. . .that’s all. I wanted to rant with the best of you but there aren’t words to capture my consternation and distain for the Scifi Channel for trying to pass their broadcasts off as programming; nor for the FCC for ‘relaxing’ regulation so that the market could self-regulate.
Tonight, while attempting to watch SciFi’s presentation of “Red Planet”, I became irritated at just how little movie was being mixed in with the various commercials. So I timed it:
—went to comercial at 6:37pm; —programming at 6:42; ----commercial at 6:55; --programming at ~7:01.30 —commercial at 7:12.30 —add that up; that’s 5 minutes of commercial, 13 minutes of movie, 5.5 minutes commercial, 11 minutes movie. . .
30.4% of each hour is spent on commercials. Wasn’t the old limit 8 minutes of commercial / 30 minutes of broadcast or 26.6%?
I give up on Scifi. I’m not going to waste any more time watching that loathsome channel.
Aren’t all stations that show commercials at that same ratio? I’ve noticed that half-hour TV episodes with commercials cut out are generally 20 minutes.
You may be right, Revtim. I seem to recall that several years back , maybe even as long as 5 years ago, the FCC deregulated the comercial/content ratio. Since then all stations have gotten worse. It may just be me but it seems that some channels are greater offenders. Honestly, I vary rarely try to watch a broadcast movie. Thank Og, for Netflix.
I’m pretty sure that this is standard. On The Office (US) season one commentaries, they talk of having only 20 and a half minutes to tell their story. 1 - (20.5/30) = 31.67% commercials (or at least non-show, at least on NBC). It’s sad, but it’s a reality and SciFi is not an exception.
The SciFi channel has just launched here in Aus, and I can’t say I’ve noticed anything that bad with the advertising. But Fox8 (local Fox affiliate) are blatant fucking liars when it comes to advertising.
On Sunday Lost started on Foxtel (cable tv) for the first time in Aus. They had a “movie-length, commercial free” showing of the pilot. But apparently in Fox Land “commercial free” means “Commercial free except for scrolling text commercials at the bottom of the screen. Oh, and except for promos for other programmes on this channel and other Foxtel channels. Oh, and except for commercials for the particular beer brand that is sponsoring this programme. Ummm. They’re not commercials, they’re promos, that’s it! We didn’t say promo-free. Nyah nyah!”
For example, local independent channels often show replays or rerun older series in syndication, and they frequently cut out part of the original episode in order to provide more time for commercials.
Even on one station, the commercial ratio does not stay the same all day. It varies during the day, as various people watch the station. The good-morning/news period, noontime news, evening news periods will vary from the game show/soap opera/courtroom/talk shows that fill most of the morning and afternoon periods. Then there is prime time, bedtime news, post-news shows, and late night periods. It’s actually not uncommon to see local stations with 3-4 hour periods late at night (1am-5am) that are 100% commercials – lengthy infomercials interspersed with actual commercials.
I was gonna make this exact same rant last night! I was watching Europe in the Middle Ages on the Science Channel and 3 minutes into the program they started running commercials and didn’t get back until 9:16. That was 15 minutes of freaking commercials before the show ever got started.
All the cable networks are guilty of this but I think The Science Channel (not the SciFi channel) is the worst offender, followed very closely by VH1.
Can we further reduce the estimated % content because of those stupid little ads for upcoming shows that sometimes pop up at the bottom of the screen (sometimes with sound) in the middle of a show? It’s only like 1/10 of the screen for 5 seconds, but it bugs the heck out of me.
I am getting so sick of their advertising shit. It isn’t only commercials that they do, your general run of the mill 30 second spot. Oh no. It’s the giant info-mercial assault they’re on. While I get ready for work in the morning, I have on VH1 Classic. I used to like actually seeing videos. I liked the “We are the 80’s” and “Rock Show” formats. Now I can hope to have to put up with some, “Let’s talk with the artist about stuff and pretend that it isn’t an hour promo for whatever new disc they’re promoting!”
Also, the VH1 “News Break” bullshit has got to stop. It isn’t news. It’s a commercial. Pure and simple. In one year, there has only been one actual news item in it. That was when Elliot Easton from the Cars broke his hand and couldn’t complete the tour they were doing. Otherwise, all commercials with stilted writing for a woman who otherwise looks like she might be fun, but comes off looking like a corny, vapid, annoying, vj hack.
One more bad pun out of Lynn Huffman, and I’m going to start daydreaming about mailing powderey things to their writers.
STOP the commercials and give me my GODDAMN PROGRAMS!!
Those are called lower thirds. It’s an attempt to get a promo for an upcoming show in without it getting lost amongst the commercials. I don’t mind them, except when there’s sound and it covers up the dialogue of the show.
Also, the FCC does not regulate cable, just broadcast TV. Science Channel wouldn’t have been under the commercial regs anyway.
You can write to Discovery Networks and complain if you like.
They’re feeling like they have to do that now, because everyone just TiVos the show and zips past the commercials. Putting them IN the show is the only way, they figure, they can make you watch them.
The during-show ads are especially bad when watching something with subtitles. Um, hello, unable to understand what’s happening over here…
They have Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who, which redeems them in my eyes.
I read this as “The SciFi channel has just launched here in Anus”.
TNT is terrible. They shift the commercial break for syndicated shows from its usual spot after the opening credits to a few minutes in, which means that the last commercial break gets moved into the middle of a story segment. They cut in the middle of scenes when there’s literally one sentence left in the scene. Then come back for that one sentence, totally breaking the flow.
Whether it’s the local Fox affiliate that’s doing it or it’s being done as part of the syndication package, Simpsons repeats are slashed up somethign awful. Almost every commercial break cuts out literally in the middle of a sentence and even in the middle of a word. I can’t believe that there’s no way to wait the extra second.
