O hallelu, O hallelu, the TV angels did proclaim: From October the episodes of several of your TV shows are finally going to start getting a bit longer again instead of constantly shrinking in duration, after NBCUniversal announced its finally cutting down on the TV commercial clutter to try and keep linear TV viewers from fleeing.
Although NBCUniversal is doing this for the free-to-air and pay-TV channels that it runs and programmes, and for the TV shows it owns and shows on its channels in America, the effect of longer duration episodes and shows with less TV commercials will be the same for South African viewers when those will be shown here.
NBCUniversal announced that from its new fall season in America, meaning the 4th quarter of this year, it will be reducing "ad loads" by 20% during prime time and decrease the overall time given to ads during prime time by 10%.
What it means in ordinary language is that viewers will see less TV commercials during hour long and half hour shows, and more of the actual show. There will be 20% less ads per ad break, and 10% less ads during prime time shows.
Because there will be less ads per hour and less ad time per hour, the actual episode duration of some shows will increase.
This reduction in the number of adverts, as well as the total time per hour or half hour given to TV commercials, will apply to all 50 of NBCUniversal's prime time original shows across NBCUniversal's portfolio that includes channels like E!, NBC, and shows like This is Us seen on M-Net (DStv 101) and Keeping up with the Kardashians seen on E! (DStv 124).
Because episodes of This is Us on NBC will in response to less adds become longer than the 42 minutes due to less commercial time per episode, This is Us on M-Net will be longer as well.
What it means is that M-Net by default will be forced to show less ads during This is Us since less time will be available if the show is still to fit into a hour, in the way that episodes of HBO shows like Game of Thrones, Westworld and Big Little Lies have had longer than broadcast TV runtimes.
The same will now hold true for large number more TV shows like the Kardashians on E!, and for every other TV channel in South Africa that will be showing any of NBCUniversal's programming.
Because of the American change, it will likely mean changes for DStv Media Sales that's responsible for the ad sales and for managing the available inventory and commercial time that's available during episodes of shows and played out across several DStv channels and the M-Net packaged channels on the pay-TV platform.
MSNBC (StarSat 263), the news channel available on On Digital Media and StarTimes Media SA's StarSat for example and owned by NBCUniversal, is programmed and broadcast straight from America. Yet even here viewers in America as well as in South Africa will automatically see less ads than before.
"We know that the live, linear viewing experience needs to change," says Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships for NBCUniversal.
Part of reducing the ads is the addition of several new types of ads that NBCUniversal will be introducing in America to ad buyers soon.
The "scripted commercial launch" for instance will see an in-show moment transitioning into a commercial. For example a character on the drama series Suits could walk into a coffee shop and grab a drink, that would lead into a commercial for that drink.
