Truth About Hallmark

The days continue to meld together seamlessly. I am pretty much happy all of the time. I switch interests so fast as well. One day I'll be into Facebook, the next, not so much. I enjoy pretty much everything that comes along. Last night I fell asleep watching "When Worlds Collide." It varied from my usual installment of Dark Shadows but was just as interesting.

I contemplated the fact that sometimes I like new dramatic shows, sometimes old ones. I feel very much at home now watching almost anything, though reality shows grind a bit. When I say "pretty much anything," I mean anything except commercials. Also I mean shows that are in their original state and not chopped up for commercials and sped up for more commercials.

I taped a bunch of Perry Mason shows on the Hallmark Movie Channel. Now I have always associated Hallmark with good quality, but no more. First they didn't show the full opening credit sequence. It lasted about 5 seconds, chopped down to the title and a few bars of the song. Seriously, 5 seconds. I was ok with that if they just showed the entire episode after this but alas, they showed the beginning of the story chopped down to as little time as possible (though I did not notice any speeding up of the film). And during this short clip they also pasted a graphic at the bottom over a fourth of the screen. When this was gone they had a flashy animated "Hallmark" logo that grabbed one's attention.

In this particular opening clip of Perry Masson, a woman in a short skirt (meaning it showed her calves) was walking away from the viewer. The entire ambiance of the 50's was in that opening scene and in the bottom third of the screen, the part that was just unimportant to Hallmark Movie Channel.

I immediately erased all the Perry Mason shows that I had DVRed.

This is where providers like Netflix will find their best audience, people who are sick and tired of commercials that not only fill the space between the scenes, but now fill the scenes and shorten the scenes and speed up the scenes.

I read an article of how people are abandoning cable and satellite subscriptions in favor of Netflix and alternate sources of programing like Over-the-Air television. This will continue as long as the cable networks veer more towards wall to wall commercials rather than shows the view wants to watch AND is paying a fee for.