When ... Comes on the TV, I Turn It Off

[Opsa]

Wilford Brimley
[youtube=425,350]pod4jIKT_kA[/youtube]

[Griffin NoName]

I am not surprised. Like an idiot I watched it all through !

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I've seen that commercial a zillion times and watched the video twice...I think there was something cut out at the very end. He's not suggesting that diabetes isn't a serious condition, but that it can be managed more easily than one would think.

[Opsa]

When the real Brimley adverts come on, I turn them off. He seems like such a humorless, stodgey old know-it-all. My sis sent me the link to the YouTube parody.

[Aggie]

Advertising.

S'why I don't have TV, just pre-recorded media blessedly free of ads.

[Swatopluk]

Same here but DVDs now often come with ads in front that can't be skipped.

[Aggie]

Easy to ignore the up-front ones as they are a one-time affair and don't intrude at super-volumes during the show. In any case they are largely ads for other programmes/movies (HATE when they throw a car commercial in there) and they are non-existant on bootleg imports and downloads.  Also a virtual non-issue when watching entire seasons of a TV series as it tends to occur only on the first disc.

I know this is not the case in most parts of the world, but North American ads jump out and yell "BOO" in the middle of the programme. A raft of ads between shows is definitely less annoying.

[Earthling]

We completely gave up on TV several years ago - probably around ten or twelve. I'm convinced it rots your brain. We get a lot more done around the house without it, and I get news/weather/sports when I want them via the internet. And we don't have a cable bill - TV doesn't work up here without cable or satellite hookup. Every now and then I end up at my brother's house with the tube on (maybe twice a year), and it freaks me out. The stuff that's on these days would have gotten stations closed down when I was a kid.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Hi! I don't remember you, but that doesn't mean you haven't been here before!  Perhaps you could visit the thread called I'm here now. Use this to tell everyone you are here! even if I am wrong?

I don't think I've watched much actual TV in like three years. I watch things like Glee and House on Hulu where there's like one commercial and it's 15 seconds long. I do agree that TV rots your brain if you aren't careful what you watch (even though I have my own dumb TV shows, like My Name is Earl). Horray for PBS!

[Swatopluk]

I am very happy that they leave out the commercials on the podcasts of Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. The same is not true about the single clips on the MSNBC homepage.
I am also glad for German TV viewers that our highest court long ago limited commercial breaks to 15 minute intervals (as opposed to breals at least every 5 minutes as wished by some companies). On the other hand there were strong legal protests against ad-skipper devices marketed by a Japanese company. This would not work anyway with the way at least one channel over here works. It replays the last seconds before the break, so (obviously Alzheimer-affected) viewers can remember what happened.
That's about as bad as the constant reminders on US documentaries what the program is all about since obviously a) most people don't watch the program from the start b) they tend to forget within minutes c) I guess that by now the added ad time is longer than the actual time spent on the program topic.
I has been proposed for decades that there should be program-free channels showing commercials only (they would have a large audience according to polls) while normal programs should not be allowed to be interrupted at all.
Yes, I know where soaps got their name from and that they were invented to keep listeners (it was in the pre-TV age) hooked, so the commercials could reach them.
Here's my brilliant idea for a new program: Ad designers are flogged on split screens while their worst work results are shown on the other half.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I do watch some TV (Daily Show, Colbert, documentaries here & there) although not that much. The thing with ads is that if I'm watching (paid) cable why in the bloody hell do I have to watch the blasted ads?!?!?!?

And then TV execs wonder why people isn't watching TV anymore.

[Griffin NoName]

Scribs, Earthling did start at the I'm here now topic - http://toadfishmonastery.com/forum/index.php?topic=27.msg90285#msg90285- it just got rather lost in the discussions of edd's teething problems. Perhaps we should siphon that off somewhere.

[Opsa]

I have satellite TV because we don't get antennae-based out in the sticks where I live. I don't watch soaps, sitcoms or talent contests or game shows (wait- I do watch Jeopardy to tease my brain). I mostly stick with news (NBC and BBC) and Ovation (art channel), Independent Film Channel, and classic films. Satellite  provides us with DVR, so if we are watching a commercial channel we can pause it for, like 15 minutes at the start of a movie, then zap out any commercial breaks as we come to them.

[Earthling]

Hi! I don't remember you, but that doesn't mean you haven't been here before!  Perhaps you could visit the thread called I'm here now. Use this to tell everyone you are here! even if I am wrong?

I done done it, post #610 (fascinating reading, I'm sure )(Thanks for noticing, Griffin)

... dumb TV shows, like My Name is Earl

Hey! My name is Erle! [Stooges]Who sez I'm dumb?[/Stooges]