Commercials, am I just unreasonable?

[ImcLoud]

OK, so I am going over some the billing slips from friday and this weekend and although I normally listen to music while i do it, my wife has a few friends over down stairs so figured I would do it upstairs in the bedroom and watch tv as not to make a ton of noise... After surfing the guide I found Men of Honor, I love this movie, haven't seen it in years, and it was just starting, so I tuned it in.

Paying half attention to the flick, I noticed it started at 3:30 and there seemed to be 15 minutes of commercials before 4:00 so I timed them, just over 9 minutes of content and 11 minutes of commercials!!!! Then 7 minutes of content and 6 minutes of commercials, I investigated further and seen the movie is on for 3 1/2 hours (210 minutes) and the movie uncut run time is only 121 minutes so that is 1 minute shy of an hour and a half of commercials for a 2 hour movie!!! I changed it and put some music on, my old friend, she never lets me down...

Maybe its the Network "BET" or maybe ts because I hardly watch tv anymore, but so me having to sit through an hour and a half of commercials to watch a 2 hour 15 year old movie is not worth it...

 

[Adam]

That's a higher ratio than normal, for sure. Typically, it's a little less than one-third of the time is commercials (one-hour shows normally have over 40 minutes of material, and half-hour shows have over 20 minutes).

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

The funny thing is that from what I heard is "premium" cable then originally introduced did not have commercials, same for Satellite radio, same for music streaming sites etc...
Hulu always had and only from big boys - Netflix doesn't (not sure about the bookstore company streaming video - probably doesn't)

They always test the limits how much ads we can tolerate and it depends on many things, channel, time, programming, your cable provider etc... In very near future we'd have a customized and targeted commercials just for you

Relevant video:

Futurama Episode 106 – A Fishful of Dollars | Watch cartoons online, Watch anime online, English dub anime
and here:
Futurama Episode 209 - A Bicyclops Built for Two | Watch cartoons online, Watch anime online, English dub anime

 

[Pyrrho]

You should use a DVR, and never, ever, watch commercial television "live." You then jump over the commercials. They really have just gone so far overboard that, in my opinion, there is no other reasonable option. I know, commercials pay for it, but some prices are just too damn high.

 

[sawzalot]

This reminds me of Pro Football, which I love watching. The actual amount of time played on the field of play is somewhere around 11 to 13 minutes of "action" for the game. That leaves just about 3 and 1/2 hours of commercials, this is what makes the NHL even that much more appealing , solid action throughout.

 

[ImcLoud]

I would have dvr'd it but I wanted something to watch rite then and it was on, instead I bought the blu ray for $6. Amazon.com: Men of Honor [Blu-ray]: Robert DeNiro, Cuba Gooding Jr.: Movies & TV and I watched it instantly, lol...

 

[lsiberian]

This reminds me of Pro Football, which I love watching. The actual amount of time played on the field of play is somewhere around 11 to 13 minutes of "action" for the game. That leaves just about 3 and 1/2 hours of commercials, this is what makes the NHL even that much more appealing , solid action throughout.

Only in America do the sports have commercial breaks. In other countries they just put the ads on players and billboards.

 

[ImcLoud]

we do that too, lol fenway park is littered by advertisement banners...

 

[darien87]

Sort of an aside of this conversation, I recently got my first smart phone. I rarely do anything with it online but I do like to stream music from Pandora in my car occasionally. My plan only gives me 250MB of 4G data a month. After that it slows me down to 3G. My issue is that with the basic Pandora app you get commercials every few songs. I would assume that these commercials count as data against my plan. Bugs the hell out of me as I'm trying to conserve my data and I don't want to listen to these damn commercials in the first place!!

 

[Pyrrho]

Sort of an aside of this conversation, I recently got my first smart phone. I rarely do anything with it online but I do like to stream music from Pandora in my car occasionally. My plan only gives me 250MB of 4G data a month. After that it slows me down to 3G. My issue is that with the basic Pandora app you get commercials every few songs. I would assume that these commercials count as data against my plan. Bugs the hell out of me as I'm trying to conserve my data and I don't want to listen to these damn commercials in the first place!!

You have a choice. You either pay for it via your plan with commercials, or you pay for it by upgrading Pandora. Either way, to have it, you pay, one way or another. You don't expect them to give you something for nothing, do you?

 

[Chu Gai]

Wouldn't it be only a matter of time before they instituted a policy of one commercial for say 15 seconds every 10 songs and then gradually look to increase that? Read my lips, no new taxes.

 

[GO-NAD!]

We very rarely watch anything live now and record just about everything on the PVR. About the only things I watch live are sports and the news.

 

[MidnightSensi2]

Commercials suck. I can't even handle regular TV.

Sort of an aside of this conversation, I recently got my first smart phone. I rarely do anything with it online but I do like to stream music from Pandora in my car occasionally. My plan only gives me 250MB of 4G data a month. After that it slows me down to 3G. My issue is that with the basic Pandora app you get commercials every few songs. I would assume that these commercials count as data against my plan. Bugs the hell out of me as I'm trying to conserve my data and I don't want to listen to these damn commercials in the first place!!

I use paid Spotify, which works for everything from airtravel (can set to listen offline) to bluetooth streaming in the car to casual listening at my computer.

I'd say for zero commercials, the nice interface - it's worth the monthly fee.

250MB?! Yikes.

I have unlimited data (grandfathered, they try to get me off the plan all the time lol). I get a message from AT&T sometimes telling me I've gone beyond 4.5GB and they're going to throttle me, but, I don't notice any speed difference. Most my stuff is background processes anyways.

Spotify you can set to sync just over wifi, so, keep your data free for other stuff.

 

[j_garcia]

Now you know why I don't watch TV. Or listen to the radio much.

 

[darien87]

I watch everything off the DVR also. But how long until cable companies make it so that you can't fast forward commercials? I'm sure that's coming.

 

[avnetguy]

I actually watch TV ... live ... yup, with commercials. Speaking of which, a new blacklist is on tonight, yah!

Most channels aren't too bad for commercials, some movie only channels are terrible though. Sometimes the commercials are very funny, they definitely think of new ways to keep your interest. One of these years I might get a DVR but I try not to watch too much TV though it's nice on cold winter nights.