TCA: PBS Still Testing Commercial Breaks During Programs

[alp227]

Source: Broadcasting and Cable

Los Angeles -- PBS is still in the midst of testing commercial breaks during its programs and has not yet decided on the best way to break out messages, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger said at the Television Critics Association summer press tour here Saturday.

The public broadcaster made waves in the TV industry when it announced in late May that it would be adding commercials during shows starting this fall in an effort to bridge the gap in viewers from program to program. While PBS currently put all of its sponsor messages at the end of a program, letting the content run uninterrupted, it said in May it wanted to study other ways to break up the messages to keep viewers from fleeing at the end of a show.

"We decided that the way to try to figure that out is we would actually do some testing, so we're in the midst of that now," Kerger told the audience of television critics here Saturday. She said PBS has done dial testing at a Nielsen facility in Las Vegas and is in the process of getting opinions of its stakeholders on different commercial formats.

"We wouldn't make a change like this without properly vetting all that out," Kerger said. "I can't tell you where it will end up. We're going to look at it carefully and hopefully out of all this research we'll at least be better informed, even if we made no other change" than changing the way it runs messages within a singular break as it does now.

Read more: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/471758-TCA_PBS_Still_Testing_Commercial_Breaks_During_Programs.php

[w4rma]

1. The entire point of public broadcasting is to keep it free of corporate influence. Bad. (nt)

[No Elephants]

5. Have you been noticing how many programs David Koch has been sponsoring?

[orbitalman]

2. They damn-well better not....

The only reason to flee a channel we've just watched is because the next one (which we've seen in plenty of "previews") completely disinterests us (ie for me, Antique Roadshow).

[mac56]

3. They will no longer be "public" television.

Fuck them. Pull their funding.

[coffeenap]

4. Or, we could 100% fund them and eject the corporate sponsors entirely!

That would be a truly public network-and we need one now more than ever.

[No Elephants]

6. It will still be beholden to politicians unless it is 100% funded with small viewer donations from

everyone, or a small tax per TV or household or something.

And, what are the chances of that anymore?

[mac56]

7. As long as we're daydreaming....

I'd still like my pony.