# Why doesn't someone sell a TV remote control that skips commercials? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 25, 2023, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692 "2023-09-25T22:36:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Caribbean\_cruiser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caribbean_cruiser/32/9349_2.png) [@Caribbean\_cruiser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caribbean_cruiser)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/1 "2023-09-25T22:36:19Z")
Before Comcast “upgraded” my TV remote control, I could skip 30 seconds ahead or back, meaning I could leap 5 minutes of commercials in a single bound, with just a few quick clicks. In fact, i programmed another button to do a full, 5-minute skip. Heaven! My new Comcast remote won’t do that. Is there some technical or legal complication that prevents a company from offering a customizable remote control whose row of buttons consumers could program to make a range of skips, from quick to longer – such as 10, 30, 60, and 5-minute skips, back and forth? I realize companies who buy TV ads wouldn’t be crazy about that feature, but I think it would be popular. Mods: I’m hoping this post’s technical merits will keep it in FQ. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/2 "2023-09-25T22:41:50Z")
It has nothing to do with the remote, and everything to do with your TV and the streaming service. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/3 "2023-09-25T23:23:56Z")
> [@Caribbean\_cruiser](#): > > I could skip 30 seconds ahead or back For recorded or downloaded shows, sure. But you can’t skip ahead on live TV (which, at this point, I guess is limited to sports and live news events) You might be able to find a universal remote that lets you jump ahead on recorded shows. Just a guess. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/4 "2023-09-26T01:00:25Z")
When it comes to TV you need to remember: you’re the product not the customer. Both the streaming services, the cable services, and now the smart TV manufacturers all work for the advertisers, not for the viewers. There’s almost certainly an API somewhere in the bowels of most content services that could perform skipping. Whether the TV will surface that to where you or a remote could interact with it is a very different question. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/5 "2023-09-26T01:23:56Z")
I used to own a VCR that would automatically skip commercial breaks during playback. It worked pretty well most of the time, but some commercials would confuse it. I believe it worked by analyzing the sound of commercials, which was typically louder. From what I recall, the feature was dropped from the US market due to threats of lawsuits. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/6 "2023-09-26T05:04:44Z")
Xfinity, X1 box. On my Harmony 650 remote, with the |\<- key I can skip backwards 15 seconds. The -\>| key does not skip at all. But I suppose that’s better than no skipping. My guess is it’s controlled at the box. For some programs, you can fast forward over the commercials if you saved them to the VCR. I think you can also do this if you’re watching the live program delayed by a few minutes. This isn’t available on video on demand. The programs I’ve seen where you can fast forward over commercials are the network broadcasts of Penn & Teller Fool Us and Whose Line. The _first_ showing of each new Dirty Jobs episode also allows this. ---
**Author:** ![Dereknocue67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/7 "2023-09-26T06:22:18Z")
Tivo introduced their version of commercial skip on recorded shows several years ago. It doesn’t work on 100% of cable or OTA broadcasts but works on a majority of them, excluding streaming which is not recordable on their unit. One push of your remote button and about a second later, you’re back to your show. I was watching a football game I recorded on ESPN last week and by using the 30 second fast forward between plays and commercial skip, I was able to watch the game in less than an hour. Some avid fans may understandable have no interest in reduced viewing time, but I’ll never go back to watching live TV. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/8 "2023-09-26T07:45:20Z")
Yeah, the ads I have encountered in various streaming services aren’t just a part of the show you’re watching, they are a separate stream - the stream for the show you’re watching gets suspended; the ad stream plays; the main show stream resumes. In order to skip that, the skip function would have to be built into the streaming platform; it would have to be supplied by the very people who really want you to watch the ads. There used to be functions on some pre-digital hard drive recorders where you could ‘pause live TV’, which was just another way of saying that they start recording when you hit pause and when you unpause, you’re now watching the ongoing recording, not the live broadcast; for these, you could often skip forward to catch up with the live TV (commercial breaks were a good time to do that) - but that’s a completely different and largely bygone technology. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/9 "2023-09-26T12:04:20Z")
I am in the UK and do not subscribe to any streaming services. Most of what we watch is recorded from OTA broadcasts and we happily skip through the ads. When we watch programs recorded from commercial channels, we do see the “sponsor” ads at the start of each segment and I imagine that advertisers pay a lot for that position. The BBC, of course, doesn’t have ads, but we still record. Mostly to time-shift, but it also enables us to skip the boring bits of some programmes. They also have iPlayer, which we often use. There are free streaming services that we sometimes use if we miss something and they do not allow ad-skipping. They do offer a paid-for alternative with ads reduced to the start and end. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/10 "2023-09-26T12:29:49Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Yeah, the ads I have encountered in various streaming services aren’t just a part of the show you’re watching, they are a separate stream - the stream for the show you’re watching gets suspended; the ad stream plays; the main show stream resumes. > > In order to skip that, the skip function would have to be built into the streaming platform; it would have to be supplied by the very people who really want you to watch the ads. This is what I’ve found. I have Shaw/Rogers in Canada, the remote can be programmed for a 30-second skip ahead and 15 sec back; or you can ffwd. But that only works on the DVR or on live TV after you paused it. Sreaming is controlled by the streamer -Apple, Netflix, Disney, Prime, etc. These are separate apps that run on the controller box, separate from broadccast TV. (Or some I run on a PC connected to the TV). As separate apps, the DVR will not record these, so I am at the mercy of the streaming source. Fortunately it does things like remember where you were when you stopped watching, and can resume from there. However it ensures the streaming controls (onscreen) cannot be used to fast forward through commercials, which as has been pointed out, are separate video streams controlled by the streaming service. All we can do is mute them. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/11 "2023-09-26T14:49:53Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > But you can’t skip ahead on live TV Oh that would be a great remote. Adam Sandler did a movie with this premise, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/12 "2023-09-26T15:04:14Z")
