tv commercials 50% of air time

i don't know when it happened but i swear tv commercials have taken over the air time! yes i'm a professional channel flipper and have even mastered the art of holding on to the remote even after falling asleep, but more than half the time i switch channels i find yet another commercial. (no i haven't raised my skill level to be able to switch channels in my sleep, yet.) print media has killed itself, and now tv is pretty much worthless too. add all those commercials to nothing worth watching and thats why i had to become a channel flipper.

i guess that's why other forms of entertainment have become more popular, like facebook and twitter! sad to say these new innovations have zoomed right by me and i have no chance, or desire to catch up. so whats left to do for entertainment?

Vegas Baby!

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Well, if you're flipping channels in your semi-sleep, you could be bumping into infomercials.

The other problem is, the format of most TV shows start with a minute teaser, then a couple long segments followed by a minute of credits, pretty much dictates when there will be commercials. And since that's a very popular format, if you're surfing while your show has commercials, chances are other channels have shows with the same format, so they are playing commercials at the same time.

Solution: Stop surfing!

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Solution: Stop surfing!

People who have DVR's swear by them, once you have one there's no real need to watch a commercial again... of course you give up watching without having at least small bit of delay, you give up a small degree of "live". Don't have one yet myself, but I picture it working well with how I watch television: Constant interruption. So no doubt it is in my future.

I have a DVR, and also get TV on Demand as part of my cable subscription Best thing about TVOD is that they have taken the commercials out so you dont even need to fast forward them.

Quote: inap

i don't know when it happened but i swear tv commercials have taken over the air time!

As DJ said, since all shows ahve similar formats, commercials thend to happen around the same time in all channels. But I don't think they amke up 50% of air time. A typical one-hour TV drama contains about 40-43 minutes of show and the rest is commercials.

It can be worse. In the old days they had the commercials done by the actors doing the show. In Mexico they show adds during sporting events (in the form of line animations along the bottom 5th of the screen), even during NFL games which ahve plenty of actual commercial breaks. In soccer games there are adds on the sidelines, plus virtual adds on the field, plus sponsor's logos on the teams' uniforms.

Try reading. You can set your own schedule, move at whatever pace you want and there are no commercials at all. Content's way better, too.

thanks for the suggestions, but i was actually just blowing off steam. (i have lots of other things i like to do, for example shoot baskets like the Wizard likes to do. i especially like to shoot baskets with my daughter. its bonding time for us and if we can get in a game even better. we actually played a few games a couple nights ago and to play in a game with my daughter and watch her play better than me and hold her own with the boys is priceless. at least the boys had the respect to call me 'uncle' and not 'grampa'!) anyway, sorry to get off topic, but i know that airtime is regulated but it just goes to show how powerful the lobbyist are! commercial time is getting longer and at some point i wouldn't be surprised to see it take up more time than the programs. they even advertise in the corner of the screen during the program and its irritating when it blocks something important!

most of whats on tv is rubbish anyway but the way things are going we'll soon be seeing streaming adds and the program stuck in a corner of the screen. i bet some people just leave the channel to the program guide just to listen to the music because there is nothing else better to watch.

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Quote: Nareed

It can be worse. In the old days they had the commercials done by the actors doing the show.

We got a DVD set of the old Gunsmoke TV series, and on the first disc it has a special feature showing some of the commercials that were aired.

I grew up during this era, but I never realized how devistatingly powerful the tobacco commercials really were until I saw Marshall Dillion puffing away on an L&M, encouraging everyone to be just like him and do the same.

You don't mess with Matt Dillion, and if he smokes L&Ms that's good enough for me (cough, cough). I think there's even one commercial where Miss Kitty comes along and they light up together, both smiling directly into the camera and encouraging all of the viewers to do the same.

The good old days.

