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Is it just me? Hasn’t both the length & number of commercials gotten utterly ridiculous over the past few years? I timed two programs over the past month, one on cable at a friend’s house & one on commercial broadcast TV. Both averaged nearly 5 minutes of commercials for every 6.5 minutes of content. If the time & number of commercials isn’t bad enough, add in that they also repeat the SAME crappy commercial numerous times during a 2 hr period. I don’t know about the rest of you, but too much airing of the same commercial pretty much turns me off on ANYTHING that commercial sponsor offers.
Maybe I’m just oversensitive. My only source of TV (of which I watch very little) is via over-the-air commercial broadcasts. When they made the transition from analog to digital last year, as expected I lost more than half of our previous stations (I live in a rural area). For those stations we lost, I now download from the Internet what we used to watch on those stations. Uh… gee… uh… OUTSTANDING QUALITY & NO COMMERCIALS!!! Maybe watching all this high quality, commercial-free content from the Internet over the past year has made me overly sensitive? Nyah… that’s not it.
Don’t get me wrong — I understand the business model for commercials & free over-the-air broadcast TV. It’s just that, IMHO, the length & number of commercials has gone way beyond what is reasonable or tolerable. I, frankly, can no longer tolerate it. It just amazes me that all the millions of cable subscribers out there continue to tolerate their steadily increasing rates, coupled with increasing quantity of commercials. When I last had cable (over 14 years ago), all the channels had significantly fewer commercials than broadcast TV (except for the local broadcast channels, TBS & WGN). Now nearly all the channels on cable appear as dicked up with commercials as regular over-the-air broadcast TV. SUCH A DEAL!!!
As mentioned previously, I’ve never watched much TV and after 12 yrs of “getting screwed by cable” in Northern Virginia, I vowed I’d never again get cable. I’m also not interested in satellite TV. But seeing how many (& how long) commercials are aired, not just on broadcast TV but now even on cable & satellite, well… I’ve pretty much had my fill of it. I understand that with a DVR I could fast forward through all the commercials. What I don’t get is how frakking stupid the networks are! With everybody fast forwarding through the commercials with their DVRs over the past several years, what do the networks do? Show even more & longer commercials? AND… they now steal screen real estate & put them on while the program is still airing? WHAT A BUNCH OF FRAKKING IDIOTS!!! In my opinion, they’re doing everything within their power to turn people off on broadcast/cable/satellite TV. And I tell ya… it’s definitely working for me. About the only channel we watch in our household anymore is PBS. Granted – their fund raising drives can get a little irritating, but hey… that’s kinda how they survive, and it’s only a few times a year. My recommendation? Support your local PBS!
Just my “2-cents” opinion…
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