Remember when TV was for watching?

M

MikeyDude

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Location
Texas
Remember when you would watch a TV show and get 15 or 20 minutes of programing then a 2 minute commercial? Now you watch 7 minutes of programming and get 10 minutes of commercials. And the News is the worst - you watch one story and get 5 minutes of commercials.

And remember how cool it was before it became legal to advertise doctors, lawyers and medications on TV? What good does it do to advertise medications? It's not like you can write your own prescription.

Everything is so profit oriented now a days. And I mean everything... I don't like it.
 

It’s a real buzz-kill to even the best programming to have it repeatedly interrupted by several minutes of commercials, all of which you’ve been exposed to many times before. In some cases the frequency and duration of those commercials is enough to make you lose interest in what you were viewing, or figure it just isn’t worth the commercial aggravation.

One of the appeals of paying for an add-on package like Netflix is that for a few dollars more per month beyond the “with commercials” plan, you can opt to buy into a plan without commercials! Such is well worth the slight added expense, IMO…
 
I can't really watch "live" broadcast TV anymore. If there's a movie or a show I like, I record it and then watch it at my convenience, skipping past all of the commercials. I gave up on broadcast news long ago. I agree; it's the worst. A 30-minute news program seems to have about 12 minutes of news, a 3 to 5-minute human interest story, and the remainder is advertising. Additionally, I know they say it's illegal and that they don't do it, but I have no doubt that the volume of commercials is significantly increased over the program.
 

Not here in the UK thank goodness....we still genrally get 15 or 20 minute of programming before adverts...unless it's on an American channel like Court TV.. when they get to say almost a whole sentence before they go off for a ''quick break'' which lasts 5 minutes
 
hollydolly said:
Not here in the UK thank goodness....we still genrally get 15 or 20 minute of programming before adverts...unless it's on an American channel like Court TV.. when they get to say almost a whole sentence before they go off for a ''quick break'' which lasts 5 minutes
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We mostly stream the shows we like and rarely watch broadcast TV. It's the best solution to the problem! Netflix, Hulu, Tubi, Prime, Paramount, etc. The amount of content is amazing and it's great to binge-watch a series rather than waiting for one episode per week. Either way, you're lucky that it's not quite so bad there. The marketing people are strangling the entertainment industry with their relentless sales pitches. I'll enjoy the streaming channels for now but the marketing folks are already making headway into that market. Have I mentioned my enormous disdain for the marketing department lately? There's a difference between sales and marketing... sales people know when they're lying.
 
Rich said:
We mostly stream the shows we like and rarely watch broadcast TV. It's the best solution to the problem! Netflix, Hulu, Tubi, Prime, Paramount, etc. The amount of content is amazing and it's great to binge-watch a series rather than waiting for one episode per week. Either way, you're lucky that it's not quite so bad there. The marketing people are strangling the entertainment industry with their relentless sales pitches. I'll enjoy the streaming channels for now but the marketing folks are already making headway into that market. Have I mentioned my enormous disdain for the marketing department lately? There's a difference between sales and marketing... sales people know when they're lying.
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I do the same... I rarely watch Terrestrial TV except for a couple of favourites. I don't even watch my own husbands' show.....but Discovery Plus which stream many reality shows has blocked the Fast forwarding of Commercials , even if it's recorded...
 
Football games are the same with commercials. When the ball changes hands it's off to the commercials. I often wonder what the players are doing as they wait. The two minute warning at the end of the game is probably inserted as one last chance for even more commercials. And then there's the Super Bowl which will spawn a whole separate show of the "best" commercials.
 
I have been using the mute button when commercials come on while I am watching TV shows or a movie and the news also. I have found it more calming and relaxing not having to listen to commercials. It also helps me keep my chain of thought about the movie, tv show, or news that I am watching. It gives me a break to think quietly about the TV program that I am watching. To me listening to the commercials jumble my mind with different subject matters at a high rate of speed, something that I do not need when I just want to relax and watch TV.
 
MikeyDude said:
Remember when you would watch a TV show and get 15 or 20 minutes of programing then a 2 minute commercial? Now you watch 7 minutes of programming and get 10 minutes of commercials. And the News is the worst - you watch one story and get 5 minutes of commercials.

And remember how cool it was before it became legal to advertise doctors, lawyers and medications on TV? What good does it do to advertise medications? It's not like you can write your own prescription.

Everything is so profit oriented now a days. And I mean everything... I don't like it.
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I agree 👍 It is why we don't have a TV. I finally found it wasn't worth the effort to get interesting programming and have to wait until the commercials stopped.
 
