Notice a Change in TV ads?

I always mute the TV ads. However, I’ve been paying a little more attention to television ads since I noticed a new phenomenon.

It seems to me that an increasing fraction of commercials are for other shows on the same network. This is particularly true on niche channels like TLC or TSN. Watch SportsNet for a half-hour and half the ads are promotions for other SportsNet programming.

This comes on the heels of this study (thanks, Doc Searls):

For the week of the broadcast network upfront presentations, Bolt Media hopes this stat delivers a bullet to TV: Only one in four 12- to 34-year-olds can name all four major broadcast networks: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox.

The finding comes via an online poll conducted by Bolt Media, a 10-year-old Web site that six weeks ago relaunched itself as a place for users to upload videos and photos. About 400 members responded to the questions, including one that asked how respondents spent their free time.

Er, now that I read that, it’s a pretty crap survey (online and 400 members). Still, it’s reflective of the ongoing balkanization of our media attention.

Here’s some more evidence: the CW (worst logo ever) is a new television network formed by the merging of UPN and the WB. As it turns out, the two defunct networks apparently only had 12.5 hours of programming worth saving.