TV or not TV

I counted 11 commercials in six minutes while watching one of my favorite programs last night. Then I timed the actual entertainment time before the next “break.” That was five minutes. Throughout the program the time ratio varied, but never less than three minutes with six messages or more than 10 minutes of show.During the Golden Age of television a program had one sponsor who had his say at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of a half-hour program. Kraft Foods and Chevrolet come to mind. I learned how to make a lot of different stuff with Cheez Whiz and why a Chevy was cool.I cannot begin to count how many different sponsors I saw last night — maybe 30? Of course some of them hit us more than once, sometimes during the same break and sometimes with the same spot. TV has become so greedy that the programs just keep stuffing them in. Some of the spots are a full minute and some only 15 seconds, but the average is 30 seconds. That seems to be about the limit of our attention span. I think the one-minute boys are making a mistake. Sometimes they trick you into thinking the commercials are over by going back to the program for about 15 seconds, then breaking away for just a few more messages. The show even calls it a break, not a commercial break, as if we might need a little rest after so much entertainment.The advertisers are moaning about the DVR. People shouldn’t be allowed to zip through their pitch, in their opinion. If the programs hadn’t been so abusive, maybe we would be willing to sit through one or two spots. No, the shows just had to keep at it. That’s why we watch so much of the Turner Classic Movie (TCM) channel around here. The only advertising on TCM is about its movies, and I actually am interested in that.I have a suggestion for the sponsors. Make a commercial that will play at the fast DVR speed. If a commercial can’t get its message across in five seconds, oh well.Some will defend the practice by warning us that if we don’t pay attention to its stuff then the sponsors won’t pay the production costs and outrageous salaries of our favorite shows. Television threatens us with pay TV. Well guess what, it’s already here. Somebody snuck it in on us under the guise of cable and dish services.Maybe reading will make a comeback, at least until advertisers can figure out how to insert ads into your Kindle or Nook book. Let’s see, that would be about every 10th page?Bill Abrams resides, watches television and does his best to avoid those pesky commercials, in Pine Plains.