As you may have guessed, I’m watching NBC’s Thursday night comedies. Tonight, only two shows – Friends and Will & Grace. They’re purported to be supersized, and in a way they are – they’re longer than 24 minutes. But they’re so incredibly stretched out with commercials and an amazing number of clutter in the form of promos for upcoming shows. I just finished watching 4 minutes of commercials and promos, then they went back to Will & Grace for 40 seconds. Now, back to more commercials. The day is coming when the commercials will far outweigh the program content, and even then you’ll see ads during the shows. Last week I saw some program that was scrunched up to make way for a Coca-Cola ad in a banner across the bottom of the screen. And there’s also the possibility that ads themelves will dry up as networks spend more and more airtime promoting other programs.
Free TV (well, I *am* paying for the satellite service) is no longer worth the price. I now prefer to purchase DVDs of the programs I enjoy.
As one of the owners of the frequencies that these television stations use, I am extremely unhappy at the way they are being used to bombard me with ads, voyeuristic and borderline pornographic “reality” shows, and not much else. I want my part of the spectrum back.
