[Infowarrior] - As the Fall Season Arrives, TV Screens Get More Cluttered

[Richard Forno]

(Sorry, NYT folks, but I wrote about this first earlier this month!  -rf)


September 24, 2007
As the Fall Season Arrives, TV Screens Get More Cluttered
By WENDY A. LEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24clutter.html?_r=2&oref=sl
ogin&ref=media&pagewanted=print


Kyra Sedgwick, star of ³The Closer² on TNT, walks under a police tape and
scans the screen with her flashlight. And every time she does, she makes
Gretchen Corbin, a technical writer in Berkeley, Calif., irate.

The promotional ads for ³The Closer² run in the bottom right of the screen
during other TNT programs ‹ a graphic called a snipe. But for Ms. Corbin,
who sometimes watches movies that have subtitles, the tiny images block the
dialogue.

³Some ad just took over the entire bottom of the screen so I missed what the
characters said to each other,² said Ms. Corbin, describing a recent
experience. ³And it¹s TV, so you can¹t rewind.²

Snipes are just the latest effort by network executives to cram promotions
onto television screens in the age of channel surfing, ad skipping and
screen-based multitasking. At first, viewers may feel a slight jolt of
pleasure at the sight of a new visual effect, they say, but over time the
intrusions contribute to the sense that the screen is far more cluttered ‹
not just with ads, but with news crawls and other streams of information.

For better or worse, viewers say, the additions are making the experience of
watching television more closely mirror the feeling of using a computer.

That may be so, network executives say, but the extra content is here to
stay. The snipes ‹ not to be confused with bugs, those network logos that
pop up in screen corners during shows ‹ are important enough to the
beleaguered television industry that the networks plan to tolerate the
backlash.

This fall ABC is introducing the ³ABC Start Here² campaign, which consists
of a series of icons in the lower right of the screen that direct viewers to
related content in other media, like books, DVDs and Web sites. At the end
of ³Ugly Betty,² for instance, a shopping icon could direct viewers to
places where they could buy Betty¹s shoes, or an iTunes icon could invite
them to that site to buy episodes of the show. The point, said Marla
Provencio, an ABC executive vice president of marketing, is ³to accommodate
viewers¹ multimedia, multichannel habits and still lead them back to ABC.²

ABC tested the icons in July and will introduce them gradually this fall to
get viewers familiar with the shorthand. To minimize complaints, ABC will
keep the icons and all similar visuals silent.

³We do not want to invade in the viewers¹ space so much that we intrude on
their experience,² said Ms. Provencio.

Promotional content on what the industry calls the ³lower third² of the
television screen is ³the way of the world these days,² Ms. Provencio said.
ABC, she said, tries to make sure that the embedded ads do not interrupt,
say, ³a dramatic moment on ŒGrey¹s Anatomy¹ ² but the network does want to
remind people they are watching ABC.

Viewers say that snipes and bugs are degrading their experience of watching
television. Even some performers seem to resent the assaults on their work¹s
integrity. At last week¹s Emmy Awards, the comedian Lewis Black delivered a
blow against screen clutter, yelling, ³We don¹t care about the next show.
We¹re watching this show.²

Network executives say that the trend toward busy screens is an attempt to
cater to the tastes and habits of younger viewers, who reflexively toggle
among screens, online and on cellphones.

David Grazian, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, said that
television is simply borrowing a successful feature from the video game
industry. ³Screen clutter can be extremely eye catching, especially for the
viewer who surfs between several channels,² he said.

Viewers of MTV, VH1 and sports channels have come to expect frenetic
programming. At ESPN, there has been a conscious effort to pump up the
visual excitement of the viewing experience, said Norby Williamson,
executive vice president of programming. ³The key word in television these
days is engagement,² he said.

The network first introduced a crawling banner of sports scores to the
bottom of the screen in 1985, has recently introduced more aggressive
visuals, such as a Monday Night Football score box in the center of the
screen that changes into other bugs and banners. Today¹s viewers today are
conditioned to have a lot going on at once, Mr. Williamson said, adding,
³Everything is shifting. Television has to shift, too.²

Sports commentators have always promoted their networks during broadcasts,
but now they have extra reminders. Last month during CBS¹s broadcast of the
United States Open semifinals between Svetlana Kuznetsova and Anna
Chakvetadze, a mini-trailer for ³Survivor: China² ran on the bottom of the
screen. Mary Carillo, who was providing commentary, promptly observed that
Ms. Kuznetsova would likely ³survive² the match (and she did).

The trend toward visual clutter has also reshaped television news
broadcasts, where the familiar sight of a lone anchor talking to a camera
has grown increasingly rare.

On CNN, the hyperactive pace of Wolf Blitzer¹s nightly news show ³The
Situation Room² is so extreme that it was parodied on ³Saturday Night Live.²
With one glance at the screen, is it really possible to absorb the United
States military strategy in Iraq, or that a thunderstorm is moving over the
Midwest, the Standard & Poor¹s index is up 16.95 points, and Sean Combs has
separated from his girlfriend? ³Our pixel footprint can get way out of
control,² acknowledged Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN U.S., referring
to the television industry in general.

Research suggests that packed screens can impede comprehension. Tom Grimes,
a journalism professor at Texas State University in San Marcos, Tex., said
that people who are looking for quick information like stock quotes or a
weather update can handle a certain amount of clutter. But ³if they¹re
trying to listen to a reporter describe a complicated series of events, it¹s
very difficult to absorb that information² with too great a visual barrage,
he said.

With the Internet offering an increasingly sophisticated yet chaotic visual
experience, television must decide how much it wants to mimic the computer,
said Aslam Khader, vice president for marketing and strategy of Ensequence
Inc., an interactive media company in Portland, Ore. ³TV is having to
reinvent itself,² he said.

The question remains how many self-promotions the networks can dish up
without degrading the quality of their shows. Sherry Sklar, a writer in
Phoenix, Ariz., said visual clutter on television ³has gotten worse ‹ more
movement and more intrusive² in recent months.

During a drama, if a character from a different show suddenly walks across
the bottom of the screen, ³it¹s a total disconnect and ruins your suspension
of disbelief,² Ms. Sklar said, adding, ³I mainly watch PBS and HBO, probably
because they don¹t do as much of this stuff.²