http://www.hearusnow.org/2007/09/new_cable_ads_on_digital_tv_tr.html
The National Cable Television Association is rolling out an "educational" advertising campaign it says will help consumers deal with the looming transition to digital television, which is set to take place in February 2009.
In a letter to Congess the cable industry makes the new ad campaign sound laudable, an industrywide effort to make sure that folks who have old-style, analog television sets won't have their screens go dark when the switch is flipped to digital.
There's a very big problem, however.
The main message of the campaign -- that consumers who have cable have nothing to worry about because cable has "taken care of all that transition stuff for us" -- is not entirely true.
The cable industry is now lobbying hard against a proposal that would require cable operators to send out signals in both digital and analog following the transtion. The cable industry wants to send out signals in digital only.
Should the industry prevail, cable-connected consumers with analog sets will have to either upgrade to more expensive digital service or pay to buy or rent a converter box in order to tune in their local, over-the-air stations.
Doesn't really sound like they are truly "taking care of all that transition stuff for us," does it?
We also couldn't help but notice at least one of the "new" ads stars the same "cable customer" featured in a current industry campaign touting cable's supposed superiority in delivering television, the Internet and phone service.
We know it's the same "cable customer" because she is forever etched in our memory -- a blue-haired granny type who looks like she just escaped from the nearest bingo parlor. And the new ads are the exact same format -- a tinny guitar playing in the background as some just-plain-folks extol on the various virtures of cable.
If the cable industry is really interested in offering an "educational" ad campaign for analog consumers -- and getting the requisite brownie points from Congress and the FCC for doing it -- it might want to do something more than simply recycle and retask the ads it's already using to hawk cable services.
And they should get rid of that bingo parlor granny while they're at it. She's kind of scary.
You can view the new ads by clicking here.
You can view a copy of the NCTA letter to Congress by clicking here.
