Ty It Down
There's a guy named Ty Coughlin who cuts radio commericals about how you can make big money through something called the "Reverse Funnel System." Sounds like a pyramid scheme, but I have no idea what it is, and never will, because I find his commercials so obnoxious I automatically change the station.
He's a self-proclaimed beach bum and each commercial is designed to sound like he just wandered into the studio, almost by mistake, and cut the spot off the cuff. I can forgive honest amateurishness, but it drives me crazy when it's calculated.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:40 AM
7 Comments:
How can you turn away from a unique change to get rich?
Ty
Amen to that. You are the first I've heard bring up these terrible commercials. I too switch the channel when they come on.
I listen to about an hour of NPR each day on the radio. Am I th eonly one annoyed when they do location stories and spend time letting you hear quite loudly the sound of something that's going on? It'll be like a story on a volcano, and the comentator will say "Now we are walking up to the crater rim over a field of small, volcanic rocks." The next 20 seconds will be the loud sound of several booted feet trudging through this field of volcanic stones (crunch, crunch, crunch). It's boring, but for some reason I find these "soundscapes" very annoying too, and I will often switch stations.
Soundscapes may be a bit pretentious, but to me they're a natural (if somewhat cliched) part of radio.
Ty Coughlin, on the other hand, goes to great lengths to sound like there's a total lack of pretense--to convince you he's honest, I guess. It's like a director intentionally showing the boom in his shots to convince you what he's showing is real.
My annoyance at the NPR soundscapes is limited to the traffic sounds (beeping horns and screeching tires) that often precede their stories from some busy city. Since I often listen to NPR in my car, I am always startled by these sounds as I look around to find out who is beeping at me or about to slam into me. Since they precede any spoken intro, you have no context to even know they might be part of a story. I find them unsafe.
There used to be a radio commercial for Jeopardy!, of all things, that started with cars honking. I always hated it. But nothing is worse than hearing a police siren on the radio and thinking it's the real thing.
I admit I have answered the phone based on the noise coming from the radio but I've done that with the TV too. Thats probably more a function of ringtones today than soundscapes.
Also I tend to listen to various programs later by downloading them on my MP3 player. All background noise, including theme music, is intensely disagreeable when you're listening by earbud. I've tried using the higher quality sound downloads but it doesn't help. The Charlie Rose theme (in this format) is particularly horrid.
Your main mistake is listening to Charlie Rose.
Post a Comment
<< Home