Letters from the Front John Pezaris, Pasadena, California, 8 October 1995. GREEK TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENTS Excerpts from the Athens News, 22 September 1995, quoted without permission. Notes within square brackets [like this] are my additions. VIEWERS GROW TIRED OF ADVERTS SPOILING THEIR TV PROGRAMMES Survey finds nation frustrated with nightly bombardment of commercials A new survey, carried out in Attica [Greece] among 526 television viewers, found that adverts cause indignation because they break into series, film, game shows, even newscasts. What people find even more annoying is when the ad is longer when it re-broadcast time and again. [Commercial interruptions in Greece are not nearly as seamless as in the States, and one might see the same advert a dozen times in an hour.] "We must find a way for advertisements to be less annoying so that their effect is stronger. This is an issue that has been of some concern to the sector for years," Stavros Leousis, director of Solid advertising, told the Athens daily Ta Nea. "In that context, adverts have become much more spectacular and contain humour elements and it is certain that there are some commercials which the public wants to watch." He adds that getting annoyed by ads is a price viewers have to pay. "We are working on making commercials more entertaining and more spectacular so that they become part of recreation and so that the element of coercion is decreased." Lawyer Vasilis Kaloyeropoulos, chairman of the Association for the Protection of Viewers, says: "The daily bombardment of adverts [in Greece], which are trying to -- and in part have managed to -- change comsumers' habits, makes us draw the conclusion that commercials are not an annoying consequence of television but that television was invented to serve them." Whoa. Hope I never have to deal with Mr. Leousis. - pz. Next Letter, Previous Letter, Start Again Copyright (C) 1995, J. S. Pezaris, All Rights Reserved.