It also gets a mention in Weird Al’s “First World Problems.” ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/13 "2023-09-26T15:40:52Z")
There were plans, and for a while implementations of coded identification in the video format for commercials. This was seen as valuable to advertisers and broadcasters to make sure commercials were being shown for the agreed length of time and frequency. Then low cost video tape recorders were seen emerging and that was the end of that. Different methods to try to detect commercials have been tried but they are susceptible to mistaking ordinary scene changes for a commercial and have an even more difficult time detecting the end of a commercial. I programmed my cable box/dvr remote for a 30 second skip ahead to speed through commercials, and a 10 second replay to sync up if I get too far ahead. The replay is just right to catch something misheard as well. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/14 "2023-09-26T15:47:32Z")
My Comcast remote has a thirty-second skip ahead button and another that goes back fifteen seconds, which is great as you said for missed dialogue. And then I’m streaming something and really miss having those buttons. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/15 "2023-09-26T16:53:20Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > For recorded or downloaded shows, sure. But you can’t skip ahead on live TV (which, at this point, I guess is limited to sports and live news events) You can if you have a remote built of [Thiotimoline - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline) > [@Mangetout](#): > > There used to be functions on some pre-digital hard drive recorders where you could ‘pause live TV’, which was just another way of saying that they start recording when you hit pause and when you unpause, you’re now watching the ongoing recording, not the live broadcast; for these, you could often skip forward to catch up with the live TV (commercial breaks were a good time to do that) - but that’s a completely different and largely bygone technology. We have Dish Network and their DVR. My wife does this all the time for the local news. She goes to the channel, hits pause, goes and makes lunch, and when she returns she can skip the commercials. The 30 second advance button on the remote works just fine. The Dish remote, IIRC, was called the Hopper because it had the ability to skip over bunches of commercials, but the networks had a fit and it now just does 30 seconds. That you can’t do this with streaming is the big negative for us. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/16 "2023-09-26T17:04:04Z")
The “skip backwards” and “skip forwards” buttons on the remotes are just giving commands to the base unit. The remote itself is not controlling the rewind and fast-forward. It’s telling the base unit “the skip backwards button was pressed”. The base unit then decides what to in response to that button, such as jump back 10 seconds in the current video. A very smart remote could do these functions, but it would somehow have to know a lot about the base unit. It would have to know how to send the equivalent button signals that you do when you do the function manually, such as “send rew button signal for 3 seconds, hit play button”. Some streaming devices have remotes with a skip back button. Roku remotes typically have a dedicated button. Sometimes a quick press of the back arrow will do skip backwards. I find this an essential function with streaming services since the RW/FF functions are typically clunky and inconsistent between services. Having one key to press to be able to skip back makes viewing streaming services much more enjoyable. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/17 "2023-09-26T17:39:31Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > A very smart remote could do these functions, but it would somehow have to know a lot about the base unit. It would have to know how to send the equivalent button signals that you do when you do the function manually, such as “send rew button signal for 3 seconds, hit play button”. If the base unit has the functions the ‘smart’ remote just has to be programmed to send the same signal as the original remote buttons do. Are any smart remotes capable of sending a timed set of signals to reproduce the skip functions if they don’t exist on the base unit? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/18 "2023-09-26T17:48:13Z")
There have been programmable universal remote controls capable of macro functions (one use case being to turn on the TV and some other device from one button press) - here’s one that I think might have that capability > **[Universal Remote Control MX-450 Custom Programmable Remote Control Macro...](https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174985558375)** > > Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Universal Remote Control MX-450 Custom Programmable Remote Control Macro Editing at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/19 "2023-09-26T18:14:59Z")
A programmable remote like that would probably do the job. They typically allow you to create a macro of button presses and may allow pauses. You could create a macro like: REW PAUSE 1 PLAY It might not do a precise skip back every time of the exact same number of seconds, but it would probably be good enough for most uses. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692/20 "2023-09-26T18:23:49Z")
I have an Xfinity X1 cable box and remote and programmed it for thirty-second commercial skip using instructions I found online. So a third-party programmable remote may not be necessary. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-sell-a-tv-remote-control-that-skips-commercials/990692.md?page=2)