>Opinions | Bugs and Bruises

Originally Posted by Jeff Harris

It began, innocently enough, with a corner logo.

In an era without on-screen channel menus and grids, the powers that be in the hierarchy of television management decided that channels should be identified with a corner logo called bugs, kind of like a watermark of sorts. It doesn't matter which corner, just as long as it's in a corner. Then, bugs got animated, like irritating GIF animations. Then came the compression of television end credits, as if they don't want people to know who worked on the shows we all love. They compress the credits so they could promote their other shows. Then came the TV Ratings System, which was supposed to provide viewers with a guideline to judge show content. Then came the TV Ratings extenders, which is supposed to provide viewers with an extended guideline to judge show content. The cable industry and some broadcast networks have made a mandate to keep those ratings on-air a bit longer, but I already talked about that. What I want to talk about is this increasingly rampant sludge that's on television.

I'm not talking about 3/4 of the shows on the air. I'm talking about the banner ads that's seen before and after commercial breaks, and on some networks, in during shows themselves. Since nobody has given an official name to these on-screen interruptions, I'm going to officially call them "bruises." Bumps are on-screen interruptions before the first commercial and after the last commercial. Bruises are on-screen interruptions DURING THE SHOW, virtually bruising the picture. Sometimes, they're small corner ads in the place where the corner logo is usually placed. Sometimes, they're animated ads featuring characters moving across a screen. Sometimes, they take up a quarter of the screen. I've seen internet-like banners pop up before a commercial break that had big letters across the screen in the middle of a pivotal scene.

I know that the advent of technology is promising to a lot of network controllers and eager graphic designers for television networks, but if there's one thing (among many) they should learn from internet users, it's that people don't want to see a lot of sludge on their screens, whether it's computer screens or television screens. Pop-up ads, animated GIF ads, and Direct X/Flash ad banners that take forever to load on most computers are an annoyance, so why would television controllers purposely want to inflict that frustration on millions and millions of television viewers?

Content is king, but bruises, bugs, and squashed end credits are tarnishing its crown. The only time you see unbruised programming is on HBO. For a while, HBO did interrupt the end credits to some movies to show behind the scenes interviews, and they smartly stopped that practice years ago. Starz, as good as it is, not only does that, but they place their bug on all their networks and, during the end credits shows behind the scene footave and a huge 1/4 scrolling banner during the end credits, making the Starz family of networks good, but not great.

And corner bugs are pointless. I never understood why people are in such a huff over the fact that Toonami doesn't have a corner bug. It doesn't need one. Not because Toonami is aimed towards the same demos as the rest of Cartoon Network as some are inferring (see DBZ Uncut and Naruto), but rather because corner bugs wre unnecessary. Nearly all cable operators have on-screen menus which provide the network's name, the show currently on, and, on a lot of systems, the show's rating. The corner bugs are not only unneeded, but they're also redundant. Man, I wish the Logo-Free TV was back in this country, I'd be willing do devote some time to that. If there are enough critical voices, perhaps the television controllers would be pushed to actually do something about it. Television is a primary vessel of information and entertainment for all Americans, and people are sick of seeing it buried under ratings icons and bruises.