On Saturday I was flipping around the channels and started watching an episode of The Cosby Show on Centric. As I was watching I noticed they had exceptionally long commercial breaks. When I checked the info in my program guide it showed the episode airing in a 45-minute time slot. Sure enough, every other episode that day was also scheduled for 45 minutes. Now I've heard of these cable networks cutting out parts of shows for more commercial time, but now adding 15 minutes to the timeslot? That basically translates to an equal amount of commercial time and show time.
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Ridiculous Amount of Commercials
- Thread starter ansky212
- Start date
Lenghtening the time slot is better than cutting the shows, IMO. At least you can DVR them, skip commercials, and still see the entire show. Nobody has to watch commercials anymore, so it's kind of a non-issue for me. Even when I'm not time-shifting shows, I use my DVR to start the show late, then skip commercials, and generally end on time, or close to it.
I have a few VHS tapes chock full of TV Land from the late 1990s. I would rather see those VHS tapes than EVER see anything on TV Land today. That's a fact. Friends is not "37 minutes". Hot in Cleveland is not "41 minutes". Family Feud is not "36 minutes." They are all 30 minute shows, but Viacom loves to shove their corporate greed down our throats on all of their networks.
-crainbebo
-crainbebo
Yep. In addition I saw a Kevin Trudeau infomercial on SPIKE yesterday morning and on TVLAND this morning. That shyster was sentenced to 10 years in prison last year. No channel should be allowed to show his infomercials any more.
Most of those shows are available on DVD. No one's forcing anyone to watch. To you, it's "corporate greed." To me, it's cheap & lazy viewers.
Cheap and lazy viewers? AFAIK they're already paying a cable bill to watch cable TV.
Then take it up with the cable company.
I don't personally have any love for "classic" TV reruns. With the exception of an occasional Seinfeld or Golden Girls, I don't do reruns. This really IS the "golden age of television" - not the 1950s...and there are so many new cable and premium channel series that I like to watch that I can't keep up. Add in my daily Daily Show fix, and the occasional Netflix, and my TV watching day is full.
There are some portions of the TV day I can't stand to watch do to heavy commercial volume - like those network morning shows (Today, GMA, etc.) and I can count on my 10 fingers the number of times in my entire life I've watched them. But has my life been poorer as a result? Don't think so.
So if it bothers you, DVR it, "hopper" it, or don't watch. If a magazine ad bugs you, turn the page. If an internet ad bugs you, click on "skip this ad."
Because of changing technology, the advertising world is changing. I'm not so worried about Viacom's "corporate greed" as who is going to fund the shows I like in the future, when none of us (myself included) have to watch advertising.
TV Land is guilty of this as well. I can remember when MASH first came to TV Land that they were showing the episodes uncut, which justified running an extra 5 minutes with what was the normal load of ads at that time. But as time went on they went to the shortened episodes like with everything else they run now.
Now TV Land runs shortened and sped up episodes, stuffed with enough ads to make them run an additional 10 to 15 minutes over on almost everything. It's all a game to get more ads than ever in the same amount of time.
Of course, it's easy to say "more commercials will mean more money." But in reality, I think those channels are shooting themselves in the feet, long term. On one hand, a bigger commercial load makes each spot less valuable for advertisers--they're caught in the middle of clutter and their message can't stand out. On the other hand, all those ads may drive more people to alternatives like DVDs.
Maybe some smart TV execs will start convincing advertisers to pay a premium to have their spots in a less cluttered environment.
You think they haven't thought about that? It's easier and cheaper to sell fewer spots. So if they COULD charge more for fewer, it would be easier. In this environment, they can't. No one is rushing to pay higher CPM unless we're talking about Super Bowl.
Only in terms of sheer quantity. 157 channels and nuthin' on.
I'm waiting for the day that ads interrupt a DVD box set of a season of TV shows. I'm waiting for the day when you go to the main menu, click on an episode, and 5 minutes later a bunch of previews and commercials. It's already happening in the movie theaters...not just coming attractions, but full blown ads, sometimes several minutes before the movie begins. And not just the "Turn off your phones" PSA, but frickin Progressive ads.
-crainbebo
-crainbebo
I have Adblocker on Google Chrome so my computer won't freeze or crash due to annoying ads loading on my page. It also blocks the commercials on Youtube, Netflix, Pandora, etc to avoid the interruption. Makes me wish there was an Adblocker on TV too but the least I do with commercials is mute them (since I don't have a DVR).
Anyone remember pop-up ads? Remember how annoying they were? Yeah, it's like that. Ads will be everywhere.
Anyone remember pop-up ads? Remember how annoying they were? Yeah, it's like that. Ads will be everywhere.
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Actually, commercials in movie theatres are nothing new. Back in the 30's and 40's, when the major movie companies owned their own theatre chains (a practice legally banned in the late 40's but brought back under Grampa Reagan) Paramount, Warner Bros, and others sold on-screen advertising time in their theatres much as radio networks did. Most of these were made as five-to-ten minute short subjects. Independent exhibitors also indulged in this practice; for a time it was so common that some theatres promoted in their newspaper ads that no advertising shorts, other than "coming attractions," appeared on their screens. Here's a link to an excerpt from one such short, with a major star-to-be in an early role. (You can find many more of these on You Tube as well...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BmidgIRM5Q
As you know, not all ads are blocked by Adblocker. But typically the pop-ups and video ads are.
Still, Adblocker requires a subscription, and most people are cheap and lazy. So they get ads, and complain.
But these subscriptions are in fact absolutely free.
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