Why Atmosphere TV May Not Have Your Business’s Best Interests at Heart

As a business owner, creating a pleasant and engaging environment for your customers is paramount. Enter Atmosphere TV, a company that offers curated TV content designed to enhance customer experience in various settings like bars, restaurants, gyms, and waiting rooms. However, despite its appealing facade, Atmosphere TV’s business model reveals some underlying concerns that may not align with the best interests of hosting businesses.

The Business Model: “Free” TV

Atmosphere TV operates on a model that relies on advertising revenue. The service offers businesses free access to its content in exchange for displaying ads to their customers. Here’s a closer look at how this model works:

1. Free Content for Businesses

Atmosphere TV provides its service to businesses at no cost. This includes limited channels with content ranging from sports highlights to viral videos and lifestyle shows, all curated to keep viewers entertained.

2. Ad-Supported Revenue

The catch, however, is that the content is interspersed with advertisements. These ads are not random; they are specifically targeted based on the type of business and its customer demographics.

3. Advertisers Foot the Bill

The primary source of revenue for Atmosphere TV comes from these advertisers. Companies pay Atmosphere TV to place their ads in front of the viewers in these business establishments.

While this model ensures that businesses receive engaging content for free, it raises several concerns about whether Atmosphere TV prioritizes the interests of these businesses.

Concerns About Atmosphere TV

1. Customer Experience vs. Advertising Intrusion: The primary goal for most businesses using TV services is to enhance the customer experience. However, frequent interruptions by ads can disrupt the viewing experience. The ads inserted by Atmosphere TV might annoy customers, leading to a negative perception of the business using their service.

2. Lack of Control Over Content: Businesses have limited control over the ads shown to their customers. This lack of control means that the advertisements may not always align with the values or branding of the business. For example, a family-friendly restaurant may not appreciate ads for products or services that don’t align with their image or mention a competing brand.

3. Hidden Costs: While the service itself is free, the cost that ranges from missed marketing opportunities to the potential customer dissatisfaction. Businesses must weigh the trade-off between saving money on TV content and possibly alienating customers with unwanted content and advertisements.

4. Ad Revenue Prioritization: Because Atmosphere TV’s primary revenue source is advertising, there is a strong incentive for the company to prioritize the interests of advertisers over the businesses hosting their service. This can lead to a gradual increase in ad frequency and ad types that pay them more money, further detracting from the hosting business’ customer experience.

5. Limited Content Options: Because Atmosphere TV is footing the bill for the content they provide to businesses, they are likely to prioritize playback of content that will cost them less to display. They are also less likely to purchase new content if they can get away with playing older, less relevant, content at a lesser cost. This can leave businesses with looping video playlists that repeat often and end up being a bother to customers and staff.

Top Alternatives to Atmosphere TV

Business owners looking to provide quality entertainment without compromising customer satisfaction should consider alternative non-cable solutions:

1. Custom TV Services: Services from leaders in custom TV like It’s Relevant TV, offer a customizable experience tailored specifically for businesses. It’s Relevant TV provides a mix of content and advertising options that align with the business’s branding and customer demographics. This service also ensures compliance with public performance licensing requirements, eliminating legal concerns associated with using personal streaming services like Netflix.

2. In-House Content Curation: Some businesses may benefit from creating their own content loops. This could include a mix of branded content, customer highlights, and non-commercial entertainment, ensuring full control over what is displayed. If you don’t have hours of your own content you can combine what you have with network tv content by using services like RELE.TV.

3. Digital Signage Solutions: Businesses can also explore digital signage solutions that allow for custom content curation. This includes promotional materials, local news, weather updates, and more, without the intrusion of third-party advertisements. This option does tend to lack in engaging TV content people typically enjoy watching, so sticking with a custom tv service might be a better option.

“You Get What You Pay For”

While Atmosphere TV offers an enticing free service, its ad-supported business model may not always align with the best interests of the hosting businesses. Just remember, if you aren’t paying anything, you may not be getting much– or worse, you might actually be losing something. The potential for customer dissatisfaction, lack of content control, and lost opportunities to promote your own business the way you want, are significant drawbacks. Business owners must critically evaluate whether the minor savings justify the possible major impact on their customer experience and brand image.

