Monday, November 14, 2011

Not My Family

It has been a while since I have fired off a good complaint letter. I hardly ever get a reply that isn't a form letter, but it makes me feel better to say my peace.
Today's "hate" mail is due to the advertising shown during ABC Family's Harry Potter Weekend. In all fairness, some commercials come from your cable or sat. provider and my not be their fault, but given their track record, I thought a reminder of the "family"part of their channel was overdue regardless.
Here is what I sent:

"I'm not entirely sure you are to blame for this issue, but I want to cover my bases. It is in regards to advertising aired.
My family and I were enjoying your Harry Potter weekend right up until a semi pornographic commercial aired for Lifetime Movie Network. It turned our nice Sunday afternoon into a sex-ed class for our 7 year old. I know that my definition of "family" often varies from yours, but it never occurred to me that I'd have to worry about that during Harry Potter.
I own the Harry Potter movies and can easily watch them in my DVD player instead of on your channel. If the advertising continues to be R rated I will be forced to block you just like I block LMN.
In short, I'm recommending more Crayola and less under garments, more Nintendo and less casual sex, more family and less making babies."
I'm actually looking forward to the day when televisions customize your advertising like Facebook does. I know a lot of people see it as an invasion of privacy to have your trends tracked, but I rather enjoy seeing less ads for things I don't need. I also like to mess with it by occasionally posting things like "monkey herding" just to see what the computers come up with for me.
Wouldn't it be great if ABC Family had to change their name due to truth in advertising? But then what would they be? "ABC marketed to teenagers but horribly inappropriate and actually watched by middle aged housewives" is just too long.

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