A Growing TV Cover-up: Obnoxious Pop-up Promos

Somewhere in the universe of TV viewers, there's got to be a person who actually likes those pop-up, on-screen promotions.

In this Nov. 7, 2009 photo, a pop up advertisement for an upcoming NBA game is displayed as a scene from "CSI: New York," featuring actress Melina Kanakaredes, is broadcast on the TNT cable channel in New York. (AP Photo/Frazier Moore)

(AP)

Someone who thinks, "Thank you, network people, for those useful, informative announcements that block what I'm watching to tell me what I'm watching, or tell me what I could be watching next, which will then be blocked by reminders of what I could be watching after that."

This is a happy viewer all right, and maybe he or she exists in some den or family room absorbing those intrusive promos that, for everybody else, undermine what TV networks are ideally in business to do: entertain, not tick off.

TV exists above all as a medium of escape. But how do you escape into a TV show when it's plastered with scene-stealing hype?

At least one Web site, stoptvpopups.com, serves as a sounding board and support group for an outspoken few.

But almost any viewer can cite annoying instances where a pop-up ad has upstaged a show's dramatic climax or obscured vital on-screen information.

Viewers hate the detective hero of "Monk" rising from the bottom left screen for eight or nine seconds of vamping, followed by a ghostly but distracting text line that looms for several long minutes to accommodate even the slowest readers: "Monk All New Tonight 9/8c."

The USA network's motto is "Characters Welcome." Well, that "Monk" message adds up to 21 characters, none of them welcome.

And what about TBS, where "Freakin' Sweet!" is an on-screen message plugging "Family Guy" episodes available on that network's Web site: "Very Funny" is TBS' motto. Nothing funny about those cover-ups for its comedies.

Viewers don't forget. Viewers still cite the giant fireball, complete with a whooshing inferno sound, erupting on the screen to promote FX's firefighter drama "Rescue Me." It makes them mad to even think about it.

That promo hasn't aired in two years, says FX spokesman John Solberg. Since then, the network has moved toward making "our air look cleaner, more theatrical," generally opting for a single line of promotional text that appears on-screen for about 10 seconds.