Today I just noticed that something was different from BBC News website. It did not strike me immediately. Just something different. After a few minutes I realised that now the new website had some advertisements. I was told that it has been already there for quite somedays. How could I have missed it because I read BBC News atleast 3 to 4 times a day? The explanation I could find was that all the adevretisements were similar as in other new sites which I read like Washington Post, New Your Times, USA Today, FT etc. But then I made me think. If I don´t realise the presence of an advertisement, the whole purpose of the adevrtisement has gone waste. How will I notice a new adevrtisement. Going deeper into it , I realise that never remembered any advertisement in any of the websites that I visted today.What I also realised I remembered many of the advertisements in the magazines which I subscribe and also the TV. Now if I who spends most of the my “eyes open” time on the internet could not be held by an advertisment, how is it that companies are shifting their major marketing budgets into internet. Is it clear that these adevrtisement expenditure are paying back to the firms which are spending? If not , I guess we have “web2.0 bust” probably more severe than the “dotcom bust”.
Now coming back to BBC, I presume that these advertisements are a means for BBC to recover their fund shortfall which was in the news recently. If that is the case, I guess it is not going to be a long term solutions. BBC has been my favourite TV channel providing my family complete dose of news, entertainment, movies, serials, drama, documentary and everything. All for free. And then for reading the BBC site primarily the news site has been my major source of unbiased reports (notwithstanding the Hutton report and Andrew Gilligan issues…I still consider that Andrew was right and became a victim of the “spin doctors” and “crisis handling ” of Tony Blair). I do hope that BBC can make up this funding somehow. Even if this means switching from freeview to payed channel i would take it.
