(15-12-2015 13:58 )trax Wrote: 2015 was the year I gave up on the babeshows altogether...
I doubt you are in a minority.
But it's worse than that. 2015 was the year the major players in the industry truly gave up on the babeshow in the tradtional sense. If you look at the channels that are still around they are all desparate to find as many ways as possible to move away from the traditional model show for reasons that are well documented. Reasons that have been around since at least 2012.
Thing is 2015 was the year they actually started to have some sucesses with these initiatives. And without fail they have ALL weakened the presentation of the traditional product, to varing degrees, in one way or another. And once extra revenue has been gained elsewhere there is really no going back on these changes.
BS' virtual dismissal of their once vaunted Dutch licence earlier this year says it all. The content it allows is now presented only as an exception - to be sold as a bonus rather than the norm. The bar for the traditional show haps been lowered to accommodate various pay platforms. With one stroke what was once free encouragement to spend is now monetised. The inevitablity of this move does not hide the contempt it displays for what your average punter will accept in what he is being offered.
The babe channels have effectively reduced the size of the chocolate bar while increasing what they ask for it. Oh and we now have a delux bar (the same as what we sold previously) - only for three times the price! Way to endear yourself to your audience guys.
With these moves the channels have finally taken Ofcom at their word and the established show is now merely advertising in the truest sense. There is so little value in the visuals on display in and of themselves; the shows remain merely to source other avenues of revenue making. Less and less of the babe show is now concerned with the visual accompaniment to the phone call.
Wether its factory farm babes onscreen; laptop starers ignoring the TV slot the channels pay a fortune for (and would lapse into oblivion without); or 'extended daytime' because the fanboys just dont have enough hours in the day to talk about the weather... The TV lens is now often literally turned aside for the webcam or some such. The is no longer a market for the format we love on here so the purveyors of the genre have been forced to piss on the remains of the fire they have been fighting in there industry for the last three years.
...No don't get me wrong I may turn out to be a fan of whatever emerges from these flames (in fact in some aspects of it I already am) but it won't be a babe show. Not of type that made me a fan in 2009, not really; too many hearts are not in it anymore. People have moved with the times. Ofcom, technology and money have won out (as they are wont to do).
I just hope that I'll still be here with enough of the rest of you and that it's worth celebtrating in the same way as the traditional show has been.