Quote: inap

i don't know when it happened but i swear tv commercials have taken over the air time! yes i'm a professional channel flipper and have even mastered the art of holding on to the remote even after falling asleep, but more than half the time i switch channels i find yet another commercial. (no i haven't raised my skill level to be able to switch channels in my sleep, yet.) print media has killed itself, and now tv is pretty much worthless too. add all those commercials to nothing worth watching and thats why i had to become a channel flipper.

i guess that's why other forms of entertainment have become more popular, like facebook and twitter! sad to say these new innovations have zoomed right by me and i have no chance, or desire to catch up. so whats left to do for entertainment?

Vegas Baby!

.

FCC standards restrict commercials to twelve minutes out of every hours' airtime. I believe this rule is relaxed for late night programming.

All,

There really should be a standards and practices "law" that says you can only show the same commerical only twice during any quarter of any sporting event.

Watching a bad Lexus commercial 9 times in 15 minutes of football just makes me want to go down to the Lexus dealer and explain to him why I will NEVER buy his car. (I'll be in the Caddy or the Corvette, of course).

Does this bother anybody else? The same repetitive commercial over and over during each break?

AD (glad I got that off my chest)

Quote: ADulay

Does this bother anybody else? The same repetitive commercial over and over during each break?

Yeah, I hear ya.

The problem is, it's impossible to accurately schedule and sell advertising time on live sports broadcasts.

Most of the advertisers have a specific budget, so they get a specific number of spots.

If the game runs long, and there are only a couple advertisers left with flexible budgets, you're gonna see the same advertisers often during the final tense moments of the game!


That said, the least they could do is rotate different commercials from those advertisers!

Quote: ADulay

All,



Does this bother anybody else? The same repetitive commercial over and over during each break?

Its supposed to bother you, thats the point. You're supposed to remember the name of the product and repitition is the only way to do that. Why do you think Geico plays the same commercials for months at a time.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Yeah, I hear ya.

The problem is, it's impossible to accurately schedule and sell advertising time on live sports broadcasts.

Most of the advertisers have a specific budget, so they get a specific number of spots.

If the game runs long, and there are only a couple advertisers left with flexible budgets, you're gonna see the same advertisers often during the final tense moments of the game!


That said, the least they could do is rotate different commercials from those advertisers!

Not so sure on that. In the NFL there are five breaks per quarter, up from 4 or less 20 years ago. And (I think) five spots per break. The NFL was made for TV with ability to take a break on scores, punts, end-of-period, and injuries. What is annoying is if game 1 of the doubleheader goes into OT. Then there are no commercials at all until it is over. I've seen almost a whole quarter with no commercials, then they must squeeze all five breaks into 5 minutes vs 15.

DVRs are great. Oncer you get a few shows there is no reason to watch anything but sports or news when it is live. I can sit on a Sunday night and set the thing for all week or more, then just watch what I want.

It's 30% for regular broadcast network programming, which you can easily deduce by renting the DVD of a broadcast show and seeing that an episode is 21-something minutes long including credits.

And yes, most programs and networks "roadblock" commercial breaks at the 11 and 20 minute mark.

The solution is either a DVD recorder or a DVR.

Simply for avoiding commercials, a DVD recorder is better because you can jump in 30 sec increments and 99% of commercial breaks are 3:00, 3:30, or 4:00. With a DVR, you have to hold down the button and judge when the break is about to end.

Commercial breaks when you're sitting in the stadium at an NFL game are almost intolerable - it totally disrupts the flow. The guy with the big orange mittens is the most hated guy in the stadium. It reminds you that you are basically just the studio audience for the show.

On average, it is nearing 18 minutes with the paid adverts, network promotions and local news advances,
but only about 10 minutes is paid commercials.

Fox tried to cut it back to 5 minutes per hour for their show Fringe, calling it Remote-Free TV but I
think the idea was not very popular.

It made viewers less likely to change the channel or fast-forward past the ads — but not to the degree that Fox would have liked.
So they cancelled it after only one year and two shows.