Exploring alternative entertainment solutions that comply with licensing requirements, solely exist to support your brand, and offer customizable content may ultimately better serve the interests of both your business and your customers.

ViewMedica Alternatives for Waiting Room TV – VMCast Reviews

Looking for an alternative to ViewMedica for your medical waiting room TV? We’ve summarized the top choices below.

Whether you’re a hospital, medical office, urgent care, doctor, dentist, or specialist, having a quality TV service provider in your waiting room is very important. Many people who had used the ViewMedica VMCast system in the past are looking for alternatives that provide a more content-rich experience. They are looking to achieve better patient engagement and visitor satisfaction with a different TV provider. Let’s take a look at the 3 types of TV services available to medical offices today:

#1 Custom Television Network

A custom television network is a relatively new technology. It’s a platform that delivers a variety of TV programming (that you can control), combined with the ability to message to your patients. Your messaging can take many forms; from your own videos and commercials to “digital signage” imagery, and programmable text on the screen. The Custom TV Network, pioneered by companies like It’s Relevant TV, keep television on the television, combine it will messaging, and provides ample control to the medical practice.

#2 Medical Information TV / Digital Signage

Medical Information TV provides a limited library of medical content, typically geared at medical specialties. At first glance these services, including ViewMedica, seem like a great match for a medical waiting room, but a closer examination of patient feedback shows that the content could use a boost. The goal of these services is to “educate your patients”, but if your patients aren’t engaged enough to watch the TV it’s really had to get that done.

The videos play on loop and can get very repetitive for patients sitting in front of them for any length of time. For this reason patients tend to “tune out” fairly quickly. They’d rather browse social media on their phones than watch a TV filled with only medical content and advertising for the practice.

Medical Information TV providers typically charge for access to videos and may charge extra per video you want to use. Some providers place pharmaceutical ads on your television that may become a source of added stress or anxiety for your patients.

#3 Cable Television

Cable TV is the service most often used in medical environments across the U.S. Cable lacks the ability to control anything other than choosing the channel you are on in any given moment. Competitive advertisements, inappropriate content and more can come across a cable TV broadcast. And short of advertising on cable, you can’t put your own messaging on the TV.

Best ViewMedica Alternative

While ViewMedica’s library of medical videos on demand is very much appreciated by doctors and specialists, you can do better than ViewMedica’s VM Cast service in your waiting room. Playing a small selection of medical videos that may not be relevant to your patients, over and over as they wait is a surefire way to lower patient satisfaction. Instead we recommend a custom television solution like It’s Relevant TV. Keeping the content relevant is crucially important for better visitor experience and online reviews.

Utilizing ViewMedica in the exam room, on a tablet for instance, is a great way to have videos on demand to show your patients. But it’s just not as good of a fit for the waiting room.

It’s much wiser to use a service that focuses solely on waiting room TV to provide the best patient experience, instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Relevance is key to keep engagement high. Check out It’s Relevant TV and Rele.tv for truly relevant solutions for medical waiting room environments.

Ad-Free TV for Your Business

Keep ads out of your business!

Business owners are looking for solutions to remove ads from their TVs. Whether you operate a restaurant, retail location, medical office or car dealership, you’d likely prefer an AD-FREE TV option for your visitors to enjoy. But cable TV is riddled with ads, and streaming services like Netflix aren’t legal to use inside of a business. So what can you use that gets rid of the ads, is legal, and will still entertain and inform your visitors?

There are a few “custom tv” options out there today that can help you achieve these goals. They are all services that have secured content for commercial display to save you from licensing worries, but they are not created equal. The services differ in the following ways:
1. Size of Content Library
2. Variety of Content
3. Cost

If you don’t care to read about all of the details and would rather skip to the punchline, we believe that It’s Relevant and Rele.TV are the best options for Ad-Free TV.

1. Size Matters (for content libraries)

Q: What’s worse than seeing a TV filled with countless ads?
A: Seeing the same programs over and over on an endless loop

Many companies that provide tv services to business operate with a limited library of content. Content is costly, and many of the largest custom TV operators purchase their content to use forever. And they only purchase just enough content in order to keep their expenses low and maximize their profits. This leads to a lot of looping channels, and unsatisfied viewers.

