Seeing is Not Believing Part 11

Stay Tuned After the Commercial

Almost every night my family watches network news after supper while cleaning up from our meal. No matter which network we watch, they use the formula introduced in the 1920s to get you to come back for the next show, or in this case, to stay for the commercial. Instead of leaving us with the heroine tied to the railroad tracks, though, they promise an amazing story immediately “following this brief break.”

Of cause the whole idea is to get you to remain attentive during the commercial. Most people, I’d venture to say almost everyone, would like to mentally block out the latest automotive sale, the coming attractions to a sit-com we’d never watch, or whatever they are pushing. But we absolutely have to remain so that we “find out if tomorrow will be even hotter than today” (no it will not be) or to “discover which Hollywood star is expecting triplets” (someone we have never heard of and could not care about).

To make matters worse, after three minutes of news they take a “brief” 60-second break, come back with another 5-second teaser (thus the break is over) and have another 60 seconds of advertising. In addition, if the story is really something you’d like to hear about, they do not show it immediately, but tease for it several times before commercials before finally showing it.

Television dramas are picking up on this, showing as many commercials as they can in the most unexpected places. At the end of an hour show (40 minutes if you subtract the commercials), you know it’s over, only the punch line is missing. “We’ll be right back,” After that final commercial, some shows are then showing a split screen with another commercial and a fifteen-minute concluding scene that is usually anticlimactic anyway.

Product placement in a movie or show used to be subtle, now it’s blatant. You know what soda or beer they are drinking, what brand cereal they are having, and the model of the chase car is clearly in focus. Look around the room and there will be perhaps a dozen brand products showing. On street scenes there are commercial billboards or buses with advertising passing by.

We have been told that it costs a considerable amount of money to produce these shows and if it were not for the commercials we would have pay-TV. Even on the “premium” cable channels that you do pay extra for there are commercials for other shows as well as an increasing amount of product placement.

Perhaps it’s time to reduce the number of channels from the over 300 now available (900 if you consider each has a Spanish, and a high definition version), to less than 50 to reduce costs. Of the 300 or so channels, perhaps you watch 10 or 12 on a regular basis and most likely no more than 25 or 30 total. If you are reading this it’s unlikely you’re the type to watch Celebrity Bowling Ball Painting or Dancing With the Inmates.