A very common complaint I see here in TV discussion threads is “I used to like the show but now there are too many commercials” or “this episode had way too many commercials”, etc. Is this quantifiably verifiable?
First of all, whenever someone says this, I can’t understand it because I personally never notice there being a change in the amount of commercials. And it’s not like I’m fast forwarding through them.
Second, I was under the impression there was some kind of industry standardization (with the standard networks at least) with regard to the programming to commercial ratio (I know standard has changed gradually over time, but I still thought there was some kind of standard). Is this not true? And even if there wasn’t an industry standard, I would think that at the very least within a particular season of a particular series, they would have to have standard show lengths or else it would be f-ing hell on the editing process.
Thirdly, I can easily imagine a program (and commercial time) staying a standard length, but the network playing around with either 1) the number of commercial breaks or 2) more but shorter commercials. Either of these things could give the illusion that there is more commercial time when there isn’t really.
I am in the US, and I think that there is a minimum ratio that keeps the show from becoming an infomercial.
But certain channels/shows have a HIGH commercial to program mix. Here are two:
“Jail” - 7 minutes of footage followed by 10-12 minutes of commercials
“Dr. Phil” - He will have 10 minutes of dialogue, cut to commercial for 5-6 minutes, come back for 1 or 2 minutes of dialogue, then go back to commercial.
Star Trek TOS had, IIRC, 50 minutes of show and slots for 10 minutes of commercials.
Oh were that so today. All I can say is thank you God, for inventing the DVR.
I know syndicated shows sometimes have material cut out to fit in more commercials. The Simpsons was good for this.
Without specific examples, it’s hard to say but one thing you could do is look at DVDs of the show over time. If Season One has 43 minute episodes and Season Three has 38 minute episodes, you know something’s afoot.
Just look at the difference in program length in episodic television shows you get on DVD. The length of episodes produced in the last few years is significantly shorter than episodes of programs produced decades ago. More commercials now.
The Simpsons is one of the most obvious ones, because it’s been going for so long. When they show old episodes now, they have to cut out a whole bunch of stuff to make it fit into the new, shorter time slot. I know I heard Matt Groening and some of the other head honchos talking about this on some of the old DVD commentaries.
Not just with syndicated programs on your over-the-air stations, but I think the rules might be different for basic cable channels. I swear, sometimes when a movie is running on Spike or TNT or AMC or something, you’ll hit a commercial break and you can feel the changing of the geological epoch before the stinkin’ movie comes back on. It’s ridiculous.