I use the 30-second skip forward button like Dewey Finn. When a commercial break starts, I just hit ‘skip’ a few times until I’m back to the show. If I’m watching a show “live” I always start watching about 10 minutes late to build up a buffer.
Nope, not Verizon. (I’d type the name of the correct company, but I like the point we’re making (if only to ourselves :() about the ineffectiveness of many commercials. 
Fast forward if its DVRed; mute otherwise. I can’t handle commercials; they get under my skin and make me angry. Curiously, old-fashion commercials (a la old time radio shows) don’t bug me much at all.
Thankya! I’m happier not knowing 
I record shows on purpose so I can skip the commercials. When the cable company first started offering shows “on demand,” I thought it was a good thing, but the vast majority of them won’t let you fast forward, and although they don’t have as many commercial breaks as the original showings do, they show the same commercials over and over. This means that I record shows even if I know they’ll be available on demand just so that I can skip the ads.
If I somehow get stuck watching a show live, I’ll mute the ads and/or leave the room and then rewind to where the show started (commercial breaks are never long enough for me to really do anything in another room).
I mostly ignore commercials, but rarely bother to mute them. If I do that, I inevitably wind up missing the first three of four minutes when my show comes back on. Instead, I just leave the commercials going and do something else, like pay some bills online or check my e-mail.
Recently, I’ve started muting Apple commercials. Gigantic chicken fat dreams - is that the impression Apple actually wants me to have of them?
I watch everything online, where the ads are usually blocked by my adblocker. If I particularly like an online show, I will turn off adblock in a window that I mute, and let it run all the ads in the background.
The exception are Super Bowl ads.
Ditto. It’s a very rare theme song that I will ever hear more than twice. I did get bit in the ass with Arrested Development, though - I had no idea the “On our next -” feature was not really a preview but new material.
Oh fie, Sir!
You obviously did not watch the beach girl’s volleyball feeds.
If it’s DVR’ed, then I generally fast-forward through them, unless I"m nodding off on the couch. Then I let them play. When watching live, I generally just keep them on in the background while I do something else. Or maybe I watch them. I definitely don’t “mute,” though (I’m not even sure where the mute is on my remote off-hand.) And some commercials I actually find entertaining.
Now, online, they bug the shit out of me, which is why I have adblocking software installed.
[QUOTE=Sherrerd;17563040
But I had to do a search to find out which telephone-related company the commercials were advertising…which would tend to indicate that the commercials were not effective. (And they weren’t “unconsciously” effective either, apparently, because I still don’t use any of that company’s products.)[/QUOTE]
Weird. I know exactly which provider it is because of these commercials.
Out of curiosity: do you recall if you made a conscious effort to note the company’s name?
I’m sure that there’s formal research on this sort of thing (as opposed to our informal discussion), since so much money is at stake. But given the variety of commercial forms, the research must not have pointed at any solid conclusions on “how to make commercials that viewers will associate with your company”…
If it’s a commercial I strongly dislike, I mute it. If it’s just a regular commercial that doesn’t cause me to burn with a rage brighter than that of 1,000 suns, I read the book I usually have sitting on the couch next to me until the show comes back on.
I have Dish, and never watch anything on demand, and I did not know that you can’t skip. Thank you - yet another reason not to go with Comcast or AT&T.
Dish has a 30 second skip, and the reverse skip is a bit less, so if I overshoot I can back up. I usually record stuff so as not to waste my time. If I’m watching live and have to do something else I can pause it which lets me skip some commercials coming up, at least.
I will stop and watch a commercial if it seems interesting. Which is rare.
I generally ignore them. But there are some I like to watch. Sometimes I mute them. If recorded, I almost always fast-forward through them unless I want to urinate or something.
So naturally, ‘lamb kebab’.
I can’t say for certain, but I think it’s more of a subliminal memory, like with most other commercials. I remember the announcer, the intro text (“XXX’s Facebook Post”) , the colors that bookend the commercial and the name of the provider being spoken in the commercial. It’s probably most because I associate the color with the provider, but I can also hear the announcer in my head saying the provider’s name.
In case I don’t need to be so coy about it:
Sprint, in case anyone is wondering.
I chose Lamb kabab because I switch channels over to Comedy Central or BBC America.
We watched a recording of Falling Skies last night. When fast forwarding through the commercials, I noted some that put people in settings like FS, and advertisements for FS. I wonder if they are efforts to cause me to stop FF. 
I found my share of amusing feeds. Probably one of my favorites was the Superbowl. With no commercials. In Spanish.
I miss the Deutch Welle channel that was on W1. And we were sure disappointed when CBC took everything down and we could no longer watch North of 60. There may still be a bunch of 4D on W5, but those channels all turned to such crap, might as well watch what you can on the internets. In a decade or two, television will be for old fogeys, and I will not be one of them.
It was an interesting hobby.
I was standing inside a Perfect-10 once when my girlfriend wanted to watch Animal Planet, and moved the dish to the appropriate satellite.