Is it just me or are TV commercials getting out of hand?
Dec 27, 2020 09:23:33 #
First off, let me state that I was a Television Broadcast engineer for 20 years starting back in the late 70's. I've been out of it for quite awhile, but man how things have changed. Anyway, back then a LONG commercial break was 2 minutes and there was generally at start-break, a mid-break, and an end-break (which was shared with the start break for the following program). A special note here, in that most of these were network breaks and our station only made direct income on the local breaks we ran and still turned a reasonable profit. We actually had to pay the network to carry their programming including all their breaks and ads!
Anyway, to get to the point, today's breaks are far more frequent and much, much longer. So much so that I think it's getting absurd! Last night, my wife and I watched an approx. 2 hour movie that took 3-1/2 hours to air and I counted and average of 8 commercials, two promos, and/or PSA's in each break. Some had even more (especially promos), but not one break was less than 5 minutes and a couple were a full 8 minutes long! I wish I had also counted the actual number of breaks, but I was having trouble keeping up with the movie already. Top that off by the fact that most of us pay to have this programming brought into our homes with cable, satellite, and/or streaming fees and subscriptions and I simply have to wonder how many jillions of dollars these channels are making on all these ads and double dipping on their subscriptions and/or fees as well.
While I realize that money is the driving factor here and we will never get around the corporate greed for more and more income, I think it's high time we began to rebel against this situation or at least put the powers that be on notice that we are fed up with this situation. I'm not sure what we can effectively do about this, but I'm certainly open to your suggestions and I will be writing my cable company and local stations about this, as well as posting this topic in multiple venues to see if there is any real response from the public in general. I am also considering going back to "Off Air" TV only. While they still run too many ads, at least they don't double dip by also charging me for their overall programming. Anyway, I'd love to start a reasonable discussion on this subject and would appreciate your input. I'd really like to start some grass roots support and give them as much negative feedback as possible. Thanks for reading this far and please "Enjoy the Season and Celebrate the Reason!"
Anyway, to get to the point, today's breaks are far more frequent and much, much longer. So much so that I think it's getting absurd! Last night, my wife and I watched an approx. 2 hour movie that took 3-1/2 hours to air and I counted and average of 8 commercials, two promos, and/or PSA's in each break. Some had even more (especially promos), but not one break was less than 5 minutes and a couple were a full 8 minutes long! I wish I had also counted the actual number of breaks, but I was having trouble keeping up with the movie already. Top that off by the fact that most of us pay to have this programming brought into our homes with cable, satellite, and/or streaming fees and subscriptions and I simply have to wonder how many jillions of dollars these channels are making on all these ads and double dipping on their subscriptions and/or fees as well.
While I realize that money is the driving factor here and we will never get around the corporate greed for more and more income, I think it's high time we began to rebel against this situation or at least put the powers that be on notice that we are fed up with this situation. I'm not sure what we can effectively do about this, but I'm certainly open to your suggestions and I will be writing my cable company and local stations about this, as well as posting this topic in multiple venues to see if there is any real response from the public in general. I am also considering going back to "Off Air" TV only. While they still run too many ads, at least they don't double dip by also charging me for their overall programming. Anyway, I'd love to start a reasonable discussion on this subject and would appreciate your input. I'd really like to start some grass roots support and give them as much negative feedback as possible. Thanks for reading this far and please "Enjoy the Season and Celebrate the Reason!"
Dec 27, 2020 09:41:42 #
Dec 27, 2020 10:17:38 #
Longshadow wrote:
They try to sell based on triggering your feelings.
While I agree that this is their marketing strategy, how is pissing me off helping them sell anything? Geese, I'm partially disabled as it is and we are trying to stay home as much as possible due to the Covid restrictions. Therefore, TV is now our primary recreational activity recently and I can't even watch a movie without repeated and long lasting interruptions. It really is way beyond annoying for me!
