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Snipes, Bugs and More Degrade TV Viewer Experience

Television networks are beginning to introduce new ad content in the bottom third of the TV screen - content that appears during a program rather than during traditional advertising time.

ABC ran a test in July of using icons in the lower right hand corner of the screen that direct viewers to related content in other media such as DVDs and websites, writes The New York Times. During Ugly Betty, an icon might direct viewers to places where they could buy a character’s shoes, or to iTunes, where they could purchase that episode.

Called ABC Start Here, the campaign will be rolled out slowly this fall to allow viewers to get used to the additional content.

Networks are also experimenting with something called snipes. Similar to ABC’s icons, snipes are visual effects that take place in the lower right hand corner of the screen during a show. Shows on TNT, for example, may include a visual of Kyra Sedgwick, star of The Closer, walking under a police tape and scanning the screen with a flashlight. (Snipes are different than the network logos that pop up on screens during shows, called bugs.)

Viewers are finding the increasingly cluttered screens annoying and intrusive, according to the article, but the networks say the busy screens are a nod to the tastes and habits of younger viewers, and that the new content is here to stay.