TBS Pause Advertisements

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Honestly, most people don’t care about an occasional advertisement here and there but, the way things are going, this is getting just a little out of hand. Pausing a TV program just to show you a mini-ad three seconds before the real commercial break? What the?!?! Thanks to Dave A. for the link.
 
I guess it was inevitable since commercials are so easily skipped with DVRs, but WTF? :mad:

I really hope other networks don't follow TBS' lead.
 
I mentioned this awhile ago when we were discussing Google and YouTube's inlay advertisement, but people keep looking at me like I'm insane or something. This has been around for awhile during Primetime, since the Bill Engvall show started. Bill Engvall is the biggest violator, pausing my Everbody Loves Raymond and Family Guy shows.

The reasoning I read awhile back was that Tivo and DVR users were slicing into ad revenues in such a bad way that they needed to come up with another way of forcing people to watch commercials.
 
I will continue to download all TV episodes I want to watch for the forseeable future, especially if things are getting like this.

Its bad enough that there are huge banners that are impossible to edit out. During Atlantis last season I was extremely pissed at those Ghost Hunters ads. That big bald douchebag and the little queer appearing on my screen in a 30% height banner, walking across it.
 
Makes me wonder if the people who endorse some of these annoying advertisements actually watch TV.
 
Actually when all the damn popup (popouts??? what ever you want to call them) that some of those stations have I think this is better. TNT is especially good at it, they will have some damn thing cover up the bottom part of the screen like that telling you about the new session of saving greace or the closer or some other show. That is why I hardly watch that channel. I think that TBS does it also. If they are going to cover up 1/3 of the screen they might as well pause the show to do it so that I can actually watch the show and see the entire screen.
 
NKDietrich said:
I will continue to download all TV episodes I want to watch for the forseeable future, especially if things are getting like this.
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Yeah, these days I mainly use Hulu or watch TV shows on DVD. Its funny though, ads on Hulu are way less intrusive than they are on regular TV.
 
A question is though, was this just a one time special thing or something they do all the time?
 
It's especially annoying if you're watching a movie or show that has subtitles (at least for a few scenes) and the new banner ads block the whole bottom of the screen. It's not just TBS and TNT, there are other channels that seem to be doing giant banner ads or some sort of animated crap at the bottom of the screen now. I wouldn't mind so much if they just shrunk the screen down a hair to make space for the banner instead of blocking the bottom of the show.

Because of the annoying as heck banner ads on TV now, I'm really going to be pushing the cap on my craptastic comcrap connection. :rolleyes:


...:cool:
 
Not terribly different from the current mid program ads (aka ''bugs'). By that I mean the little banners on the bottom half / corner of your tv screen.

Don't get me wrong... they all suck.
 
I don't watch TBS a lot, but I do remember seeing these at night a year or so ago. I had not seen it since, but again I have not watched TBS that much to know. I do know that it's about as intrusive as you can get in running an advertisement. This is why I watch family guy on adult swim :)
 
I saw this episode on TBSHD which is presented in stretch-o-vision, unless you force a 4:3 aspect to it. On top of that, they overlay the credits on top of that episode so they can throw an extra commercial in there that pauses the show you're watching. I rarely watched TBS, but now I'm just done with them.
 
It was really just a matter of time before this started. they next dvr will have a 10 sec skip option now :)
 
The real question here too is how many people will watch the show they're peddling because of the ad? Let's see, count of hands says none.

Advertisers will continue to waste our time (and our lives.)
 
eh. if it wasn't for advertising revenue there would be no reason to produce television shows, pay big money for sporting events, google would not have kick ass products for free. You think TBS is bad try watching a soccer game on one of the spanish channels. Having said that TBS shoves their shows down your throat (remember last years baseball playoffs with the FrankTV commercials) but interrupting a show is a new low. I wonder if the owners of the rights to the shows can do anything about it.
 
quique55 said:
I wonder if the owners of the rights to the shows can do anything about it.
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That's a good question. I know that if I had a TV show on the air and the network started running ads during my show, that I'd be pissed.
 
That is the most stupid-retarded crap I have ever seen. Soon it will be 55 minutes of commercials and 5 minutes of program time. Idiots. :sarcastic:
 
SockMan! said:
Makes me wonder if the people who endorse some of these annoying advertisements actually watch TV.
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They don't have time............ they're too busy coming up with new ways to make the annoying advertisements......... this is why i'm on my damn PCs so much, and why I have so damn many of them......... When most people would be watching TV, i'm messing with one of the PCs.......... Other than getting together with friends and watching NASACR, I haven't had the TV on in a couple of months............... my DLP basically plays big screen monitor for Guitar Hero 3 and now GRID................. if there's something on that I absolutely need to see, I just DVR it on the PC and watch it whenever........... I'll probably check out Weeds when the new season starts up, but I usually get those off the net (Mary Louise Parker is freakin' HOT! - even if she is almost 44)............... other than that, I usually watch Family Guy when I buy the box sets; once in a great while i'll catch an episode on TV......... but in general TV sucks more than ever these days.......... seems kind of stupid, audio and video quality are better than ever with HD and all, but now TV is getting too annoying to watch.............
 
I watch very little TV these days, and what I do watch is recorded on a PC running PVR software, then played back over the network using MPC.

A little mouse wiggle and commercials are skipped. I'm not nearly gullible enough to run out and purchase a Swiffer after seeing some knucklehead waving it around while wearing an idiotic grin, or buy some other useless junk that I don't need.

Besides, I have a computer which badly needs upgrading. I'd much sooner spend my dough on that or some other form of interactive entertainment.
 
