters..."
Does that include tips on how to grass on your MP in Parliament for their expense and other benefit frauds?
Or no, that just includes hotlines and tips on how to grass on neighbours for things like wheelie-bin displacement and smoking?
This has been going on for at least a year, but I think Pavs Cat touches on the real reason.
We already know about all the lovely lolly shovelled at the right sort of people in the fake NGO's and charities. Much of this is from 'initiatives' etc in that area, as well as directly from same in Govt departments.
It's to ensure that the right sort of people in the agencies and production companies have some cashflow. Tarquins school fees have to come from somewhere you know.
This then filters on as cashflow for the right sorts in the tv and radio stations, but that would probably come from a different budget. Campaign perhaps?
£540m they spent last year.
Charlie the cat used to cost a hell of a lot less.
@VftS and for the few good things there are on TV, there's always iPlayer et al.
What you want to watch, when you want to watch it, no ads or propaganda and it's free!
It won't last.
bayard - sorry, when have iPlayer censored government mandated schemes from their pro-government output?
I've not looked, but I'd be surprised if their news output *wasn't* part of their iPlayer output.
If, indeed, iPlayer carry the news as part of their output, then if they were to remove propoganda, a 1/2 hour news bullitin(sp?) would, on average, be reduced to less than 5 minutes.
Less, on occasion. More, occasion.
But on average... I'd be more inclined towards less.
@PJH: I'm puzzled. Are we talking about the same iPlayer? With my iPlayer I select a programme to watch and then watch it, then repeat the process with the next one, avoiding all dross and gubmint propaganda in the process. The "News" is on iPlayer, but that doesn't mean I have to watch it.
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