The commercial greed of television always amazes me. Two things to comment on regarding the pursuit of the dollar by television networks.

1. We pay for a cable network and we get free to air channels as well as heaps of other services. Early on this year I noticed that on Cartoon Network, and other paid channels there were advertisements. One thing I really enjoyed about the cable channels was that especially at Christmas time there were no product advertisements bombarding my children. “Mum, can I have one of those…” I phoned up the cable service and complained and they advised me that the advertisements were of a local nature to assist viewers to locate suppliers and services. Baloney!
2. The second point was something I noticed the other night on television. Like many countries, New Zealand has a heavy television campaign against drink driving. We have also relatively recently allowed alcohol advertisements to be shown on television. And what do the dimwit television programmers do…they screen a horrific anti-drink driving ad and straight after it put on an alclohol advertisement. What message are they trying to get across?

This is worse than the recent ad by Coke showing a plane crash in the ocean with young guys drinking Coke deciding to climb back up the ramp so they can jump back down again. I have heard several people say it is funny, but if your family had died in a plane crash in similar circumstances I’m sure you would have a hard time seeing the funny side of it. I’m a little bit sensitive because my Dad died in a helicopter accident. I have a different perspective on some things.