As reported on PVR Wire last month, those wretched Comcast banner ads found their way back to the program guides of customers living in the Tucson, AZ area.
We speculated that Comcast was on the verge of rolling out this fantastic feature to more markets around the country and appear to have been correct much to the dismay of Comcast digital subscribers.
Livid users have reported seeing the invasive, home-wrecking ads in the Michigan, Minnesota, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, and Washington DC areas.
Some may inquire what the big friggin' deal is?
The big deal, ladies and gentlemen is this.
The ads are annoying. Apparently flipping from one page of the EPG to the next requires an additional button press because the EPG cursor must navigate over this ad to move to the next page. The ad is also a bit of an eyesore and takes up a significant amount of real estate.
There's also the fact that we've all gotten accustomed to the idea that when we pay to subscribe to a service (think satellite radio) we don't really encounter ads for the most part. On the contrary, when we don't pay for a service (think terrestrial radio), we must endure a certain amount of advertising. The ads aren't the primary reason behind the discontent, it's more the principle outlined above. To add insult to injury it's been reported that the company line appears to be that the ads are here to stay.
Perhaps the ads will slide through unnoticed among the typical Comcast subscriber and just be accepted as part of the guide. Reader Jack McMillin hopes that does not end up being the case and has created a petition so like minded customers angry with the EPG ads can vent their frustrations, and hopefully get them removed.
Good luck with that one.
1. Having used the Xbox 360 for a few weeks now, I find the TiVo and Comcast ads LESS annoying, LESS invasive.
Posted at 1:23PM on Dec 7th 2006 by Dave Zatz