As Nobel Prize winner in economics Herbert Simon famously observed, people spout lots of thoughtful-sounding verbiage about their spending habits, but ultimately they almost always choose to do what
is in their own best economic interests. So it should come as no surprise that consumers profess to want advertising-free media, but they won't actually dig into their wallets to pay for it. So said
Crispin Porter + Bogusky's chairman Chuck Porter yesterday at the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit in New York. "Every focus group we have had, people said, 'We don't want commercials on the
radio. We will pay not to have commercials,'" Porter said, adding, "But they wouldn't, and they didn't." On the other hand, people will pay for quality programming. HBO attracts millions of viewers
not because it's free of ads, Porter said, but because its shows are enormously appealing. "They're buying [HBO] because they want to watch 'The Sopranos,'" Porter said of the network's widely admired
success.
advertisement
advertisement
Read the whole story at Reuters.com »
