Q&A: C’mon, do ads REALLY make TV more fun?

Yesterday’s post about a NYU Stern research study that found commercials make TV programs more enjoyable provoked a strong reaction. Readers emailed, posted on the comment board and other bloggers weighed in. The response was pretty consistent with the first piece of feedback posted: "Bullsh**t. I like to watch TV without interruptions. Commercials are usually annoying pieces of sh*t."

Below, study co-author Jeff Galak addresses comments and questions.

Q: Who funded this study?

Galak: This was not funded by anybody outside of Stern. It came from our research budget. I also saw a comment saying we must be consulting for everybody and anybody. None of us are consulting for anybody on this topic.

Q: A lot of readers saw the article and said, “There’s no way this could possibly be true because I hate commercials and won’t watch a show if it has commercials in it.”

Galak: Half of the point was that people don’t predict the effect. As you pointed out with “Stumbling on Happiness,” this is true for a lot of things. The fact they’re so vehement about it is not surprising because that’s not only what we expect but what we specifically tested for in our research. There was a disconnect between what people expected to happen and what did happen. Our study was derivative of previous research that showed disruptions make positive experiences more enjoyable, and we just extended it into television.

Q: Would pausing your TiVo and taking a bathroom break be just as effective to interrupt the adaptation process and increase your enjoyment of a show?

Galak: I wouldn’t want to say that explicitly since we haven’t tested for that, but I expect so.

Q: Some readers said, “This is simply because viewers appreciate the show compared to the lousy commercials, not because the commercials make the show itself seem better.”

Galak: That’s something we tested for and ruled out. That’s the contrast effect, that in comparison to a terrible commercial, the show looks better. As you described in article, the commercial takes you away from the experience and allows you to reset your level of enjoyment.

Q: “Correlation does not prove causation” is something also chanted in the feedback.

Galak: That’s a misinterpretation of how we did the research. We randomly assigned participants to control [the variables]. We showed causation. That’s the difference between an experiment and a survey.

Q: So would watching four hours of TV be typically less enjoyable than watching an hour?

Galak: It’s hard to answer that question directly. Most people don’t watch the same show for several hours at a time. They’re watching different shows -- so variation comes into play. But the longer you’re watching, yes, the more likely your enjoyment is to decrease.

Q: Would this effect be the case with serialized shows as much as a self-contained series? For instance, if you’re watching “Lost” or “24” or something similarly suspenseful, would commercials increase your enjoyment of the program as much as if you were watching “Two and a Half Men”?

Galak: We test that explicitly in the last study in the paper. We did find programs that are, for lack of a better word, exciting, like a “24,” did not benefit from the commercials. But other types of programming did benefit. 

Q: Any other findings you’d like to point out?

Galak: Some of the comments said there are too many commercials, with a question of how many commercials is the right number of commercials [for this effect]. And it’s possible you can get the same benefit from reducing the number of commercials or by increasing the commercials. It’s certainly plausible that there are too many commercials right now.

Q: Anything else, psychologically, that people can do to increase their enjoyment of TV?

Galak: Along the same lines, variability helps. So instead of watching 10 episodes of something off a DVD, switch it up and watch different shows. That’s actually in a different paper we’re working on.

Comments

[smokeybear]

I still believe commercials are a slap in the viewer's face. With sports I don't mind as much since they're always taking time-outs. I just want to watch my favorite show and do something else afterward. Which is why I prefer watching TV on my PC. I watch whatever I want when I want and my viewing pleasure is never interrupted by commercials. It's great!

I know my first post in the original article was a bit immature but I figured who cares? :D

[Doug]

So it's beginning to sound like extraneous variables were controlled by random assignment and I assume at least 26 people were in each condition, which is the bare minimum. Were the two conditions simply the show with and without the commercials? If so, then this doesn't mimic choice in a new media environment. It just puts the viewer into another powerless situation. At least with TiVo, the pleasure is enhanced because the viewer controls the commercials (and may even opt to watch one). With commercials substracted, the viewer has no opportunity to pause or to back up to catch something they didn't hear. I haven't read the article yet, so I could be wrong, but I suspect the viewers in the treatment group weren't offered the opportunity to skip commercials at will but were placed into a non-stop playing experience, one which is quite foreign and undoubtedly unsettling. If that's true, then the happiness found in the control group may actually be a lack of unease, which is not quite the same as enhanced enjoyment.