I’ve got to be honest with you, I watch a lot of sport. I know, I should get out there and play a little bit, but hey, I prefer to watch people exercise than actually take part in it.

In fact, it’s the only reason Mrs Heggart and I got Foxtel – well, that and so Mrs Heggart can watch Friends repeats. Never mind.
Anyway, I’ve noticed a bit of a concerning trend in some of the telecasts – from both Channel 9 (during the cricket) and Channel 7 (during the tennis). It’s what I call stealth advertising.

What basically happens is that during a lull in play, there’s a footer scrolling across the bottom of the screen, advertising some new kind of show, which the commentators then talk about, as if they are just talking.

Yeah, sure.

The first few times it was excruciating listening to Mark Taylor witter on about Underbelly or some crap, but obviously the advertising boffins thought that wasn’t working well enough – now they have some kind of script they read out.

It’s not the commentators I feel angry at – I’m pretty sure they’re embarrassed at being pimped out to sell viewers, and some of them manage to make their feelings clear while reading the script.
Rather, I get really annoyed that networks are so contemptuous of their viewers that they willfully destroy their viewing pleasure for the sake of a bit of advertising. Unbelievable.

Surely there must be some kind of law about this? Let me know.

Maybe we can get a petition started – saying that for every hour of cricket (for example) played, the networks must show 50 minutes of it – and only it – so no sneaky stealth advertising.

Next they’ll be teaming up with KFC for classic catches… oh, hang on…