Subliminal Ads on TV in the Bay Area!

From: [email protected] (Lon Stowell)

Has anyone else noticed, typically late in the evening, the phrase

Channel 20 Write it Down

Appearing briefly in white letters about 2/3 of the way down the screen during broadcasts on Channel 20?

Is this supposed to be some sort of joke, or a form of subliminal message? The message appears only for a fraction of a second, then disappears...

Since there is nothing on 20 worth taping, I haven't caught this on a VCR to go into stop frame to verify the exact message here...

If this IS some sort of subliminal, aren't these against FCC regulations....?

Anyone from Channel 20 care to comment?

From: [email protected] (Gardner Cohen)

Hence I don't watch this channel anymore, unless other channels are all worse which seldom occurs. I think it is definitely NOT a joke and think too that it has something to do with subliminal messages.

Sigh. Anyone considered the somewhat less evil possibility that this message is intended for people with ratings log books? Last I heard, local ratings are measured by handing people log books to write down whatever they watch, instead of the relatively high tech automatic reporting methods used for the national ratings.

From: [email protected] (Robert S. French)

I noticed this starting a couple of months ago, although it took a couple of attempts to realize what it was saying. Perhaps it's a coincidence, but this message always seems to come on right before the little scrolling message at the bottom: "So-and-so, you may have won a trip...call TV20 now..."

so, channel 20 has local viewers all atwitter. subliminal messaging yet.

would you believe it's a minor varient on dialling for dollars, instead of knowing the count and the amount -- which would require watching the show -- you need to see your own name flash on the screen without too much distraction for the nameless viewers -- which requires watching the show.

now, remember not to use invisible ink when sending all those cards and cables to the fcc.