Digital TV Ad Spoof

Nick Broughall has posted a copy of a spoof of the Freeview TV advertisement. The advertised Freeview service is a non-profit advertising campaign for free to air digital TV. This campaign is a half hearted attempt at making the digital TV offering seem an improvement on the analogue service and a competitor to Pay TV. However, as the ad points out in a satirical and entertaining way, the supposed extra channels on Freeview will be mostly used to provide copies of what is currently provided.

There will be only limited genuine high definition programming and much of the content will be low value material which few will want to watch. In addition channels have been reluctant to provide an accurate and comprehensive electronic program guide, as this would allow those with personal video recorders (PVRs) to break out of the stations linear programming. As the spoof says, Freeview may encourage viewers to move to Internet broadband based TV viewing, due to the poor free to air offering. Interestingly, Channel Seven is one of the members of the Freeview consortium, but is also encouraging Internet broadband TV viewing on TiVo, the PVR it distributes in Australia.