Commercial protection

[Paul Anderson <plandrsn@ma.ultranet.com>]

The other night on WHDH I saw six car ads in a row.  I've noticed that 
commercial protection doesn't seem to be used much these days, 
especially with car ads, arguably TV's most common, but SIX IN A ROW?  
How happy can the fifth or sixth car company be after the viewer has 
already seen four car ads?  Or, since the facts and offers in the ads 
blur after six of them, the folks at the beginning probably wouldn't be 
happy either.

It's possible this was a mix of national and local spots, but don't 
local stations know what ads are playing on the network?  (This was on 
the Friday night variant of Law and Order and it could have been the 
break with local spots near the bottom of the hour.)

When I was in radio (the old days, I know--we played vinyl LPs and used 
carts for ads) the problem was bar/nightclub ads.  If we ever played two 
in a four-ad break, it was only in an emergency because there were so 
many nightclub ads that hour.  We really did try to never have two ads 
for competing sponsors in a break.

Paul