Everything WRONG With Modern Television

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I' m bumping this thread since the Cap mentioned it in relation to a something I posted in another thread about ads becoming obnoxious in quality . But the quantity of ads seems to have ballooned too. Movies that are an hour and a half long seem to have doubled in tv time. The ads themselves go on and on like mini series. I don't usually watch sports but when I occasionally watch baseball - it seems the entire game is organized around these interminable ads- is this why a game that I seem to remember as being no longer than a Columbo episode now seems to stretch into a new time zone?

Well I guess this is the price we pay for tv. I myself use the spare time between the actual tv shows to organize my recyclables, make a small snack or finish War and Peace.

And btw I just LOVE what @gbgoodies dad said about long life and complaining. Lmao I' m right there with you gbg.



I' m bumping this thread since the Cap mentioned it in relation to a something I posted in another thread about ads becoming obnoxious in quality . But the quantity of ads seems to have ballooned too. Movies that are an hour and a half long seem to have doubled in tv time. The ads themselves go on and on like mini series. I don't usually watch sports but when I occasionally watch baseball - it seems the entire game is organized around these interminable ads- is this why a game that I seem to remember being as being no longer than a Columbo episode now seems to stretch into a new time zone?

Well I guess this is the price we pay for tv. I myself use the spare time between the actual tv shows to organize my recyclables, make a small snack or finish War and Peace.

And btw I just LOVE what @gbgoodies dad said about long life and complaining. Lmao I' m right there with you gbg.
Well, that's the problem I mentioned in previous posts - we are paying a price (one that seems to go up randomly every couple months for no apparent reasons and with no extra services - just random unexplained increases and unexplained fees) for something that was supposed to eliminate the need for commercials by our paying for something that used to be free but required advertising for the consumer to enjoy the free service.

That was the original promise of cable / pay TV - the consumer pays directly, eliminating the need for commercials. Yet it's gone in the opposite direction - we're paying for it, yet the commercials are more excessive and worse than ever.

Yeah, I realize there are premium channels that don't have commercials - but they cost even more (a premium!) and since we're paying for even the most basic packages, anything we HAVE to pay for should be commercial free.

But we've got the opposite - entire networks that show only commercials (infomercials) all night long when there are decades worth of recorded entertainment pertaining to their channel's specialty (whether it's comedy, movies, science, dramas, soap operas, music videos, etc) that they could be showing. Why do so many channels show only commercials in the middle of the night? I've been a shift worker where I had hundreds of channels, but with nothing on except infomercials in the am hours! And people are paying for this.



I know advertising has long supported free TV, but I have to agree with Cap that they have grown in number. I mean, in some cases the old shows are being cut to make room for more ads than they had before.

I think it's a sign that traditional TV and even some cable TV networks are struggling financially while competing with HBO, Netflix and other commercial-free sources of entertainment (which I think have most of the quality programs everyone is referring to). Reality TV is cheaper to produce than most scripted shows and infomercials fill lots of time while paying for themselves. And how many cable channels seem to be showing the same movies over and over?

Unfortunately, that may push more people to the commercial-free outlets. Can we live without free TV if it comes to that?



Been on holiday to the US many times and must say your TV is unwatchable..
Solution seems to be cancel subscription, become an internet download pirate mateys.
Ar..



Ami-Scythe's Avatar
A bucket of anxiety
Here's another gripe - the increasing length and / or quantity of commercials & commercial breaks.

One day I was visiting the parents and thought my mom (83) would like to watch The Chronicles of Narnia, which I saw was coming up on a channel she had. You know, it's a fantasy, based on a classic she might be familiar with, (and it wouldn't have sex scenes), etc.
So I put it on for her so she could watch it from the beginning.
Now Chronicles of Narnia IS a long movie: 2 hours and 23 minutes to be precise.
My parents didn't have any of the "premium" movie channels and this movie ran for (get this) FIVE HOURS!
Five hours to show a 2 hour & 23 minute movie!
When my mom found out she'd have to commit 5 hours to watch a movie, she turned it off.

I remember once, trying to watch The Jacksons: An American Dream (which is another extremely long movie itself at 4 hours) - it was on a commercial channel with a run time of SEVEN HOURS! I kid you not. SEVEN HOURS!
Who's going to watch a 7 hour movie (3 hours of which are commercials?)


When it gets to the point where Television just doesn't seem worth it because it's become so diluted, so obstructed, so filled with distractions, so sensory-overloaded and so time-consuming to watch just one thing, then what is the point?
Haha! I remember that. I used to live at my grandma's house and she and grandpa had Comcast and my mom used to say she'd love to watch the Jacksons but it's too long for all the commercials they show.

But anyway, if it was my grandma who wanted to watch that movie, she'd do it if she liked it. Not like she has anything else to do lol
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Ami-Scythe



You ready? You look ready.
And this is why I own a TiVo. I press one button and skip the whole commercial block. Sometimes I push the button with my middle finger. Just for the hell of it.
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I don't even know where to start... I could write a book on this topic. (Maybe I will.)

Remember when the concept of "Pay" TV (what we now call Cable or Satellite television) was that when customers are paying for television there will be no need for sponsors and thus no commercials? That's just one issue to start with.

Then there are content issues - like when people say, "800 channels and nothing to watch."

Can anyone tell me why, in wee-of-the-morning hours, cable TV reverts almost entirely to info-mercials? Specialty channels that we PAY for, and which are supposed to serve up a genre of programming (whether it be comedy, science, drama, old-time programming, news, etc.) serve up nothing but advertising from 2:00 - 7:00 in the morning! This is really unfair to shift workers.