As a business owner you want to find a company that works with TV networks and content producers regularly to make sure you have fresh content year round. The more content they have the less “loopy” you will feel watching the TV.

2. The Greater the Variety, the More People You Will Please

No matter what you do you can’t please everyone all of the time. But if you use a TV provider that is only offering a limited set of content, or only a handful of channels to choose from, it’s even harder to make your visitors happy.

Many industry folks think that their visitors want to hear about their industry while they wait. But it’s just not true.

Just because you are at a car dealership waiting for your car to be repaired, or at the doctors office waiting to be seen by a doctor, does not mean you want to hear about car or medical stuff the whole time. People in those situations are typically happier when they can take their minds off of the fact that they have to be there. Location owners can do their visitors a great service by putting a variety of content in front of them.

A lot of services tout their ability to remove outside ads from TV, but they also remove TV programming from the TV at the same time! A lot of times these services are referred to as “digital signage” and they have pretty much tossed the baby out with the bathwater. They use a television to display a looping set of videos or image slides (signage) instead of TV programming. And who wants to watch a sign???

3. Ad-Free Doesn’t Mean It’s Free. You Still Get What You Pay For

The third thing to look out for when selecting an Ad-Free TV provider for your business is cost. Cost is typically the top of the list for most businesses when considering their options, but the TV is one area you do not want to skimp on.
Here’s why:
1) The TV shapes visitors impressions of your business environment.
2) The TV can be a great tool to communicate with your visitors.
3) What’s on the TV can generate more business for you, or take business away.
4) Positive waiting experiences lead to better online reviews.

A lot of business owners gravitate towards “Free TV Services” for their businesses. And who wouldn’t want something for free? Well the old saying “you get what you pay for” holds true here. Free TV services typically have limited content, and are often ad-supported. And if you can’t control the content and/or advertising, it’s not worth it. Not even for “free”.

There are a number of services you can find for under $100 a month that will give you better content, an ad-free experience, and provide ways to promote your own business on the TV. We recommend taking a look at It’s Relevant TV and Rele.tv for feature-rich ad-free TV options.

These platforms include licensed television shows without the commercials that usually accompany them. So the content is high quality, but the focus remains on you, and providing your visitors with a great experience. And unlike the majority of television, these are built for your business, not for advertisers.

Do I Have the Licensing Rights for Using TV in My Waiting Room?

This question is becoming much more common these days as motion picture companies, television studios and others are sending threatening letters to business owners. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in– if you operate a medical office, restaurant, retail establishment or car dealership, you can be held liable for showing television content that you don’t have adequate permission to display.

And it doesn’t matter how you are playing this content, whether it’s on a DVD, or through a popular streaming provider like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ or YouTube. Showing that content inside a business is likely against copyright terms, and could put you in legal jeopardy. Hulu’s Terms & Conditions for instance clearly state that their service is NOT for commercial use. Therefore, you cannot use it in a public or business setting- even in a waiting room.

Did you receive a threatening letter from a licensing company?

While there may be many valid points in a letter you’ve received in the mail from a content licensing organization, you should read it carefully, and realize that there is not one licensing body for all content. In a lot of cases these letters are designed to scare you into using a service that they are selling. Many of these services will offer a solution that shows a limited library of uninteresting content, looped on your TV day in and day out. You don’t need to trade away interesting television for “safe” TV when there are options out there that are both safe and interesting.

Just know, you are not obligated to use any specific licensing service in your business or waiting room. You just need to be sure that whatever service you are using has secured commercial playback rights for the content you are showing.

There are TV Providers that Include Business Display Licensing as Part of the Service

While Hulu, Netflix, Sling, Pluto and other streamers do NOT provide commercial licensing at the time of this article, there are other providers who do. And that’s what you want to utilize in order to keep your in the copyright-clear. It’s Relevant TV is one service provider that was built with integrated commercial licensing from day one. It’s cost-effective, easy-to-use, and features a growing library of over half-a-million videos. In addition to being the best streaming option for businesses, it’s also the best cable replacement on the market.

