Showtime Now Butchering Movies: Credits, Pop Ups, Down-Res'd Sections - Page 3

You really are one of the unfunny 11 left at SNL aren't you?

I applaud your email.

In all fairness (which people do not think I have, but I really don't care either) I do believe Showtime has far less time for promotion between movies than they did a year ago when it fell under the Viacom/Tom Freston side of Wall Street.

There used to be a good 13 plus minutes between most titles a year ago. Starting sometime around their freeview last Spring, myself and others noticed it was bang...bang....bang....bang....

But as for all the idiots here that don't care about pop ups, they would have also noticed pop ups all during the movies to call 1-800 etc to subscribe - but they think that will never happen......lol.

Now, they did show all the big titles they had access to within the past year during their shotgun freeview approach - which is very unrepresentative of what title quality expect daily from Showtime - and as thus, I and others also expected the short spacing between credits and the next title to disappear after their free view.

Much to their credit, that has not happened. If you try to schedule DVR manually making sure the ends are not cliped, you will see many titles with actual run times that only 2-3 minutes before the next title starts. It actually makes it harder to make sure your DVR gets everything without clipping it now.

And they have changed their start times accordingly. Instead of starts mainly at the top and bottom of the hour, and a few at :15, it is very common to see a number of odd start times (:50, :55, :20 etc) as the length between titles is compressed.

AND IF YOU REALLY WATCH AND PAY ATTENTION, you will notice that after they promote Dexter on top of the credits, 95% of the time they immediately go into a Dexter Promo first thing after the final logo of the movie!?!?!?

Overkill????

I applaud them for them for getting rid of 12-15 minutes of promos - even more so as HBO noticed and though not as dramatic as SHO, their fluff time is not as long as it was 12 months ago either. But if it means an extra 5 minutes of fluff to promote Dexter instead of butchering the films - I'd rather have that then butchering the movies. I can always take a longer bathroom break or kitchen run, which of course is why they are doing this

Competition is good is good as it made HBO step up to the plate and reduce time between titles as well. However, competition is bad when you have a competitor doing this and getting away with it - proving it can be done.

They just need to stop this trend - or others will follow it as well - and only a fool would think it ends here.

HDNET is a very unique situation that I have mixed feelings about. First and foremost, I do not buy the HDNET/HDNET Movies ala-carte, as they come as part of the HD Package, as they do for 99% of the people that sub to HDNET.

As thus, I tend to view it more as a UHD or TNT-HD (or even a ESPN) when it comes to spots.

However, if it was dumped into a movie package such as $11-$15 for showtime, hbo, cinemax or starz, even if only $4.95 as shown by the ala carte price for a system in Southern California, I might be more upset.

On the other hand, it is only $4.95 vs $10+. Would I rather pay $5 and get ads in the movies ala TNT-HD or $10+ and not.

That's an interesting concept that might actually be a workable model in the future as STBs get smarter and smarter with more ability to do (overlay) things.

On the other hand, if everything would go ala carte, many channels might be forced to add more ads to keep the price down.

As thus, I am not really upset as much with HDNET, Discovery HD showing ads outside of the show - and even TNT-HD doesn't upset me as much, as I am getting what I pay for with it, even though I'd love to not get the pop ups.

You are right - if people don't agree with me, its ok. If they support my point of view, its a commercial

That says it all about your level of fairness.

Sorry for the bad conclusion. If you use a non-standard color setting for avsforum, the red almost disappears in the background.

It's very simple - you keep the price point you have now or a buck or 2 more (in the low teens) - and you introduce a lower rate tier that is subsidized by advertising at $5 - $7 or so.

As bandwidth improves and VOD is already built into most HD STBs, depending on your level, the STB either gives you a clean feed or your Premium feed looks like TNT-HD and a circus wagon. Consider the Fox Splicer and one can see how the pop-ups could be handled.

Instead of seeing 4 promos for Showtime in between shows, you see 1 promo for Showtime and 3 commericals (or whatever).

I could easily see a three fold increase in Movie Channel subs at a price point of several dollars - as it would be cheaper than renting a movie from Blockbuster.

Quite frankly, if you view the threads you will see many wanting HD but just cannot afford any cable/satellite fees. This puts a lower price point in play for those people.

Up into the last 12-18 months, this technology probably would not have been possible (in the HD realm).

As more and more bandwidth is added and more and more PPV channels are available in HD, the movie channels will be forced to find ways to be more competitive in their pricing to value. This clearly could be a realistic idea.

Incorrect again.

People like you that have stated butcher them all you want, would easily pay $5 instead of $13 if you could because it doesn't bother you - remember.

Ads do not have to be HD - and are no different than VOD. Current technology exists that can map, say, virtual cable channe 701 (we'll call it showtime) QAM 99.100 to SHO-HD and remap 701 to QAM channel 99.800 when the credit start and during promos.

Now, let's say we are talking the difference between $5 and $13 ($8 for the reporters that view AVS with no math skills).

Showtime has about 1.5 Million subs, iirc. They might loose .5 to lower tier, but I fully suspect that the Showtime channels for $5 would increase subs 3 fold. I will be the first to admit that is speculation, but I think there are a number of reasons why it would be reasonable.

