Watching Television

[Lauren Hynde]

I'm used to watching the Daily Show on a Portuguese TV station, as a 20-minute block with no commercial ads. Yesterday, I happened to catch it on CNN International, and damn. Is this how Americans have to watch television? There was a commercial break between each and every segment! It sucked the joy out of watching the show completely. With each commercial break, my interest level would plummet, of course, and I would start wondering if it was really worth it to endure this torture just to get to the next 2 minutes of show before being thrown back at another commercial break. And with each commercial break, the "no" would gain strength. I ended up changing stations and watching something else.

I had also noticed something similar before with "24". Over here, the station that airs "24", at the end of each season, repeats the entire season as a marathon over a weekend. They break it in 4-hour blocks with a single 5-minute break in the middle - yay for me - and each of these 4-hour blocks has 6 episodes! It means that in each "hour" of "24" is only actually 40-minutes long. What a rip-off! The show should be named "16 plus commercials".

Do you people have to go through this crap with all your TV entertainment? If so, how do you do it? Jesus, after 15 minutes of it, all I wanted was to throw the TV set out the window.

 

[rgraham666]

It's one of the main reasons I don't watch TV anymore, Lauren.

Even good commercials, as few as they are, get annoying when they break up a show that often.

For a long time, doing other things helped. Commercials come on and I take a leak, start a pot of tea, pick up the book next to me. But eventually that didn't help.

So now I just avoid network TV. I've got better things to do.

 

[Liar]

I'm used to watching the Daily Show on a Portuguese TV station, as a 20-minute block with no commercial ads. Yesterday, I happened to catch it on CNN International, and damn. Is this how Americans have to watch television? There was a commercial break between each and every segment!

Yep. Y'know, when he says "Welcome back to the show", they've actually been away.

 

[Liar]

I've got some commersial channels, but there's only half the ad breaks compared to American TV. This is evident when looking at talk shows or sitcoms. There are commersial breaks "marked" every five or ten minutes, a fadeout/fadein thing in drama and comedy procductions, and the "Well be right back" otice in studio productions, that I've become so accustomed to that I barely think about it anymore. They have one or two of those "false alarms", before there is an actual commersial break on my TV.

Not sure about other countries, haven't watched much Brit TV other than BBC, for instance.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

It makes me wonder why literacy levels in the US aren't much higher than in the rest of the world.

 

[Recidiva]

That's what TIVO are for. Fast forward through all the commercials.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I've got some commersial channels, but there's only half the ad breaks compared to American TV. This is evident when looking at talk shows or sitcoms. There are commersial breaks "marked" every five or ten minutes, a fadeout/fadein thing in drama and comedy procductions, and the "Well be right back" otice in studio productions, that I've become so accustomed to that I barely think about it anymore. They have one or two of those "false alarms", before there is an actual commersial break on my TV.

Not sure about other countries, haven't watched much Brit TV other than BBC, for instance.

Over here, commercials are usually a bit longer than what I saw on CNN, but there's always at least half-hour between each of them. Gives us time to actually get into the show!

One of the stations (the one I referenced before, that airs "24") only has commercials once every hour and sometimes, like during those "24" marathons, only once every two hours.

 

[Tzara]

Is this how Americans have to watch television?

Yes. We have a lot of stuff to sell.

It's kind of interesting to go to a football game (American football, of course) that is being televised and see all the timeouts that are inserted in the game for commercial breaks. Makes the game really drag when you are watching it in person.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Yes. We have a lot of stuff to sell.

It's kind of interesting to go to a football game (American football, of course) that is being televised and see all the timeouts that are inserted in the game for commercial breaks. Makes the game really drag when you are watching it in person.

I always assumed something more interesting would be keeping the people watching it in person entertained, certainly something more interesting than all those commercials. I don't know, maybe watching other people eat hotdogs would qualify.

 

[Tzara]

I don't know, maybe watching other people eat hotdogs would qualify.

Watching people eat hotdogs is frightening. Do you know what's in those things?

 

[CharleyH]

I'm used to watching the Daily Show on a Portuguese TV station, as a 20-minute block with no commercial ads. Yesterday, I happened to catch it on CNN International, and damn. Is this how Americans have to watch television? There was a commercial break between each and every segment! It sucked the joy out of watching the show completely. With each commercial break, my interest level would plummet, of course, and I would start wondering if it was really worth it to endure this torture just to get to the next 2 minutes of show before being thrown back at another commercial break. And with each commercial break, the "no" would gain strength. I ended up changing stations and watching something else.

I had also noticed something similar before with "24". Over here, the station that airs "24", at the end of each season, repeats the entire season as a marathon over a weekend. They break it in 4-hour blocks with a single 5-minute break in the middle - yay for me - and each of these 4-hour blocks has 6 episodes! It means that in each "hour" of "24" is only actually 40-minutes long. What a rip-off! The show should be named "16 plus commercials".

Do you people have to go through this crap with all your TV entertainment? If so, how do you do it? Jesus, after 15 minutes of it, all I wanted was to throw the TV set out the window.

I am simply thankful I have something caled a VCR - lol - yes commercials are approximately every 5-minutes by my count and it's as irritating as...hm...hell. (I wanted to say fuck, but that's hardly an irritation - lol). Anyhow, to get a sample of our commercials, at least in Canada, go here lol, Luba Goy does a wonderful bit about them on the Royal Canadian Air Farce. (4th clip down called AD ABSURDUM )

 

[RogueLurker]

We have a PVR (Personal Viewing Recorder - comparable to the Tivo) and we simply tape what we want to watch and fastforward through the commercials. Unfortunately this makes it even more annoying when we do watch something "live" and have to sit through the commercials.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Anyhow, to get a sample of our commercials, at least in Canada, go here lol, Luba Goy does a wonderful bit about them on the Royal Canadian Air Farce. (4th clip down called AD ABSURDUM )

Hilarious!

 

[Whisky7up]

Coming from England with commercial free BBC and maybe 2 or 3 breaks every hour on the other channels, it's a real eye opener to see the opening credits of shows followed IMMEDIATELY by an ad break.

I see BRAVO here is an entirely different kettle of fish to the BRAVO in the UK. Unless BRAVO in the UK has changed. Just one ad break in the movies. Mind you, I didn't know that and I was desperately waiting for one the first time I watched the channel here.