Devoted to show business and the entertainment industry

In the typical Hollywood fashion of being out of contact with the reality of everyday people, they have been seemingly caught off guard by the desire for family programming. Advertisers in particular are feeling the heat as their family-related products aren't being seen as much because of the dearth of opportunities to show them via televsion.

At the recent Association of National Advertisers' Family Friendly Programming Forum, an odd comment was made concerning DVR and VOD technologies that seems to boggle the mind.

The conclusions made at the forum is that moms and dads that want to sit down and watch television with their children, can take advantage of these technologies by using them to filter through all the garbage. This is coming from people that have been battling how to have their ads seen more because of DVR usage.

"Having time-shifting technologies can change the nature of family viewing," said David Shiffman, vice president-research director at Mediavest USA. "These technologies are delivering what families want. They are enhancing the TV experience."

Now, according to Shiffman, these technologies are providing what families want? The obsurdity of this comment is telling. What I hear being said in a statement like this is that families will just have to work around the garbage that the studios are putting out. Live with it they're basically saying.

In a survey it was revealed that only 20% of people are satisfied with family TV programming. The industry is patting itself on the back because it's 6 percentage points up from last year. All it shows is how far removed from what life is really like Hollywood and ad agencies are.

To congratulate yourself because you have a 20% satisfaction rating is the height of ignorance from a business way of looking at it.

Concerning the 6 percentage point growth, Lance McAlindon, senior research manager of North American market development for Procter & Gamble said: "We should all be proud of that, but the flip side is that 80% are not [satisfied]. So there is room for growth."

I think he just had a "duh" moment. In any other field, an 80% lack of approval would be considered an outright disaster. Again, I'm not sure what reality these people are living in, but it's not one that reflects the normal people of this country.