TVs in public places.

[Mega85]

It seems like more and more public places are getting TVs these days. I have heard of gas stations that have TVs at the gas pumps. TVs are popping up everywhere. Waiting rooms, restaurants, stores, malls, hair salons, gas pumps, elevators, and even public restrooms.

[teelo]

Ok and?

[ucim]

...and you can't escape the audio, which as often as not is advertising, advertorial, or mind-numbing drivel. Further, places that have it (such as doctors' waiting rooms, where you're a captive audience) most often refuse to mute it, or allow you to wait elsewhere (except outside, where you're likely to miss your call).

There's a seaish amount of money being made here, I'm sure, by annoying the hapless patrons.

Jose

[SecondTalon]

Holy shit, I think Mega is a spambot who gained sentience as all the posts are like this one.

by the by, this is not an invitation to play "Pile onna Mega". Understand? This is an invitatation for Mega to elaborate.

[Soupspoon]

I'd just like to say (both before and after reading ST's coloured text) that I have not yet seen this phenomena as so described.

There's a greasy-spoon cafe that I pass through maybe once a year that has two TVs (usually different channels, different ends of the room) that are there to inform the truckers/bikers who wish to seat themselves close enough to hear their low volumes and get the regular broadcast news/whatever, but that's not advertising-led (what with TV Licences, and perhaps some variant upon a PPL required, it likely costs the establishment). And the blood doning place has various TVs entertaining us donors (again, regular broadcasts, sound OFF, highly humorous real-time auto-subtitles often making an amusing game of what the audio actually would have been as we backtrack the semi-homophonous errors back to something that makes sense...)

No ads on petrol pumps, yet, that I've noticed. The local shopping centre has floor-standing advertising LCDs (Clearview?) and I know of some LED billboards (typically replacing various mechanically moving-billboard designs, 'rolling' or 'shuttering' , at one or other prime spot where there has long been a billboard, even static), but I'm not sure these are so much of the way along to the Minority Report ubiquitousness...

But I shall now look out for them. It sounds like it's only time!

[Ginger]

Yesterday while we were at the gas station coming home from the city my mom saw a screen that was advertising Mountain Dew. Then when it was done she said it said, "You are watching Gas Station TV!" My thoughts are that these are bothersome because I don't commonly enjoy the television. I've seen them in doctors' waiting rooms too however usually they are turned down so I may not have to pay attention.

[ObsessoMom]

I live in California. We've had the obnoxious videos on the gas pumps for a few years now--at least in the population centers. Didn't see them when I drove through the less-populated Central Valley recently.

The videos seem to run in a one-minute loop, so even though I don't look at the screen, I hear the audio for the same celebrity news, sports highlights, late-night tv jokes, and male-centered ads cycle a few times while I wash my front and back windshields.

(The target audience of all this stuff is quite obviously male, because everyone knows that women don't buy gasoline. Snort.)

[PAstrychef]

A restaurant I liked to frequent added six! screens across the soffit over the counter seating. They also used one for the daily specials board near the front door. Whether they all show the same show or a selection, it's horrible. It's almost impossible to get a seat that doesn't put one in your line of sight. I eat there much less frequently these days.
It's like there has been some assumption made somewhere that even a moment without a distraction is too much for Americans to cope with. There are even digital moving ads on the sides of buses. Human vision is evolved to be attracted to bright, moving images. These ads are just about demanding that drivers look away from traffic. I wonder how many drivers have been in accidents because of them.

[commodorejohn]

Yeah, this is increasingly becoming a thing. It makes me want to stab out the speaker cones, if not crack the screens themselves.

[heuristically_alone]

I don't typically watch television, but I enjoy places with lots of tvs because the confusion of noises brings comfort to me. Too much silence makes me feel uncomfortable.

[EdgarJPublius]

I live in California. We've had the obnoxious videos on the gas pumps for a few years now--at least in the population centers. Didn't see them when I drove through the less-populated Central Valley recently.

The videos seem to run in a one-minute loop, so even though I don't look at the screen, I hear the audio for the same celebrity news, sports highlights, late-night tv jokes, and male-centered ads cycle a few times while I wash my front and back windshields.

(The target audience of all this stuff is quite obviously male, because everyone knows that women don't buy gasoline. Snort.)

There's one gas station with in-pump TVs near me, I've seen others, but they are few and far between around here. I usually get my gas there because it's very convenient and it looks newer and cleaner than other nearby stations.

Anyway, the programming for the gas-station TV is a lot more gender-neutral than what you're describing, the typical loop is 'talk-show segment' (daytime or late night interchangeably), 'Ad for something you can probably buy in the attached convenience store' (usually snacks/drinks), 'News Segment' (lighthearted piece about puppys & kittens or something along those lines), 'Ad for something you probably can't buy at the attached convenience store (beauty and/or male grooming products, automobiles). Occasionally the news segment will be replaced by a sports highlight, or another talk show segment. The whole thing takes slightly less than half as long as it takes me to fill up, so I see the same sequence twice, then the start of the first segment again before I'm done.

[ObsessoMom]

I could be selectively remembering only the male-oriented stuff because it annoys me, and not remembering any female-oriented stuff. I'd promise to pay more attention next time, but I just stumbled across this, which claims that pushing the correct button next to the video screen will turn off the audio, and I plan to give that a try, which will interfere with any other research. I hope.

[EdgarJPublius]

It could be a regional thing, different programming for different markets. In the age of big data, I'm always fascinated by how much and what kind goes into programs like this.

[somitomi]

The only gas stations I've seen here with sreens on the pumps all belong to a big hypermarket chain and they show a short segment about how sampling and testing of the fuel is carried out by some accredtied laboratory. I guess they're trying to subvert the widespread image of hypermarket fuel being cheap because it is "watered down", but I can't help feeling this isn't the best way to go about that. It's like a taxi driver telling me "Don't worry, I have a drivers license", assuring me everything is as it should be just makes me more suspicious than saying nothing.
But the segment beats most things I see on TV these days and it has the decency of staying quiet and communicating through subtitles, so that's a plus.

[teelo]

The only one of your examples I've encountered is the doctors office one. I suspect they do it because they're so over booked they want to drive away patients to other doctors.

[Plasma Man]

My hospital department has two TVs. One is used for playing DVDs, either nature documentaries or family films, inoffensive stuff. The other is generally tuned to a commercial channel (ITV), but muted with subtitles up. Because people might be waiting with us for a while, it's good to have the distraction / entertainment for them, but I'm a little uneasy about the ethics of exposing the patients to adverts. I'd rather stick it on a BBC channel, but have been outvoted by the other staff members.