So lets say instead of 1.5 Million subs, Showtime goes to 3 Million subs....1 M at $13 and 2 M at $5 (I believe that HBO is 2.5 M subs, btw, but I haven't looked at those numbers in a year or 2 - and could be wrong - I am sure Fred will correct if wrong).

2 Million down for $8 less - that $16 Million Dollars.

You say, well, there ya go - they aren't going to take a $16 Million Dollar Hit a month.

And you are right - I agree with you. They won't.

Why, because CBS-TV has around $8 Billion in Ad Revenue a year......and as CBS-TV is now on the same side of the building with Showtime, when GM plops down $250 Million this month, they get GM to plop down and extra $2.5 for Showtime ads.

Simply stated, to bill $16M in revenue a month for people selling CBS-TV is NOTHING. And remember, you are talking about this ACROSS THE ENTIRE SHOWTIME PACKAGE OF CHANNELS - and quite honestly, there is already bandwith - you just run the commericals for example on SHO in Espanol and just remap that to the SHO for the lower tiers.

Truth be told, I bet that they can get FAR MORE than the $8 per sub per month in ads - which scares me a little that it might be TOO succesful and the higher tier idea goes away.

In fact, you could most likely offer the MSOs an extra buck profit each for the lower tier subs - for the remapping/switching etc and still come out a winner.

So people like you who don't about your Credits butchered and pop ups during the show, will get by on your $5 fee. Those of us who want a premium tier, will get the premium tier. Think of it as Caller ID for TV

And CBS can also take available space to promote their CBS Network shows.

So to recap, CBS/Showtime increase Showtime Subs around 2 Million, the are happy.

CBS Sellers are happy as they can use this for lower cost added value to bring in buys and gives them more airtime to sell.

Increased subs and increased revenue makes Wall Street happy so the CBS stock price goes up.

Showtime matches or passes HBO in subs.

2 more people sub to Showtime than did before so local cable operator is happy as he gets $1 and also has 2x the people ordering Showtime than they did before.

Viewers like you are happy as your Showtime bill dropped from $13 to $5.

Viewers like me are happy as we don't see the circus clown performance on Showtime.

In a rare event, no one is not happy with this.....its a win for everyone.

Again, the worse fear is that CBS can make ALOT more than $8 per sub on this each month and they get rid of the "leave it virgin" tier.

EDIT- OK, quit messaging me asking why do I think 2 million at least would sub to SHO LITE at $4 or $5. Looking at comparisons in several fields and the price of what people rent from Blockbuster.

Also look at the .99 cent to 2.99 CD Single that is often put on the checkout counter of music stores (yes, they still do sell some cds and dvds in america). When people are buying a CD or DVD from $10 - $15 and see a CD single on the counter for that price, they think what the heck and a number of them are actually moved - more than you would think.

It's no different than candy and the National Enquirer at the Supermarket Checkout.

$4-$5 for a movie package on top of your current cable bill is nothing compared to the competition of HBO, Starz etc for upwards of $15 each. And better yet, you have a comparison - its a $13 value (and some pay that), but you get it for $5....so it LOOKS LIKE as Howie would say A GREAT DEAL - a psychological and marketing advantage.

In its basic form (though not 1:1), instead of 1 movie rental, you get the entire SHO package of channels.

And quite simply, CBS/SHO would do consumer research prior to do anything like this anyway and see the exact impact on the current sub and what the potential would be.

No wonder big corporations pay you $6 an hour to ask "would you like that order super-sized" instead of strategic planning with new revenue streams - especially if the infrastructure is already in place.

And, no, I don't eat crap food at McDonalds anymore so I would not like it super-sized, thank you.

Yep, how would you feel if you purchased a DVD and the credits had advertisements for other movies on top of it?

You were never technically promised this would not be the case and as they don't do it there, I wonder how some posters can justify that this isn't actually part of the movie run time.

As theater owners want more showings and faster turn over, you also must wonder why they just don't stop the projector when the credits come on and move everyone out, lol. They could probably add one more showing per title a day if they did that, ROFLMAO.

And I guess that's why I don't care when your precious sports broadcasts are not in HD.

We all have different priorities.

But god forbid they get the scoreboard graphic a little to big for you. And of course, the next step will be a constant logo of an advertiser on the sports ticker as well.

But that doesn't bother me either.

But I suspect it will bother you.

To the fine posters above that didn't have a problem with Showtime superimposing things on the screen - here's your just reward - EVERY 15 minutes now for 10 seconds.

Enjoy it - you deserve what you got.....

guess what.....You are wrong once again.


It started at midnight...once every 15 minutes. As shown above.


As I said, enjoy what you have ended up with.




And this is what you got. I guess you didn't pay enough.


Enjoy the fruits of your payment.

Its on their national HD - no way around it independent of your MSO.

It was on only one time per movie in previous Free Preview Weekends (bad enough), but as stated earlier, they are running it once about every 15 minutes now. If you know the movie The Faculty, you would know from the scenes above that they are about 15 minutes apart.

Which is exactly why I said that people had to complain about the overlays on the credits - obviously not enough did to make a point and now you have overlays in the movie every 15 minutes.