Commercial Debate

[Andara Bledin]

And less money than cable, too.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

One other thing they do nowadays that makes squeezing in more commercials (usually into older shows made for more time) is to speed them up slightly. Most people watching most shows won't notice; certainly not as many as would notice a scene missing.

[Racket_Man]

I imagine this actually a problem for a lot of older shows that were made back when an hour long show was actually an hour long. These days, an hour long show is actually 45-46 minutes to make room for adverts. While a half hour show is around 22-24 minutes. Once you include the opening and ending credits thats shaved down even more.

You don't notice it when watching them on TV so much. But if you actually buy the show on DVD/Blu-Ray and start seeing the actual run times of the show, it can be a bit surprising.

I guess back in the day the commercial breaks were shorter because there was maybe one or two (maybe 3) main sponsers of any given show sinced the total pool of shows was rather small compared to today. but that was back when, at least here in the US, there were only the 3 networks plus a few indie stations and PBS.

I know that even back then an hour long show was made to have commercial breaks at least every 10 minutes or so (as I remember back) and if you look at shows from back then you can see they were written to reflect that fact. so yes an hour long show was not the whole hour but say 48 minutes ( to account for the commercials) not including commercial breaks.

Now you have upwards of 300+ channels (not all offered though) on your cable/satelite system so everyone is fighting for the advertising $$$s

[blas87]

Shows on extended cable with no commercials tend to run closer to an hour (noticed True Blood and Spartacus both went over 50 mins on the DVDs per episode).

[insertNameHere]

I finally got comskip to work on my DVR. on FX it seems to work the best and chop things gown to 45-46minutes for an hour long show. I think Tru TV is the worst sometimes it seems like 4min long commercial breaks. But i think for the most part they are about standard. I tend to anymore watch "semi-live tv", I either watch another show for a bit or do something else then start watching my show that way I have about 10-15 minutes I can forward through to avoid commercials

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I've actually timed longer commercial breaks than show segments over at my parent's place. they like those judge shows and I find them unwatchable due to the constant and lengthy breaks. It's not just me, either. I have sat there and literally timed them. I've pretty much lost the ability to watch a show on regular tv because my patience for interruption is now spoiled by the way my own system is set up. But I knew it wasn't my imagination, so out of curiosity, I started paying attention to station breaks.

I used to work in Master Control at a TV station during the era of the Gulf War, and the breaks were usually about two minutes long. Maybe as long as three for a top of the hour break or something.

I've timed one at eight fairly recently.

All my TV is digital. I don't get commercials at all, unless I'm watching Hulu, and then the breaks are a minute or less. So all the shows I watch come to me commercial free and I get a very good idea how much the break time has increased over the years. An 80's era show or older has about fifty five minutes of content, more or less. A new one is more like low forties as far as minutes go.

A thirty minute show is really more like twenty nowadays.

[bainsidhe]

American Idol. I swear every other sentence led to a commercial break, which is why I stopped watching the show.

And as for stations cutting bits from shows and movies to allow for more commercials, the worst one I remember is Back to the Future. Remember the scene where Marty saves his dad from getting hit by the car and Marty ends up at his mom's house? Yeah. That whole scene was cut. Marty suddenly goes from talking to the professor to waking up at his mom's place and worrying how he changed the past.