Mark Cuban was sounding off about how bad and unethical advertising adversely affects the brand value of the channel that’s airing it. He makes some decent points, but I think it’s more about him getting up on his soapbox and telling us how cool HDNet is for being discerning.

Viewers are saavy enough to figure out that broadcasters don’t necessarily endorse the advertising they air. Moreover, I think that a network which airs above average content coupled with bad advertising is doing fine by me, because a viewer tunes in for the content and tolerates the advertising.

I’d be left slack-jawed if I ever came across someone who said, “I won’t watch CSI (or Desperate Housewives, or Grey’s Anatomy, or…) because the network aired a get-rich-quick infomercial at midnight the day earlier. I can’t imagine anyone basing their viewing preferences on something like that because viewers think all advertising sucks. Some more than others, but it all gets in the way.

Another reason viewers are relatively immune to this bad advertising is the fact that all the channels are airing TVCs of this kind. Since there isn’t someone who overtly bans them, they’re all over the place and no one really notices where they are and where they aren’t.

Even in this case, there’s something to be said about the power of ubiquity!

It would be a completely different story if a channel went all puritanical and started speaking out against dodgy ads and refused to air them. I’m sure you’d then see a ground swell of support from viewers.

Three things would cause this:

1. They’d realise that they’re being considered when a station decides what advertising to accept
2. People would realise that they could piggyback the cause
3. Other stations would feel the pressure to raise their own acceptance standards

Alas, that’s not going to happen and, frankly, I don’t think anyone really cares if it doesn’t.

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