I really like You Tube, but they have commercials real often on most programs. Of course, you can pay to make them stop. I cut the cable to avoid paying money to watch TV. Many of the You Tube commercials can be ended manually after a few seconds. Streaming services are either raising their prices, and or making you pay for much of their content. Streaming can be time consuming if you don't want to pay, but I'm still really glad I cut the cable.
 
chrislind2 said:
I really like You Tube, but they have commercials real often on most programs. Of course, you can pay to make them stop. I cut the cable to avoid paying money to watch TV. Many of the You Tube commercials can be ended manually after a few seconds. Streaming services are either raising their prices, and or making you pay for much of their content. Streaming can be time consuming if you don't want to pay, but I'm still really glad I cut the cable.
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I have AD plus installed, I never see any commercials on Youtube. The first time commercials appear on there for me will be the last time I look at it..
 
This is why we buy DVD sets of series we like:

- no commercials
- playing them when we want
- replaying them as we wish
- during any episode, being able to go back or forward as we wish

What we do when we find something we might like is to check it out a bit on YouTube ... that gives us a good idea re whether we really want it. Then we buy the entire series. Sometimes it's six or eleven seasons.

Right now we're watching Stargate SG1. Yeah, it's older, but very entertaining.
Prior to that it was the Grimm series. Loved it.
 
Devi said:
This is why we buy DVD sets of series we like:

- no commercials
- playing them when we want
- replaying them as we wish
- during any episode, being able to go back or forward as we wish

What we do when we find something we might like is to check it out a bit on YouTube ... that gives us a good idea re whether we really want it. Then we buy the entire series. Sometimes it's six or eleven seasons.
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you know you can do a 'Live rewind or Fast forward '' on most programmes on TV now ( except for terrestrial) ..and except for Discovery plus you can FF through the ADS...
 
Remember when TV was free to watch. The show season ran from fall to spring & then re-runs in summer so you didn't miss anything when you spent time outside. Yes, you didn't have the wide variety of shows available. But we weren't a slave to the boob-tube.
 
hollydolly said:
you know you can do a 'Live rewind or Fast forward '' on most programmes on TV now ( except for terrestrial) ..and except for Discovery plus you can FF through the ADS...
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Okay. Good to know. But we'd have to pay for those.

And at the end, we wouldn't have the DVDs for ourselves.
 

MikeyDude said:
And remember how cool it was before it became legal to advertise doctors, lawyers and medications on TV? What good does it do to advertise medications? It's not like you can write your own prescription.
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Only 2 nations....New Zealand, and the U.S.....allow these endless "Ask Your Doctor" TV commercials. Coincidentally, if you look up who the major political campaign donors are....via sites like OpenSecrets.org....the drug companies rank right up near the top in the billions of dollars donated. This is one of the primary reasons why prescription drugs are so expensive here.
 
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hollydolly said:
I do the same... I rarely watch Terrestrial TV except for a couple of favourites. I don't even watch my own husbands' show.....but Discovery Plus which stream many reality shows has blocked the Fast forwarding of Commercials , even if it's recorded...
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Several of the streaming channels also have commercials that cannot be bypassed. I hope this isn't a harbinger of things to come but I think the advertising revenue is just too tempting.
 
Jules said:
If one has figured out to block FF, they soon all will.

I record everything except the noon news. That gets switched off when the commercials start.
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Me too..I record absolutely everything that is possible.. but as I say on Discovery plus they have blocked the ability to FF through the ADS and it's excruciating.. I may drop Discovery Plus from my streaming service when it's up for renewal
 
Paco Dennis said:
I agree 👍 It is why we don't have a TV. I finally found it wasn't worth the effort to get interesting programming and have to wait until the commercials stopped.
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IMHO that's the nuclear option! Just shut off the TV. There are, at least right now, some streaming channels that have excellent content. We just finished two detective series and both are just outstanding TV. If you ever have the opportunity check out "Justified" and "Bosch". We watched both entire series, commercial-free.
 
News excepted, we record most of what we watch. A Comcast remote has forward and back skip buttons. Those buttons can be programmed, so in our case forward is 30 seconds and back is 15. Overshoot the end of a commercial and skip back. Works. Also, some recorded programming contains yellow lines that can be fast forwarded through very quickly and automatically resumes at the end of the yellow, skipping most commercials.
 
MikeyDude said:
And remember how cool it was before it became legal to advertise doctors, lawyers and medications on TV? What good does it do to advertise medications? It's not like you can write your own prescription.
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Those medication commercials are worst, with the long list of all possible, potential deadly side-effects...ugh. I too wondered about the many pharmaceutical commercials, and learned the purpose is that drug companies want consumers to ask their doctors for these drugs. Makes me wonder how many people do this. I honestly can't ever remember asking my doctor for a specific medication.
 
Don M. said:
Only 2 nations....New Zealand, and the U.S.....allow these endless "Ask Your Doctor" TV commercials. Coincidentally, if you look up who the major political campaign donors are....via sites like OpenSecrets.org....the drug companies rank right up near the top in the billions of dollars donated. This is one of the primary reasons why prescription drugs are so expensive here.
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We get those commercials in Canada as well. What gets me is all those possible, endless side effects, including "For some, use of this medication could lead to death!" And I'm supposed to ask my doctor to put me on that? Not a chance! I think the whole thing is counter productive, except the pill pushers haven't discovered that yet!
 

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