August 08, 2005

Land of pirated cable commercial broadcasting

One of the interesting things about watching television in Taiwan is that pirated commercials are so frequent that they sometimes outnumber legitimate advertising. Pirated commercials are easy to recognize because they are not seamlessly integrated with the other commercials. Usually, they begin abruptly in the middle of a normal commercial and sometimes end after the television program has already started. They are always low-budget, often static advertisements for local services. The most commonly advertised items are short-term loans and restaurants. The volume is usually way too loud. I can imagine a family's reaction as they watch a variety show together when the television suddenly erupts with a commercial that yells out a phone sex telephone number. I have assigned my research team to study this problem, but due to budget cutbacks, all that is left of my research team are three geckos and two shiftless cockroaches.

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