Top Waiting Room Digital Signage Systems: Finding the Best

We all know that a good waiting experience can lead to a great visitor experience. And great visitor experience is the surefire way to get incredible online reviews. So, what are you doing to make the experience great?

The Best Customer Experience

Your visitors’ experiences begin in your waiting room, and what you have in the waiting room can influence patient/customer mindset for their entire visit. If you stumbled upon this article through an online search, you probably already had it in your mind to employ a digital signage system. Digital signage is exactly what it sounds like; a sign that displays on a digital screen instead of being a static print.

Digital signage systems use televisions to display your messages, text, images and even videos for your videos to see. But not all systems are created equal. In fact, most of them are known to create a repetitive experience that leaves a negative impression on your guests.

People enjoy watching TV. The vast majority of Americans spend multiple hours a week in front of their TVs, because they want to watch. But even though digital signage is seen on TV, it’s not TV. At least, not the TV people would look forward to watching.

When’s the last time you said, “I’m going to go sit down and watch a sign”?

Probably never.

So why would you force your visitors to watch a sign as they wait? Especially when they are forming their opinions about their experience from the moment they walk in.

“Oh, well our patients barely even wait, they are only there for a few minutes”
We’ve heard that one a lot. But even if everything goes perfectly and your patients are only waiting just a few minutes, why not give them the best experience possible? 3-minutes of enjoyment certainly beats 3-minutes of boredom.

This is why we recommend looking at Custom TV over Digital Signage. Custom TV can integrate all of the things you wanted to get out of Digital Signage, and more, while keeping TV on the TV.

Custom TV for Businesses, Offices, and Waiting Areas

The pioneers of Custom TV can be found at a company called It’s Relevant TV. Based just outside of New York City, It’s Relevant licensed top television programs and effortlessly combines them with your own messaging, images and videos. It gives your visitors the best of both worlds; the ability to see and understand what you want them to, while having a positive experience from the start with great programming they will enjoy. They even have self-install kits that make it easy to transform your TV without any advanced technical knowledge.

COVID-19 Vaccination Sites | Communicating With Your Visitors

Vaccination sites require visitors to wait 15 minutes after getting the COVID vaccine; that’s 15 minutes you could be using to your benefit as a vaccine provider.

The TV provides an opportunity to communicate with your patients while they’re sitting around waiting for time to pass. Whether it’s getting first-time visitors to come back for other reasons or encouraging more volunteers to donate things like plasma; you have a prime opportunity to educate those people-in-waiting. This article is all about the best way to take advantage of that time, and it all starts with the TV in your waiting room.

The Best Waiting Room TV for Vaccination Sites

The best waiting room TV for medical offices isn’t cable, nor is it a medical display; that goes double for “FREE” medical TV services. The best TV software for your clinic is It’s Relevant TV. It’s Relevant is geared towards patient comfort, providing hospitals, clinics, and medical offices with a means to keep their visitors entertained. Entertainment here is key, because medical displays are NOT fun. They’re boring, and often times unsettling.

It’s Relevant helps pass the time by putting something fun on the TV.

IRTV brings a variety of engaging content to the table separated into a list of 40+ unique categories. The categories are like “channels,” which can be turned on/off based on the interests of your visitors. So whether you’re someone who likes celebrity interviews and cooking, or prefer home gardening and automotive, there’s something for all audiences.

It’s Relevant TV features short-form content. This increases the liklihood of your visitors seeing something that will get their attention.

More importantly, It’s Relevant gives you the freedom to upload your own videos and messages. Playing your messaging alongside content that your visitors are genuinely interested in watching is the best, most-effective way to get those messages across. Because It’s Relevant isn’t just a medical display, you can count on the only medical-related messaging being your own approved videos. This is important, because you’re not always in control of what shows up on your TV when it comes to other services. With IRTV, you’re in control.

Getting It’s Relevant TV for your Vaccination Sites

You can find out more about It’s Relevant TV here. Chat with the TV experts about any questions you have regarding custom TV networks, or schedule a demo to see the technology firsthand. Custom TV software is the future of medical office television as more and more clinics are seeing the advantages to canceling cable in favor of a customizable, personally-branded network.

