Saturday, September 12, 2009

The Cinema


While it is comparatively easy to keep a tab on the exposure of ads on television, radio and the press, it is next to impossible to check whether a company’s ads being regularly screened in cinema houses. The Blaze organization is the sole distributor in the field of cinema advertising and advertisers have to take its word that their ads are screened at the shows and theatres contracted for.

A further disadvantage of advertising in cinema theaters is that the movement of prints from one place to another, and from one theater to another, is very slow, and theater-owners are often careless in handling them. The result is that poor quality prints are shown to the public. The expense of producing slides and high-quality film advertisements is thus not compensated.

Yet, cinema remains the most popular medium of entertainment in India. It is also patronized by the rural folk, especially those who live near small towns. Another clear advantage is that in cinema theaters advertisers have ‘captive’ audiences; the distractions of home viewing of video and cable are kept out from the theatres. And unlike the print media, films appeal to the literate an illiterate, children and adults. A further for ‘adults’, general audiences, and PG (Parental guidance; that is, accompaniment of an adult is necessary).

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Saturday, September 5, 2009

Limitations of Cable TV

What makes the medium is the program – the software and its quality. In the west, they take care of the programs and build up ratings. They have to pull audiences. In India, cable operators have not gone beyond Hindi/ regional movies. They have to get quality programs from abroad. In the ultimate analysis, they have to produce special programs for subscribers. These types of programs will create ratings the advertisers are working for. High video copyright royalty rates forced producers to cram as many ads as they could do enormous damage to this medium. There should not be more than 10 minutes of advertising for a three-hour program, and absolutely no supers as in case in video.

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