First: I will not watch commercial television.
Second: Did you ever wonder why they call it commercial television?

Okay, here's what I was thinking about:

Your average one hour television show is approximately 39 minutes long with the other 21 minutes being devoted to commercials and various advertisements. You think that you are watching television to be entertained when you are actually watching television to be a better consumer. Networks give you just enough television programming to feed you the advertisements that comprise approximately 33% of the airtime of the shows that you watch.

You already pay to watch HBO, Cinemax, Showtime and such, but we cannot be sure that they will not show commercials in the future... look at the example of movie theaters.

What makes this even more annoying is the fact that movie theaters are now showing commercials before feature films. I hate commercials and advertising and I do not watch television... one of the reasons I do not watch television is the commercials. Now you cannot avoid the commercials if you go to movies, as the theaters have seen the money potential as they force-feed advertisements to a paying audience. You are now PAYING to watch commercials and the theater is being paid to show them to you!

I find this disappointing.

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[This message was edited Tue Dec 10 13:51:54 PST 2002 by IceNine]

Every shot of televised media is all determined, controlled and for advertising..

IceNine said:

Yeah ..now they're showing commericals before the trailers lol--it started off ever so sneaky too--first just ads for the major newspaper( L.A. Times etc) then Coca-Cola. Now they have shit looking like a movie and you find out it's a car comemercial lol. A movie says it starts at 7 and actually by the time all the commercials and trailers(trailers I love) it starts at 7:30. This was written about somehwere and it can effect dates, dinner reservations etc. I want to be Darren Stevens though.

You know what else pisses me off?

When you buy a DVD and they put a million ads for their other movies at the first when you put it in... Disney is the king of this, as well as FOX DVD... they do that a lot...

Annoying...

There was a fucking Pizza ad in the "Ice Age" DVD, for fuck's sake! It is a sticker for Papa John's Pizza or something like that...

As far as the theatres go, it began a while ago.

While u r waiting 4 the movie, they were showing a slide show of local commercial advertisements. Real estate, restaurants, etc...

Just the other day, at a local theatre, I had 2 sit through the slide show of commercials, then 2 regular commercials! One 4 a car and one 4 M&M's. It irritated me 2 no end!

Even in the movies, they r placing products in obvious places, 4 a fee from the company that produces that product. On HBO it's the same thing. Product placement is another thing that annoys the fuck out of me. Instead of watching the movie and enjoying the plot, I'm drawn in2 this fucking product cuz the emblem, logo, or brand is staring at me in the face!

On tv I don't mind so much, it's the norm. Some commercials r quite amusing. On Pay channels I pisses me off. In the theatres, it enrages and disgusts me!

I can't stand the commercials before a movie starts. It would be one thing if it was a TV, because i channel surf during the ads, but in a movie theatre we're paying for them AND we're stuck there watching them.
The only thing i try to do now is show up a bit late so i miss the ads, but catch the trailers, which is hard to do.

Where does the caca end?
I just read about some police stations leasing out advertising space on police cars to national companies...?
There was recent a hubbub over teachers using cars that had advertising on their cars for $$...?
Schools that are accepting money for advertising banners placed in gymnasiums...?

Putting commercials on DVD's is really pushing the limits of what the market will bear. But the market DOES go ahead and bear it, and so it goes.

Advertising is a great way to sponsor something that would otherwise be underfunded--such as a little-league shirt sponsored by a local business. But such things aren't quite so in-your-face...

teller said:

I don't mind the ads on little league shirts or other kid's uniforms, 'cuz there's a sense of community spirit involved. If I owned a company, I would definately support the local youth sports teams. I'd also make an effort 2 go 2 every game!

But MOVIE THEATRES? Police Cars? Teacher's Cars? No sir, I don't like it.

teller said:

I will be terribly disappointed if they put car ads and things like that on DVDs... the pizza sticker in "Ice Age" was enough to aggravate me a lot.

The tv at my place is on PBS...and most of the time that suits me just fine. They do however have 'pledge drives' once in a while, and sigh...they drive me nuts. But I tolerate them, because I like PBS programming.

Other than me watching football, I rarely hang out long enough on regular stations to notice.

Im really getting sick of the roller coaster ride thing before all the movies at regal cinemas. that thing is like 12 years old.

I tune them out with the mute button. In theatres, I daydream. Commercials are like the chalk squeeching on the blackboard.


.

IceNine said:

Yes, I'm getting really pissed off at the intrusion of ads onto DVD's. It sucks.

I wouldn't give a rat's hairy testicle about commercials at the beginning of movies if:

1) They would cause the price of a ticket to be lower...

2) They at least alternated them...seeing the same commercials everstinkin' time I go to the movies is irritating..

3) They only showed one or two at the most, instead of this endless stream of commercials they show now...I will sit thru at least 8 or 9 commercials before they even get to the coming attractions...

for some reason I want a cola right about now

Advertising sucks, especially when I have to pay to see it.

but Ice! advertising is GOOD for us. it shows us where we fail to live perfect lives an then generously helps us fix that. where would we be without ads? stop the crazy talk, man.