For this article I’m going to cover the technical side of things first, then the actual television content.
Rewind the clock back 20 years to 1992. Everyone is using tube-type televisions, none of which could ever produce a true white ("really light gray" was the best you could get in all honesty). The average size of the screen in most homes was 19-inch on the small end and 36-inch on the big end. It is true that some had extra large rear-projection sets back then, but on the big side, 36-inch was what most people were comfortable using.
Fast-forward to present in 2012. TVs are now flat, wide, have notably better picture quality, can product a stark bright white (as well as a true black), colors are more vibrant, crisp and clear. And the TVs are a whole lot bigger. Finding a 40-inch or greater panel TV in someone’s home these days isn’t uncommon.
Sounds all good, right? Well, not always.
Firstly, the bright-bright displays of modern panel TVs can serve to annoy more than enjoy at times. When you adjusted a tube-type television from 20 years ago, you’d have the thing set up to your liking in about, oh, 10 minutes. That’s not the case with panel TVs. The menu systems are confusing, and it’s almost always the case where the presets are total garbage. Either the preset is too bright, too dark, too much color-bleed, etc. At that point you have to fiddle around with the custom mode and it can take days before you finally get it looking right to your eyes.
Second, the content being thrown at you is enough to drive anyone mad.
Here’s a commercial from 1992:
Now here’s one from today:
Entertainment factor aside, the differences between these two commercials that are 20 years apart are like night and day in the annoyance department.
The 1992 commercial has slow dissolving shots, smooth movements, some slow-motion here and there and an even-sounding voiceover with soundtrack.
The 2012 commercial 5 seconds in has a guy SHOUTING at the top of his lungs. Shots are very hard and fast, audio gets LOUD, then soft then LOUD again several times. If you try to take in everything the commercial is attempting to display with your eyes on a 40-inch or more screen, you will get dizzy.
I’m not saying the 2012 commercial is bad as it is entertaining, but it’s also very, very annoying. Most of you probably couldn’t stand watching this more than 3 times in a row at best before saying, "Screw that.."
"Well, that’s just one example of modern commercials… c’mon.."
Most commercials today will blast stuff at you like the 2012 example above. There may not be shouting (hopefully), but you will see those super-fast cuts and disorienting camera movements. Over and over.
Commercials aren’t the only bad thing here. Intros to shows, on-screen graphics for sports broadcasts, and even newscasts to a large degree have succumbed to the hard/fast/go-go-GO way of showing content.
I’m not saying TV should go back to how it used to be. But I am saying it’s far more annoying to watch now. The style is vastly different in every way.
Tip to anyone who watches TV more than 1 hour per day: Turn the brightness down a few notches. The dizzying effect of hard/fast content is reduced somewhat when you do that.
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If I could not time shift so I can watch the shows that I like at the time I want to watch them and to be able to skip commercials, then I would not be watching any television at all. About 1/3 of television is something other than the show itself. In other words, 60 Minutes should be called 40 Minutes.
You’re very close to the mark on that one.
On average, for every 30 minutes of television there are 8 minutes of commercials, 1 minute title card and 1 minute credit roll. Yes, this does mean a 30-minute broadcast is technically only 20 minutes of actual show. For a 60-minute broadcast, that’s 16 minutes of commercials minus 2 minutes for title and credit roll, for 42 minutes of actual show.
Interesting, my guess was pretty close.
When I look at te times fr TV shows on Netfix– Stargate averages 43 minutes while Star Trek Voyager averages 45 minutes. Skip back to the Good Ole days and shows like the Original Star Trek ran 50 – 51 minutes.
I remember the difference in commercials. They had less time, and One Product wouldn’t necessarily get to run Twice– so they had to make sure the spot would Hold you in the chair instead of dashing to the Fridge (At least the spots aimed at Guyz– I Never understood the Logic of the spots aimed at the Opposite sex) Plus, I have a dim sense (I could be wrong) that the spots were more tastefully cognizant of the show they interrupted. Serious Dramas seemed to have low-key understated spots while comedies had peppy, upbeat mini-skit spots.
Nowadays, the same spot screams at you over and over and over. I came to detest McDees ‘Luvin It’ campaign.
The screaming commercials are what drove me away from OTA/Cable to iTunes, Netflix and DVD’s.
What really drives home the point is looking at the run time for children’s cartoons on Netflix. “Hey Arnold!”, a cartoon from the 1990s that’s on Netflix, has episodes of exactly 23 minutes – but – take away the title card and the credits and it’s shimmed down to 20 minutes per episode.
And yes, you’re correct – older shows did have significantly longer run times within the same time slot before the 8-min-per-30-min TV advertising standard was established.
Interesting, my guess was pretty close.
How about when they put the ads right inside the program like they did Monday night with an extra long commercial about Subway performed by the actors of Hawaii 50?
Some day all of the show will be nothing but a commercial.
I watch less and less TV these days, primarily because I cannot stand all of the advertising being jammed in my face. And for what? There are many, many more products that I will NEVER buy soley because the commercial for it turned me off (think green lizard with a British accent) than products that I buy because I liked or was informed by the commercial.
AMEN TO THE CONCLUSION YES VERY ANNOYING …AT 73 I’LL TAKE THE 50′S COMMERCIALS