OnDemand/basic cable commercials--wtf??

Like most folks with dvr’s, I am accustomed to powering thru most commercials, and recording blocks of programming off of basic cable channels with tons of horrible commercials in order to watch the shows and speed thru the ads.

Just now, I watched an episode OnDemand of The Jim Gaffigan Show, and there was no option to fast-forward thru the ads. Okay, fine!

But, after commercial after commercial after commercial … I looked at the program info, and this half-hour-with-ads sitcom (so, what, the episode itself is 20 minutes plus change?) runs 41! tortuous damn minutes OnDemand.

Is this just a TVLand and/or cable operator thing? I’ve watched other shows on non-premium cable OnDemand that had the normal number of commercials, or (for example, USA Network’s Playing House) noticeably abbreviated ads.

I’ve been seeing that for over a year with FIOS On Demand. The shows I’ve watched had brief commericals though, the whole show with commercials didn’t run to 30 minutes. I haven’t looked recently, usually I just DVR the shows.

It’s a TVLand thing (Viacom, to be exact.). Earlier this year, TVLand realized they couldn’t cut much more out of the actual programs to cram in more commercials, so they expanded the program length to add more commercials.

Looking at today’s schedule, I see they have Gunsmoke listed 12:30-1:42 p.m., followed by Bonanza from 1:42-2:54.

During the prime time hours, TVL seems to go back to traditional 30/60 minute slots, but then Nickelodean’s Nick at Nite, shifts to 36 minutes for its Friends reruns. Even Nicktoons stretches its old reruns late at night.

Kunilou, thanks for the information.

Reminds me that some of these stations use time compression as well, in order to make more room for those precious ads. Stu Shostak mentioned in his online interview show a couple weeks ago how Boomerang has speeded up the opening credits for The Flintstones so the sequence takes up something like 2/3 of the time it did when originally broadcast.

It seems to be the major networks that do this more often. CBS (except for NCIS episodes, for some reason, until Fall 2014), NBC, ABC, Viacom channels, TBS and TNT. Food Network and Discovery Channels tends not to do it. If I miss part of an episode, I’ll play it, turn off the TV, then rewind to the part I missed and onward.