I think what annoys me the most is blatant product endorsement during an actual show. Like when Ryan Seacrest takes a minute to show us how awesome the iPhone is.
 
quique55 said:
eh. if it wasn't for advertising revenue there would be no reason to produce television shows, pay big money for sporting events, google would not have kick ass products for free.
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Yea I know, but there's a point to how far you can take my time. This will cause me to stop watching a show. There is nothing I have to watch.
 
AceGoober said:
That is the most stupid-retarded crap I have ever seen. Soon it will be 55 minutes of commercials and 5 minutes of program time. Idiots. :sarcastic:
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Actually, you raise a good point. An hour of TV used to be about 10 minutes commercials, 50 minutes show. These days its 40 and 20 typically. 42minutes being about average now, 47 minutes about 10 years ago.
 
Also, to add, one of the thing that frustrates me most is that I am not someone who gets sold to. All the stuff I consume or use, I got because either someone else recommended it who had a good experience with it, or I decided on a lark to try it one time and enjoyed it.

Never once have I got anything because I saw it shown on television or on an internet banner ad. I know what I want, I dont need to be told.
 
Stupid TBS, like their giant banners ontop of tv shows werent enough, I guess they were looking for something even more obnoxious and annoying.
 
This is insane. And here I thought the banner on the bottom of The Simpsons movie was pure jest....

I don't get cable (by choice, the only channel I ever watched was Discovery, which just wasn't worth even the $12 I was paying for 'REALLY basic' service, much less one of the higher tiers,) and am perfectly happy with ATSC digital (even though I don't have an HDTV yet; that's waiting for the basement remodel with the media room.)

If I ever catch this on a broadcast TV show I watch, that station/network is getting an angry letter, and is being removed from my channel list.
 
SciFi can get pretty bad with BSG. There'll be some huge CGI smack down happeing on screen when this 1/3rd screen animated spam for "Ghost Hunters" pops on the screen.

Next stop? P2P land for a HD rip of the UK broadcast without any of that crap.

Good one SciFi, you'll never display another ad in my prime demographic theater.

I understand broadcasters get their revenue from ads, that's a given. But there's a line you do not cross and these pople are crossing it big time.

The death of the ad supported broadcast business model as they know and understand it is at hand. The genie is not only out of the bottle, but has moved to a condo in Maui and teaches surfing to Japanese tourists.
 
There IS a solution to this sort of thing...
I subscribe to satellite radio(commercial free music), and for a monthly fee I don't get interrupted for that kind of nonsense.
If I didn't want to spend $13 a month, I could listen to regular radio, complete with commercials and junk.

If you don't want the commercials, then buy the Family Guy DVD sets.
 
zleuth said:
There IS a solution to this sort of thing...
I subscribe to satellite radio(commercial free music), and for a monthly fee I don't get interrupted for that kind of nonsense.
If I didn't want to spend $13 a month, I could listen to regular radio, complete with commercials and junk.

If you don't want the commercials, then buy the Family Guy DVD sets.
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6 months to a year after the last episode of the season airs? Yea, great solution.
 
I noticed this yesterday, it's total bullshit. As if it wasn't already bad enough when you're watching a show and some person walks in from the side taking up half the screen and staring at you, now they can talk. Ridiculous.
 
What pisses me off is that these "interruptions" are for their own shows. No one is paying TBS for these ad spots. They are internal ads!

If Honda paid a shit-load of money to TBS to play a 10 second commercial within a show, I'd understand. I'd still be mad, but I'd understand.

Instead, TBS is pissing off its own viewers to advertise other shows that have more in-show advertising about other shows that have more in-show advertising about other shows...

I don't need to be told about the next show when I just started watching this show. I'm pretty comfortable with a TV schedule.

I hope this is a one time thing for the Bill Engvall show. Although TBS has been running the lower 2/3rds ads for years... with no signs of slowing down.
 
I saw this last night while at the gym. A bunch of us went "what the hell?!". We had never seen it before and were just disgusted. Immediately changed the channel, needless to say.
 
It is pretty lame, but I understand where they are coming from. I have a DVR and skip the commercials anytime I watch anything on it. I often just pause tv for 20 minutes or so just so I can skip commercials on a show that I don't record. I hate commercials.

But this is how the networks make money. If everyone out there had DVRs and just skipped commercials, the advertising money would be out the window. So I understand why these types of ads are becoming more common, even if they are annoying.
 
Just had a thought... Guess one has no choice but to have a giant screen tv nowadays. You need to screen real estate just to glimpse the show with all the giant banner ads filling 1/3 of the screen.

Oh, wait, maybe that's a bad thought. The bigger the screen, the bigger the ad. Dang, thought I was on to something there. :p

...:cool:
 
NKDietrich said:
Actually, you raise a good point. An hour of TV used to be about 10 minutes commercials, 50 minutes show. These days its 40 and 20 typically. 42minutes being about average now, 47 minutes about 10 years ago.
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Pretty much. I've been watching some old TV shows on DVD now... surprised me that a lot of shows barely 10 years old were pushing up towards 49 minutes. Some episodes of more recent stuff? 40, 42 minutes tops.

I'd have probably sold my TV a long time ago if it weren't for my roommates who demand their daily dose of programming. At least they mostly watch stuff like Discovery and BBC America, which aren't -as bad- as others. Pop-up animations were annoying enough (especially on Sci-Fi where I gotta see those two ghost finding schmucks during BSG), but pausing a show to inject an ad is heinously obnoxious.

Hell, I'd make a deal with the channels/broadcasters if I could: Feel free to drop it to 40 minutes to the hour, as long as there are absolutely *ZERO* overlays, bugs and interruptions during the show itself.
 
The dumb thing is they'll keep making these ads more and more intrusive, and more and more people will be driven to downloading shows illegally, especially when the illegal ones are ad-free, and yet the networks will blame the piracy for the inevitable decline in ratings rather than their infuriating ads.
 
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