Posted 10:04 PM by Gene

If it's Sunday it must be Big Double-A-Scribble Time:

1. 10-minute commercial pods are WHAT ADVERTISERS WANT. Oh, they won't admit to it, but in buying air time incontinently advertisers consent to any and all ways of buying it, including 10-minute pods. They don't care so long as they get their time. And why should corporate America care about anything, its aim being to make its rep from top to bottom worse than the oil biz' or airlines?

To build a 10-minute ad break Aug. 27, Spike started off with a promo for its UFC programming, then ran spots for DirecTV; Unilever's Axe shampoo; B.F. Goodrich; Schering-Plough's Zegerid OTC; Jack Link's beef jerky; VF Corp.'s Lee Jeans; Screen Gems' latest "Resident Evil" movie; AT&T; Miller Lite beer; and Progressive Insurance.

But wait, there's more: Ads also ran during the break for PepsiCo's Mtn Dew soda; Pep Boys; Trojan condoms; Outback Steakhouse; Mobil motor oil; Sony Corp.'s Vaio laptop; Diageo's Captain Morgan Lime Bite rum; Kraft Foods' Dentyne gum; a DVD for the FX program "Sons of Anarchy"; and UFC action figures. The break was then garnished with what appeared to be two ads from local cable operators. Other popular marketers with ads in the extended "Entourage" breaks included Allstate, Domino's, Yum Brands' Taco Bell, Colgate-Palmolive's Colgate Wisp, Mars' Snickers and Esurance.

In the words of the NRA, WE DO OUR PART!

"Viewers don't like clutter," said Debbie Solomon, managing director-business planning, at WPP's MindShare.

WHY DO VIEWERS COUNT? ALL YOU WANT ARE NUMBERS!

One ad-buying executive frowned. "We know every network at times shoehorns in additional commercials to boost revenue, especially in programs with higher unit costs," said [THE ALL-TOO-FREQUENTLY QUOTED] Andrew Donchin, director of investment at Aegis Group's Carat. "But this situation is especially egregious and very troubling. It not only devalues the commercial messages but, unfortunately, also raises the suspicion that other networks may be playing the same games."

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE SO LONG AS IT'S OUR MONEY AND YOU SPEND IT? YOU'RE WORSE THAN GOVERNMENT!

And government can burn money "in the public interest".

"This is not the direction that television is going in. Television is going the other way, to have shorter breaks so that people can't just skip our advertising," said Ed Gold, advertising director at State Farm Insurance. The company had its ads appear in two different ad breaks each about nine minutes in length during Spike telecasts of "Entourage" episodes Friday, Aug. 27. "I will tell you right now, we at State Farm find an eight-minute-to-10-minute commercial break unacceptable," he added.

AND THE NEXT TIME I SEE MY BOSS I'M GONNA MAKE SURE THAT FIFTEEN-MINUTE POD'S UNSKIPPABLE!

And one very good self-serving excuse:

To be sure, Spike has some challenges when trying to run "Entourage." The episodes of the bawdy HBO show about a movie star and his pals often have to be cut to meet basic-cable standards of decency, leaving Spike to fill extra time (The length of "Entourage" episodes can vary, but are typically delivered to Spike between 21 and 24 minutes in length). Ratings for the program have not been stellar since Spike started running it in January; the network paid a hefty fee of around $600,000 per episode, according to several press reports.

"We don't want to put our customers in an environment that is not appropriate for their commercial messages," said Jeff Lucas, exec VP-sales, at MTV Networks' Entertainment Group. "If there's a problem, we'll fix it."

YOU'VE FIXED IT VERY WELL, SUMNER. Without a doubt this is by far the most exasperating thing ADVERTISERS and the CRAINIACS have EVER done.

2. Killing Off 30-second Spot Is Bad Medicine for OTC Drug Industry

Not to worry: with SUMNER's help we can run TWENTY-MINUTE ADS, complete with FIVE MINUTES OF DISCLAIMERS to shut the feds up.