But one of the most unforgivable scourges inflicted on modern TV audiences is advertising on the screen DURING your show. And it's everywhere - pop-up ads; ads telling you what's on next; ads telling you what you're watching right now (instead of letting you watch it); giant pop-up banners that cover a third of the screen selling something or other; screens within your screen showing movement in advertisements while you're trying to watch the only thing that's supposed to be on the screen.
They even have on-screen ads with sound that plays during your program!!!

One of the ironies I find perplexing are network logos (some are more intrusive than others). The only time they MIGHT be at all helpful is during commercials - to let you know what network you're tuned into, and yet (and I know you saw this coming from a mile away...) the ONLY time they are NOT on the screen is DURING the commercials!!!

Modern TV has become ridiculous and I can't understand why the populace stands for it. Everything from cutting off the ends of movies for commercials, to minimizing credits so you can't read them, to covering captions and sub-titles with logos & ads telling you what ELSE is on that network.
I agree with every point you made. I'll add "time compression", the greatly sped-up intro and ending to shows. I've also read that the main content is subtly sped-up, not so you can detect it, but so that an extra 10-15 secs of commercial time can be added.

I think most younger folks have grown up with this sort of intrusion and are used to it because they've never known anything different.

I remember back in the day, early 1980s, when I first saw cable shows like HBO, when the movie was over, instead of cramming non-stop previews for their coming attractions, short films were shown. The only station that still does (but not all the time) is TCM.

I've also noticed whole scenes deleted from shows like Law & Order and Star Trek NG.

BTW, I think the network logos being displayed during the play of a movie or show was originally done to try and prevent devious people from recording and creating pirated versions for sale.



..."time compression", the greatly sped-up intro and ending to shows.
I watch exclusively 'old TV shows' and when I say old I'm talking 1950s to 1980s...Currently I'm watching The Love Boat and recently have watched Mary Tyler Moore, Green Acres, M*A*S*H*, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, What's My Line? etc, etc, etc!

My point being: you're right, the intros to these old TV shows were not only longer but were integral to letting the viewer know what the show's theme and back story was. The shows intro was an entertaining part of the overall viewing experience that sadly got cut shorter and shorter thanks to greedy TV executives wanting more profit by pushing more commercials.

If you take a look at how long a half hour comedy show or a hour long drama was back in the 1950s then look at the same type of show from later decades you can see they get shorter and shorter so as to accommodated more and more commercials. Those commercial interruptions are exactly why I don't watch broadcast TV and haven't for the last 25 years. No commercials for me!



Those commercial interruptions are exactly why I don't watch broadcast TV and haven't for the last 25 years. No commercials for me!
I watch very few commercial stations but I do like to watch the occasional Smithsonian special, a Law&Order episode, or a STNG episode.

BTW have you noticed over the past 10 yrs or so, the Science Channel, the National Geographic Channel, The Learning Channel (TLC), and the History Channel have turned into shite? Mostly stupid crapola.



I'm always reminded of the lyrics from the Pink Floyd song Nobody Home (The Wall):

I got elastic bands keepin' my shoes on
Got those swollen-hand blues
I got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from
Except today it would have to say "800 channels of ..."



I watch very few commercial stations but I do like to watch the occasional Smithsonian special, a Law&Order episode, or a STNG episode.
Being a big Star Trek fan (not the new stuff) I hated seeing ST episodes being shortened from their original length just to squeeze in even more commercials, so I bought the ST series on DVDs/Blu Rays. Star Trek is the only series I cared enough to buy DVDs for.

BTW have you noticed over the past 10 yrs or so, the Science Channel, the National Geographic Channel, The Learning Channel (TLC), and the History Channel have turned into shite? Mostly stupid crapola.[/quote]That's funny you mentioned that because I was just thinking about how back in the 1990s and 2000s channels like the History Channel actual had history and not reality shows. I haven't had cable since 2000 but I use to have someone tape shows from the History Channel, Discovery, A & E and then I could watch it on my VCR. Well that was many years ago too.



Thank you. I forgot about these -- two more channels that I could add to my above list -- those channels that have turned into shite.



Thank you. I forgot about these -- two more channels that I could add to my above list -- those channels that have turned into shite.
I used to like watching Biography on A&E.

It's really sad that the vast amount of educational networks (which had shows that made them interesting) have opted to go in the other direction of "reality TV" = shows about drunk women screaming words that have to be bleeped every 5 seconds at each other.

P.S. Last night I saw Brad Pitt in a commercial for a coffee maker. I had to do a double take, but yeah it was him. (I don't recall ever seeing him doing a commercial before).

Heck, even Joe DiMaggio was retired from baseball for a couple decades before he started doing coffee maker commercials - but Brad Pitt is still one of the top movie stars (isn't he?)



Many actors who appear in commercials early on return to them later in their career - this is usually due to a need for work, their recognition beginning to slip, or a need for money, or a combination of all three (and then, of course, there are the deals that can't be refused - where a star is offered a ridiculous amount of money to appear in a commercial because of a recent movie hit or budding stardom). But returning to commercials for someone considered still at the height of their movie career (or at least still a draw for motion pictures) can be a risky move as it can seriously hurt their "brand".

No one wants to go from Hollywood's leading man to "Mr. Acme flavored-drink guy".



^^I think that can be the case, but not anymore for many. Some examples from the last 10-20+ years here in the UK. I've not included any British stars as I can see that they could be more likely to star. Obviously these aren't all of them, just the ones which come to mind easily^^

Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro

George Clooney Quite a few of these
George Clooney

Sly Stallone

Owen Wilson

Kevin Bacon There's a lot of these

Kevin Bacon and Britney Spears

Harvey Keitel There's loads of these too.
Arnold Swartznegger There's a couple more of these too.


TBF, the Warburton's ads are great.
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