Using a Smart TV as a Cable Alternative in Your Medical Office

Are you looking to get rid of cable TV in your medical office or waiting room? You don’t even need a cable box anymore with so man affordable smart TVs out there now. More and more owners and office managers are becoming grossly aware of cable’s rising costs. Their monthly cable bills just aren’t worth the mediocre content and the risk of upsetting patients. With a smart TV armed with choice apps, you have much more control over your TV’s content. Content, in this case, is really what makes a smart TV stand out over cable; because what you choose to put on your TV will determine its success.

It’s Relevant TV is the Best Smart TV App for your Medical Office

It’s Relevant TV is the TV programming you were looking for when you decided to get rid of cable. IRTV has the content (half-a-million videos), the variety, (40+ categories), the customizability (upload your own videos & messaging), and features such as social media integration and Competitive Ad Block.

In 10 Words or Less: It’s Relevant is innovative TV that visitors enjoy watching.

It’s Relevant TV sets itself apart from waiting room TV software that is strictly medical, or boasts “patient education videos.” For reasons described in this article, you might be surprised to learn that well-intended medical content does more harm than good. It all boils down to patients finding medical content boring, or even graphic and unsettling at times; which if you’re stuck in a waiting room for however-long, it can be pretty stressful – especially if it loops every 5 minutes. Medical-related content can be appealing to doctors and office managers looking to put something “fitting” on their waiting room TVs, but they get carried away and forget that visitors most often find it a lot less interesting than they do.

TV Tip: Don’t fall for the “Free Waiting Room TV” scam.

The Smartest Thing you can do with your Smart TV

The It’s Relevant TV app is the best in custom television for medical office waiting rooms because it’s patient-focused, and designed to generate success for your practice. Start your search at itsrelevant.com, chat with the TV experts there, and see what a custom TV network can mean for your waiting room. It’s Relevant is available on many smart TVs including Amazon’s Fire TV, Apple TV and Roku.

Related: “Top 3 Waiting Room TV Services for Medical Offices.“

Businesses Are Already Looking Ahead To 2022 | COVID 2022

The coronavirus hit businesses hard in 2020 and 2021, and while the forecast for COVID in 2022 is hard to predict, business owners are already preparing for next year. Whether your business has been able to stay open throughout 2021, or you’re preparing to re-open your business in 2022; this article spotlights a new technology that can help you generate repeat business and deliver important messages to your visitors during these uncertain times.

Preparing your Business for COVID 2022

If you managed to keep your doors open during the pandemic, then you already know the challenges that business owners are facing regarding healthy & safety. If you’re re-opening, it can be overwhelming as there’s a lot to train your staff and employees on. Doors and tables need to be disinfected regularly, masks are mandatory, and seating is spaced out — you get the idea.

Related: Top 5 Ways to Prepare Your Business Space for COVID-19

But signs on the ground encouraging social distancing and staff members taking your temperature with a gun don’t make for a very welcoming atmosphere; it doesn’t matter if these precautions are for your customers’ safety, it still feels strange and can turn visitors off. Customers who don’t feel safe probably won’t come back for a long time, or at least until the virus is gone- which could be a while.

Safely Communicating with your Visitors about the Coronavirus

Making your customers feel safe is just as important as making sure they’re safe; the difference being that you can adhere to strict health & safety regulations, but easily forget how it affects customer experience. COVID-19 has a lot of people stressed, so finding a way to reduce that stress wherever possible should be top-of-the-list.

They key to making customers FEEL safe is communication.

Except, effective communication can be hard for small businesses; especially medical offices. There usually aren’t a lot of good options. Yet, every business has messages they need and/or want to get across to customers; sales, specials, etc. — including COVID-related messaging. Most business owners settle for posters or fliers, without realizing that the best place for their messaging is the TV in their business. The best is to use a custom TV network.

Not sure what a “Custom TV Network” is? Click here.

