A piece in the CSMonitor talks about ”desperation marketing” arising from the decline in effectiveness for traditional ads:

In a recent episode of CBS’s “CSI: New York,” a cellphone rings with the song “Talk” by Coldplay, which the characters discuss. At the next commercial break, the audience is invited to download the ringtone for $2.49. Over on NBC’s “Las Vegas,” sports fans en route to the Winter Olympics join the story line. The episode, which aired just prior to the Turin Games, then follows the group to Italy.
In the Monitor

Welcome to life after the 30-second TV spot. These examples are a tiny glimpse of what one media pundit calls “desperation marketing” - advertisers going beyond simple product placement to capture the hearts and wallets of increasingly ad-wary consumers who are spending more time online and on cellphones and less watching TV.

Unfortunately the piece ends up rambling about the usual suspects: cellphones and video games for younger audiences who demand “interactivity.” There is one interesting note however:

Dollars spent on TV advertising have been declining since 2004, when revenue hit $9 billion. “We’ve witnessed the peaking of TV,” says Mr. Jaffe. “We’re incrementally dissipating that spending on TV as the number of viable alternatives and substitutions continue to proliferate.”

Welcome friends, to the death-of-TV. Long live TV.

As TV slowly slides into oblivion:

TV viewers must have taken to the beach: It was the least-watched week in recorded history for the four biggest broadcast networks.

CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox averaged 20.8 million viewers during the average prime-time minute last week, according to Nielsen Media Research. That sunk below the previous record, set during the last week of July in 2005.

I bet they’re glad that mideast violence always picks up in the hot summer months to help generate some ratings. [via BoingBoing]

Strangely enough, it has appeared in the Middle East. While we here in America argue about copyrights and revenue streams, things run a little differently over there:

I took this photo just a few minutes ago, of Israel Channel 10’s news coverage of our little war. It shows Zvi Yehezkeli, who covers Arab affairs and has been giving excellent summaries of the Arab media (Noorster and I have a huge crush on him). Al Manar TV, Hezbollah television, is showing Zvi live while he is in the Tel Aviv studio. They are broadcasting our broadcast in real time, from Beirut, translating from Hebrew into Arabic what Zvi is saying, and responding in real time. “We can see you!” said the Al Manar moderator, mockingly, as he smiled into the camera.

Zvi is listening to the whole thing via his earphone, and he even posed a question in Arabic.

This is just one example of how mad and complex this conflict is: We watch each other’s television broadcasts, we talk to one another, and then...we bomb each other.

Now just imagine the post-modern real-time tv news reporting on tv news reporting we could do here in the world capital of blase cable tv news reporting. Picture this: MSNBC rebroadcasting Fox News live, with snarky MST-3k style commentary, while CNN comments on the commenting. We have indeed entered a brave new world.

Aren’t the terrorists worried about infringing Channel 10’s copyright? Oh wait, they probably don’t care. Just goes to show you that anyone who supports copyright reform is a terrorist. But we knew that all along (and besides, now we know why the NSA is tapping our phone calls).

Thanks Lisa for bringing us this little ”dialogasm."