ABC Family is one of the very best channels available in my area. Quite honestly I have cable TV for only a few channels, ABC Family being one of them. The line up of alternatives is horrible and because cable and dish companies continue to keep ala Carte a pipe dream I am stuck with all the rest .. but I digress.

ABC Family is really good. Great programming and it probably owns 75% of my viewing time, at least the time I am not watching movies. So being such an avid watcher I have noticed a disturbing trend over the last months. They have begun to run ad units within the show taking up a solid 1/3 of the viewing space! These ads, much like those Google announced for their YouTube model are extremely distracting.

Now I’ll admit I have a Media Center with dual tuners. I time shift almost everything I watch and skip commercials – I am part of the problem, but let’s be clear. They did not reduce the volume of ads running in the time slot. In fact a full 20 minutes, minimum, run every hour. That is 1 minute for every 2 minutes of viewing! Can you imagine if they broke it up in that way?!

I am a marketer by profession. I love this stuff. I love commercials that are compelling, entertaining and educational, but the problem is that most aren’t. They lack value to the consumer. Moreover they are not a performance based ad unit. They are very passive and the metrics of measurement are skewed every which way. The problem is the advertising revenue model is broken and who is left holding the bag? The consumer.

This rant is a cry out for help. If you have the resources and want to create a great new business then please dot com Web 2.0 company, please redefine the business of advertising to be one that does not continue to inch more and more into our shows. I don’t mind product placement, but make it contextually relevant. Make it so I am engaged as a consumer.