If you’ve got a TV and you aren’t using a custom TV network, your visitors are at the mercy of the news. At this point, the whole world knows about the coronavirus. We also get to hear about how many new cases there are each day, and how many people have died; people don’t need to be reminded of this everwhere they go- especially inside of your business.

If you have a TV in your business, chances are you customers are seeing that kind of messaging, and it’s stressing people out. Being informed is one thing — but constantly being reminded that there’s a pandemic is overwhelming. Your visitors don’t need that. The safest, most-effective way to communicate with your customers is through the TV in your business; but only if that TV is playing content that you control.

Tackling COVID-22 in your Business with a Custom TV Network

One of the best things you can do to prepare your business for COVID 2021 is getting rid of any mention of the coronavirus off your TV. Anything COVID-related — unless it’s your own personal messaging, isn’t necessary to have playing in your business. In fact, for all of the reasons stated previously it’s probably doing more harm than good. People aren’t visiting your restaurant, medical office, or car dealership for the bad news. Whether they’re looking at the TV for 20 minutes or 20 seconds, it’s the perfect opportunity to comfort them, and inform them about anything you want them to take advantage of; either while they’re there, or the next time they visit.

If you had the choice — would you rather show the news? Or would you rather show something that supports your business?

Custom TV networks are designed with your business in mind. It gives you more control over what show up on your TV, and gives you variety of content. Additionally, the right technology will let you upload you own messages to play in between videos. Once you realize what’s possible with custom TV software, it’s hard to imagine any business owner choosing cable over a system that improves visitor experience, AND is a powerful marketing tool.

Want more reasons to cut cable? This article gives you 10.

Want to Learn more about Custom TV Networks? Check out It’s Relevant TV

Don’t get overwhelmed with choices — It’s Relevant TV is the best place to start looking if you’re curious about a custom TV network for your business. Feature-rich and easy-to-use, It’s Relevant will show you exactly what to expect from custom television software. Chat with the experts at ItsRelevant.com if you have any questions, or schedule a demo to get a firsthand look at the technology.

The Best Kids Content For Waiting Rooms | It’s Relevant TV

Kids content for your waiting room TV can be tricky to find; but it’s the most effective first step you can take towards creating the best possible experience for your younger patients. If you’re a pediatric doctor, or dentist, you don’t need to be told that your medical office is the LAST place these kids want to be; putting something on the TV that’s intended for them can be a big stress-reducer for nervous children. This article is all about how the right TV technology can entertain and even educate the kids in your waiting room.

Fun & Entertaing Kids Content for your Waiting Room TV

Browsing for kids content is hard. It’s made even more difficult when kids under the age of 7 have very different interests compared to kids over 7. There aren’t a lot of options out there for pediatric offices who want to license children’s content; licensing is the key word here. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, licensing refers to the rights and permissions to use a piece/collection of media in your business.

Think twice about playing videos off of YouTube!

It’s NOT legal; unless you have permission from the creator of the content. There are other reasons why you don’t want to stream YouTube in your waiting room, which you can read in this article. Legality aside, it’s also about control; YouTube just isn’t built with a worry-free “set-it-and-forget-it” mentality.

That’s where a custom TV network comes in handy.

A Custom TV network can be a safe and reliable alternative to cable, DVDs, and looping playlists. You can try Googling “custom TV networks for medical offices,” or take our advice and check out ItsRelevant.com for the most well put together system. It’s Relevant is feature-rich, and users have complete access to a library of over half-a-million videos. More importantly, It’s Relevant TV has kids content; separated into kids 7-under and kids 7+, It’s Relevant gives you greater control over what shows up on your TV.

Educational Kids Content for your Waiting Room TV

Fun and entertaining videos are good, but educational content is even better. It’s Relevant TV’s kids content is a mixed bag, which is great no matter which way you look at it. Whether it’s fun facts and trivia, heathy habits, or new ways to be creative and stay active; IRTV delivers good, quality, licensed content that’s perfect for a pediatric waiting room.

