It seems like cable is impossible to watch these days, especially Paramount owned stations. Those stations take a 30 minute show and make it 35 minutes (with extra ads.) On top of that, they speed up shows and practically beg you to subscribe to Paramount Plus, as there are dozens of ads for it. Some stations are easier to watch like FX/FXX, as they don't do that, but makes watching cable near impossible. (Sometimes it was nice to just channel surf and land on something.)
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Why is the cable viewing experience so bad these days? (increased ads, sped up shows.)
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
I personally don't find the overall cable viewing experience any better / worse than it's been for the past few years, but then again I also don't watch a lot of TV aside from the specific programming or networks I'm particularly interested in.
Regarding your comments about Paramount stations in particular, they're likely trying to move viewers to their paid streaming platforms. The Discovery networks (Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, TLC, Animal Planet, Travel Channel and a handful of others) have been doing the same thing for a few years now. During a break in programming on HGTV, they'll show ads for a bunch of home improvement shows that are really interesting looking, and end the commercial with a voiceover saying "See these shows and 55,000 other new and classic episodes, only on Discovery+". HGTV is also known for showing marathon blocks of mediocre home improvement or house hunting shows, and during those marathons they show ads for their most popular programs like Fixer Upper, or stuff shown on the "Magnolia Network" all of which are now only available with a subscription to Discovery+.
The same is done on the Food Network. Many evenings from September - December are taken up with blocks of "Halloween baking chamionship" type shows, then Thanksgiving cooking contests and finally transitioning to Christmas ones. The ads throughout those 4 months when their regular programming schdules are hijacked, tell viewers to subscribe to Discovery+ to watch other Food Network content during that time.
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I thought Discovery was more trying to get people to go to Max instead of d+.
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I think everything in the WBD stable is, or eventually will be, consolidated onto Max, with Discovery+ being
(Edited due to typo confusing the point I was making.)
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You're likely right that this will happen in time - just as it's likely that other streaming platforms will start to consolidate and "bundle". As of now only some, but not all Discovery+ content is available on Max, so many who are interested in specific programming from the Discovery family of networks (again, HGTV, Magnolia, Food Network, Animal Planet, Discovery, Travel, etc.) are sticking with that platform. Discovery+ is also half the price of Max, so it's still a better option for those who just want content from Discovery. Last I checked, Discovery+ was $4.99 with ads or $6.99 ad free, while Max was running at $9.99 with ads, $15.99 ad free, and $19.99 if you wanted content in 4k resolution.
I know that, but am thinking they don't even promote discovery plus anymore.
It's part of complying with their parent company 'standards and practice' policies.
You get what you pay for.
As of last week they still were. Also, just for giggles I just now did an internet search for "Magnolia Network". This was the first result that popped up:
That's basically every Network owned station between local News segments. If it's Disney owned ABC Affiliate like KGO-TV between the news segments it's about the Disney owned apps like Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. If it's KNTV, NBC Sports Bay Area and KSTS then it's peacock app Name one TV channel not promoting their TV apps. If there is a TV channel not promoting their TV apps then they are either about to go away via turning in their local TV license or get sold because it was dependent on Syndicated programming during it's run.
I feel that every time I watch something on FX/FXX, the program airing is soft, then all of a sudden, commercial breaks are like 75% louder than the show/movie.
After growing up watching Simpsons episodes religiously in syndication, it was obvious to me that the reruns on FXX and Freeform have lines/quick jokes edited out for time; however, for whatever reason, Simpsons episodes shown on FXX on Sundays (and only Sundays) are aired uncut. It was my better half who realized that the Bob's Burgers episodes shown on Adult Swim are similarly chopped down.
I've noticed that TV Land hasn't been as bad recently about adding in more ad time to make episodes run 35 minutes (Mainly with MASH and Andy Griffith, not sure about other shows), but I know they're probably running episodes edited for time or sped up. I can definitely tell it with MASH, which appears to be more unedited episodes on Me TV. What irritates me more on TV Land now is that they're only running Seinfeld in the very early morning.
FXX will not edit out swears.
Like I said, they’re not being edited for content, they’re being edited for (what I assume is) time to squeeze in more commercials. That appears to be the main goal in all these manipulations of shows (edits, speeding up, squeezed or removed credits, etc.)
Curious (I don't watch TV Land) how does that affect their programming schedule if their shows run 35 minutes, instead of a nice, neat 30 minute block so 2 episodes = exactly 1 hour? Does this mean that each episode throughout the day progressively starts 35 minutes later than the one previous - so Episode 1 starts at :00, 2 starts at :35, 3 starts at :10, 4 starts at :45, etc?
Especially when they dub over swear words with words like "motherloving" and "frigging."
Yes, that's pretty much it.
Squeezing/splitscreening credits has been going on for at least 20 years, the Sci-Fi channel used to do it constantly.
CBS did a terrible splitscreen yesterday of the Chiefs vs. Chargers & Browns vs. Colts games, where they kept resizing each splitscreen even though they were side by side boxes.
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