Commercial Strangulation

A recent posting of mine at helium.com... with reference to commercials "strangulating" us.


Television has dutifully shot itself in its foot by overwhelming us with commercials, compressing shows with split screens, and otherwise editing shows down to the bare minimum in the interest of maximizing profits. Shows from the 1970s such as MASH had eleven minute segments, and shows on the current Food Network and Discovery Channel have segments that are six or seven minutes at best. I had long since given up on the broadcast networks, but in these times, the worst offenders are the pay channels - be they from a cable or satellite service. In the glory days of "pay" television, we were spending money to avoid the commercials that plagued viewers of the free networks. Now, it's almost as though the "cable" channels are as bad, if not worse, than their so-called "free" broadcast networks. One has to wonder where our subscription fees to these cable/satellite services go?

I can understand broadcast (i.e. "free") networks running commercials ad nauseum, but then again, one gets what they pay for. It costs nothing (other than the price of a television and its electricity) to watch NBC or Fox. But when paying for the right to see "cable" channels, we shouldn't theoretically be seeing the same amount (if not more) of commercials. The sad truth is that cable channels can get away with murder; they provide content that attracts audiences, and worse yet, the world of television is tilted toward the world of cable and satellite.

Without question, commercials are strangling and altering programming content. The split screens we see on various networks are simply a televised replica of the banners and advertisements we see on the internet. Why do networks push their web presences so passionately? Check one of their sites. In the time you load their page, they're able to surround their content with several ad banners and effectively "run their commercials". One would think that this ease of potential advertising revenue from an alternate medium would relieve us of the constant barrage of televised ads, but that isn't the case. We're stuck with an ever-growing reliance on the media, and since they know this, those outlets are empowered to dictate the rules.

A savvy member of the peanut gallery will likely say witty things like "didya forget where the 'off' button was?" or "just don't watch..."
Yeah, but it's everywhere. And the point is that it's growing worse than any perceived pollution that one could conjure. Internet banners, commercials, radio spots, billboards. All wealthy entities, be they in media, oil, or banking, know they can progressively get away with more and more every year or so, provided that it's snuck under the radar of the supposed outspoken public. It's easy to advocate total withdrawal from the world and not use oil, power, or the media, but it's very tough to do that. I personally still use oil and watch the television, but I do purposely avoid products pitched by stupid commercials (unfortunately not including utilities), and for now, that's a start.