Since the early 1950's when top rated show I Love Lucy dominated television ratings, commercial advertisement has dominated our robotic households. However, back in the 1950's, commercial breaks would come every ten to fifteen minutes of a half an hour program, and would played so brief, you didn't have time to really drain the snake when programming resumed. Today, commercial advertisement, being displayed in our homes every five seconds, resembles the migraine type feeling of sitting on the 101 in Los Angeles bumper to bumper traffic: its irritating, noisy and simply just pisses you off. I have noticed in the past five years or so, commercial advertisement during our favorite programing airs as many minutes as the program you are viewing. Now let us grab the sharp scalpel of truth and begin to openly dissect what hides behind vast commercial advertisement.
A few weeks ago, I was attempting to watch the movie Philadelphia on the Bravo network. After a hard day of doing practically nothing, I felt the need to slowly unwind on my 70's style love seat with a blistering cold Dr. Pepper in my left hand and a processed artery hardening doughnut stick in my right. According to I.M.B.D., the run time of this flick should hit the 125 minute mark, and for those of you who are deeply illiterate that would be a total of two hours and five minutes. Yet, on the information portion from my rip off cable company, the time of the movie was three and a half hours. I contemplated losing a few minutes of my much needed beauty sleep in order to finish the film. But I noticed that, and yes I counted, every seven minutes there was a commercial break, and from what I could remember, there were scenes deleted out of the movie to show waste of time advertisement like the picture located on the right side of this paragraph. Not only was this a disappointment, but while the movie was playing there was huge advertisements of low rated Bravo original programming practically covering the entire screen.
Another problem I have that infuriates me is the program you are watching is set by default to low volume, and as soon as the commercial break cuts to the volume seems to escalate on its own. I myself remain in deep bewilderment as to how many freaken commercials do you possibly need to run. According to network executives, commercial sponsors pay a sum to each network in order to air the programming you are viewing. Now lets take the show I Love Lucy for example. The people who created the show, the actors and most of the people who were involved with the production have been taking dirt naps for many years now. How much can it possibly cost when the network staff in charge of programming are sitting on their asses while pressing buttons and playing a DVD?
The Uncompromisable Truth behind commercial advertisement is just plain greed. As money is the root to all evil, advertisements begin to slowly branch out straight into our televisions, eventually entering our tainted minds while attaching itself to our souls like a fungus as it rapidly grows with our vulnerable emotions. The unfortunate fact is that there will probably be no remedy to this irritating situation. Advertisements are everywhere, on the internet, cell phones, streets, radio, and heck, I wouldn't doubt that in the near future, the suits come up with a way to place a commercial in your eye ball, however, the quantity of commercial advertisements on television are out of hand as they continue to rape each show of a decent run time as they forcefully shove their products straight down our middle class throats. (Like we are so stupid that we do not know what Advil is!) And that, my friends, is The Uncompromisable Truth.
Since the early 1950's when top rated show I Love Lucy dominated television ratings, commercial advertisement has dominated our robotic households. However, back in the 1950's, commercial breaks would come every ten to fifteen minutes of a half an hour program, and would played so brief, you didn't have time to really drain the snake when programming resumed. Today, commercial advertisement, being displayed in our homes every five seconds, resembles the migraine type feeling of sitting on the 101 in Los Angeles bumper to bumper traffic: its irritating, noisy and simply just pisses you off. I have noticed in the past five years or so, commercial advertisement during our favorite programing airs as many minutes as the program you are viewing. Now let us grab the sharp scalpel of truth and begin to openly dissect what hides behind vast commercial advertisement. 
A few weeks ago, I was attempting to watch the movie Philadelphia on the Bravo network. After a hard day of doing practically nothing, I felt the need to slowly unwind on my 70's style love seat with a blistering cold Dr. Pepper in my left hand and a processed artery hardening doughnut stick in my right. According to I.M.B.D., the run time of this flick should hit the 125 minute mark, and for those of you who are deeply illiterate that would be a total of two hours and five minutes. Yet, on the information portion from my rip off cable company, the time of the movie was three and a half hours. I contemplated losing a few minutes of my much needed beauty sleep in order to finish the film. But I noticed that, and yes I counted, every seven minutes there was a commercial break, and from what I could remember, there were scenes deleted out of the movie to show waste of time advertisement like the picture located on the right side of this paragraph. Not only was this a disappointment, but while the movie was playing there was huge advertisements of low rated Bravo original programming practically covering the entire screen. 
Another problem I have that infuriates me is the program you are watching is set by default to low volume, and as soon as the commercial break cuts to the volume seems to escalate on its own. I myself remain in deep bewilderment as to how many freaken commercials do you possibly need to run. According to network executives, commercial sponsors pay a sum to each network in order to air the programming you are viewing. Now lets take the show I Love Lucy for example. The people who created the show, the actors and most of the people who were involved with the production have been taking dirt naps for many years now. How much can it possibly cost when the network staff in charge of programming are sitting on their asses while pressing buttons and playing a DVD? 
The Uncompromisable Truth behind commercial advertisement is just plain greed. As money is the root to all evil, advertisements begin to slowly branch out straight into our televisions, eventually entering our tainted minds while attaching itself to our souls like a fungus as it rapidly grows with our vulnerable emotions. The unfortunate fact is that there will probably be no remedy to this irritating situation. Advertisements are everywhere, on the internet, cell phones, streets, radio, and heck, I wouldn't doubt that in the near future, the suits come up with a way to place a commercial in your eye ball, however, the quantity of commercial advertisements on television are out of hand as they continue to rape each show of a decent run time as they forcefully shove their products straight down our middle class throats. (Like we are so stupid that we do not know what Advil is!) And that, my friends, is The Uncompromisable Truth.
As usual, you are right on the money.
ReplyDeleteI notice these same complaints, it's real bad on the news channels also.
ReplyDeleteSecretia
I remember I Love Lucy... and in the ensuing years TV advertising has not endeared me to buy any product so advertised, unless it was a product that I already used. We have this in Brazil as well; 20 minutes programme, rest in advertising. I commented on this in the bar just last night. During the news of the 19 products continually advertised I had never brought nor tried one.
ReplyDeleteAV
My Mum's visiting from England and is constantly shocked by how frequent and how long the commercial breaks are. There were even chunks cut out of some British programs we watched, presumably making way for even more American commercials.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this why they invented TiVo? I love being able to fast forward through the commercials.
ReplyDeleteI know, I know. I am thinking the same thing. I have gone as far as not watching cable for 4 months at a time because when i do, I get slammed with commercials that not only are stupid, but mostly lies also. I went to Net flix to see past shows commercial free and love it. If they would carry the cooking shows for my wife, I would sh*t can cable all together.
ReplyDeletetoo bad tv has come to this.............money before entertainment.
ReplyDeleteit is obvious, that the indivduals responsible for allowing so many commercials, certainly don't watch their own program, otherwise, there would be far less commercials. What a shame.
ReplyDeletebelieve if more attention to entertainment,and viewer enjoyment, rather than how much money can we make, without a doubt, would lead to an increase in viewers, and increase popularity of the station airing the program. Television used to be a form of relaxation.
ReplyDeletetoo bad the FCC cannot get involved and limit the number of commercials to be shown durring a half hour presentation. At least the volume level of commercials has been addressed and a law passed to prevent loud commercials. Maybe, something can be done about the number allowed durring a given time frame????
ReplyDeleteNice post
ReplyDeleteMany watchers caught their attention using commercials so this is truly effective.
ReplyDelete