Dec 27, 2020 10:19:44 #
Bison Bud wrote:
While I agree that this is their marketing strategy, how is pissing me off helping them sell anything? Geese, I'm partially disabled as it is and we are trying to stay home as much as possible due to the Covid restrictions. Therefore, TV is now our primary recreational activity recently and I can't even watch a movie without repeated and long lasting interruptions. It really is way beyond annoying for me!
Even BBC America has commercials. (Probably the America part)
They're probably fewer of us that get torqued than those who get hooked.
Dec 27, 2020 10:38:50 #
Longshadow wrote:
Even BBC America has commercials. (Probably the America part)
They're probably fewer of us that get torqued than those who get hooked.
They're probably fewer of us that get torqued than those who get hooked.
Yeah, that's why it just keeps getting worse! I realize that the commercials are a necessary thing, but I feel like I'm already paying for the programming and that the broadcasters are exceeding what should be considered acceptable by running so many ads and so frequently interrupting the programming to do so. Maybe if more people got "torqued" we could pull back the reins a bit. Probably a pipe dream, but it's worth a try.
Dec 27, 2020 11:08:10 #
I've developed a really good "ignore them" ability.
Can't tell you how many commercials or what they were selling,
except the "Gold" clad "collector coins" that have a whopping $1 worth of gold plating on them.
(Had to figure how much gold was on them. Still, I don't remember the company...)
Can't tell you how many commercials or what they were selling,
except the "Gold" clad "collector coins" that have a whopping $1 worth of gold plating on them.
(Had to figure how much gold was on them. Still, I don't remember the company...)
Dec 27, 2020 11:26:11 #
Bison Bud wrote:
...Anyway, to get to the point, today's breaks are far more frequent and much, much longer..
I solved the advertising problem about 40 years ago. I quit watching TV.
I do watch a few streaming things through Prime and there are occasional ads there for other streams but nothing like commercial TV. Yet.
There are people who need TV for entertainment, or just to keep from doing something they don't want to. I satisfy those urges by reading a book or trying to learn something new (like computer code Python). I can spend hours trying to get a program to work and in the end I have learned something. Sometimes I even watch tutorials online and that's how I make progress in Photoshop.
Dec 27, 2020 11:33:27 #
I record virtually everything I watch on TV on my DVR and then I can zap the commercials. My cable also now has "smart resume" available for some channels where you push fast forward when the commercial starts and it automatically starts again when the program returns.
Dec 27, 2020 12:08:15 #
Don't watch them "live". Record everything and watch them and FF through the commercials
Dec 27, 2020 12:13:13 #
Absolutely the number of commercials is entirely out of hand and that's the reason I rarely watch anything in real time. My brother watches many, many hours of sports but yet is not interested in getting a DVR. His decision not to baffles me.
Dec 27, 2020 12:19:05 #
Bison Bud wrote:
First off, let me state that I was a Television Br... (show quote)
It depends on how you are watching TV. We have pretty well abandoned network TV except for the News and get nearly all of our entertainment on Netflix or Prime through Roku. The only network channel we watch is PBS which is ad free (sort of). We get enough use out of Amazon Prime free delivery to justify its annual fee so the the streaming service is essentially free.
Dec 27, 2020 12:23:19 #
Bison Bud wrote:
Yeah, that's why it just keeps getting worse! I realize that the commercials are a necessary thing, but I feel like I'm already paying for the programming and that the broadcasters are exceeding what should be considered acceptable by running so many ads and so frequently interrupting the programming to do so. Maybe if more people got "torqued" we could pull back the reins a bit. Probably a pipe dream, but it's worth a try.
I've noticed that some broadcast companies run so many commercials that a two hour movie lasts three hours.
Dec 27, 2020 13:12:57 #
They are indeed nauseatingly ridiculous! This is especially true of non-network channels which might air the same commercial 20 times in two hours... 
Dec 27, 2020 13:19:22 #
I hate commercials on TV, I don't buy anything they advertise, just watch sports on TV and DVR the event, then watch it a couple of hours later and FF to the game...
Dec 27, 2020 15:24:57 #
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