Related article for medical waiting rooms beyond kids: Tips on the Best Patient Education Videos for your Waiting Room TV

When it comes to educating kids on specific information; well-being, oral health, etc, It’s Relevant empowers users with the ability to upload your own custom messaging. Did you ever create videos in the past featuring your brand? Maybe a commercial? Or videos highlighting your staff? You can put those videos to good use with It’s Relevant TV. The technology allows you to upload videos and images for everyone to see. There’s no better way to communicate with your visitors.

Want to know more about Custom TV Networks?

Every medical office is a little different, but every one can benefit from a custom TV network. Set up a demo with the TV experts at ItsRelevant.com if you have any questions about the technology.

Free Waiting Room TV Service | Businesses & Medical Offices

Looking for free waiting room TV service for your business or medical office? Cutting cable in favor of waiting room TV software is a step in the right direction; but settling on one of the self-proclaimed “free” TV services is just as bad, if not worse, than what you just got rid of. If you take anything away from this article, let it be not to fall for “free.” You always get what you pay for. Certain waiting room TV services, like this one, are as close to free as you’ll get; with features that make it worthwhile, and tools to even offset the cost.

If you’re paying $0/month for waiting room television, it shouldn’t be because it’s costing you $0/month. It should be because it’s generating enough revenue to cover the monthly cost.

Why is a Free Waiting Room TV Service a Bad Idea?

When something is advertised as “free,” it generally means that it isn’t costing you any money. However, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t costing you something else. Free is good when that free thing is complimentary, or a bonus; a thank-you for choosing X, Y or Z, with the hopes of leaving a good first impression. When that free thing is a TV service, or a brand-new television; or both, chances are that provider is taking advantage of you in some way.

How can you tell if you’re being taken advantage of?

If something is too good to be true, more often than not that’s usually the case. A free TV + content that you pay 0$/month for? It might seem like a win-win, but beneath the surface there’s something disingenuous going on. There’s no two ways of looking at it — whether you’re a restaurant, a gym, salon, dentist, or even a hospital, you have something these service providers want; a captivated audience.

Day-in and day-out, you’ve got visitors coming in and waiting — sometimes for 10, 15, or even 30 minutes. That’s a long time, and that’s precisely what these providers are looking for; to turn your TV into an electronic billboard. For who? Themselves, and their happy advertisers. They might throw you a bone and give you the ability to upload your own ads on the side, but not without your messages competing for the spotlight.

If you thought commercials were bad…

Try endless looping commercials for drugs, treatments, or nonsense-conditions that you or your doctors don’t endorse; it’s on your TV, visitors will associate it with your brand, and nothing short of turning it off will stop to it.

Recommended Read: “Top 5 Reasons a Free TV Service is Bad for Medical Offices“

An Alternative to Free Waiting Room TV Software that’s still Free, and 100% Safe

One of the downsides of a free waiting room TV service, as described above, is that fact that someone else is reaping all of the benefits while you’re stuck with their ads playing on your TV. But what if that “someone else” was someone you chose to instead? Someone you trust, or a non-competing brand that your business supports.

It’s Relevant TV, a company that provides custom TV networks to businesses, is unique in that it offers shoppers a $0/month Sponsor-Supported package in which you choose a trusted company, organization, or fellow business owner to cover the cost of your monthly subscription. In exchange, they get to feature their brand and messaging on your TV in a way that is mutual, non-intrusive, and most-importantly; safe for your business.

Check to see if there are any local businesses that you can partner with!

Choosing a brand that pairs well with your business, who has your best interests at heart, is a lot better than letting someone you don’t know; who you’ve never heard of, profit off of your business’ TV. Partnerships are, and always will be, a great marketing strategy.

A Safer Way to Shop for Waiting Room TV Software

The best way make sure that you’re getting a TV system that’s built to serve your brand is to consult with someone in the industry itself. The TV experts at ItsRelevant.com are there answer any questions you might have about what to look for when it comes to waiting room TV technology. Schedule a call with them, or ask to arrange a demo if you’re serious about a custom TV network.

If anyone should be making money off of the TV in your business or medical office, it’s you, or a partnered brand. Your TV, your space, and your visitors are extraordinarily valuble to these advertising companies; so much so that these “free TV services” are able to deal out free TVs and iPads like playing cards. The cost of that technology is nothing compared to what they’re making off of you.