Commercials! It may just be my impression, but they are just so many of them. I sometimes for fun count the number of commercials in a break. I have counted as high as 12! Six minutes of 30 second spots. I should point out that the sound is off.
In this they are like policticians. Higher taxes more money, more commercials, more money. The truth is just the opposite.
I have access to over 200 channels via my cable provider, and I swear there are hours and hours there is nothing on I wish to watch. (This is actually good as it gives me time to do more important things).
Television viewing is a habit. They are helping me break the habit.
I am old enough to remember “must see TV”. Shows it seems like everyone in the nation watched each week and then discussed the next day at work. Are there any must see TV shows on today? Not for me. If I miss an episode of a show I know that it will appear three, four, five or a dozen more times in the next six months. Who cares anymore.
If you watch old shows from the 50s and 60s, you’ll see they were about 51 or 52 minutes long. I sometimes watch the old “Maverick” reruns on the western channel. Now, programs are about 42 minutes. And there was a big fight the other day over the new season of “Mad Men.” They wanted to shorten it to 39 minutes to cram more ads in. The compromise was to let it run over the hour mark instead of ending it on the hour. That is to say rather than 18 minutes of commercials, it will have about 21 minutes.
The concept of “appointment viewing” was enforceable because not a whole lot else was on. Now with the internet, that habit is forever broken.
Get thee a DVR! It's more fun to guess how many times you have to press the "Skip" button for the commercial breaks. You'll have no problem watching an hour show in 40 minutes. I'll have to admit stopping the process occasionally for a new Apple ad. ;O)
Yep, the only way to watch TV sanely is via pre-recording with a TIVO/DVD/PVR.
I’ve about worn out the 30-second skip forward button on mine :)