Commercial Breaks on TV: Antiquated or Here to Stay?

By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the impact of computer technology on television was already promising to be nothing short of revolutionary. Yet people seemed only able to grasp the contours of an upcoming basic shift both in how television would come to be delivered and how programming would be financed and presented. Young adults were on the leading crest of the wave. Even by 2012, they typically watched television programming from laptops and even ipads rather than television sets. Meanwhile, an older demographic was learning how to integrate television screens with the internet such that movies could be downloaded on a laptop and shown on a larger screen, completely bypassing commercial television even stored on “tibo” from interlarding the home.

Being somewhat slow, to say the least, in picking up on computer technology, I was afforded a hint in 2012 of what the new technology portended for television as my viewership dwindled down to PBS, movies on dvds, and television news from abroad available on the internet.  Even after just a few years of this new commercial-less habit, I found the occasional television movie with commercials on TNT and TBS to be rather unpalatable on account of all the commercial breaks. Just a few years earlier, I would have thought nothing of the interruptions. They were as though blinks to eyes. The human brain has an amazing ability to “ignore” the banal if it is taken as a given rather than contingent. It is the shift from “necessary” to “contingent” that the advent of computer technology had already by the second decade of the twenty-first century begun to “awaken” in human consciousness regarding television commercial-breaks. That a perceptual change, if shared by many, could impact society so tremendously in terms of changed mores is the real story here.

In my own experience, watching episodes of Downton Abbey on PBS uninterrupted by commercials for up to two hours at a time afforded me a new viewing experience regarding a television serial beginning in 2010. By the last few episodes of the third season, it had dawned on me that by being so ensconced for an uninterrupted hour or even two in the audio-visual story-world of Downton,  I could really get into that world of the story precisely because my perception of it was sustained. This experience, as well as that of Game of Thrones, gave me a new sense of how full the experience of story-telling can be. That is, being absorbed in a story world a lot and especially without interruption can enable a viewer to really "get into" that world as an assumed context for the narrative. From such a basis, the viewer can more fully appreciate the depth of characterization such as the case in Downton Abbey, whether it be Mr. Carson’s struggles with early twentieth-century “modernity” or granny’s Machiavellian nature, which is not so dark because it is for the good of the family. Moreover, a sustained experience of a fine manner of speaking and of manners can make an impression on a viewer’s own manner. Abstractly put, a more complete and richer experience of story-telling is afforded by the viewer being in the story-world as per a sustained perceptual experience. Returning from such an experience to a “chopped up” movie shown on commercial television, one is apt to find a new impatience with the commercial breaks. Were there really this many before? They are ruining the movie.  The flight away from commercial television has undoubtedly been facilitated as a result. In effect, the new experience had already made the old one obsolete even if the networks had not yet reached this insight.

If my experience of shifting from commercial to non-commercial television and dvds is any indication, the further decline in viewership could make commercial television networks even more desperate for quick-cash programming, such as the low-class American “talk shows” and “reality shows” that make such excellent fodder for weight-loss commercials (yes, “ouch”). The perpetuation of this strategy would only facilitate the flight of the more discerning viewers to less unseemly programming that is available at alternatives to commercial television and even the television set. As commercial-television viewership continues to decline, more pressure to add even more commercials for the networks to break even would mean even more “cheap” programming and more “chopping up” of shows and movies with commercial breaks. More people would be just fine passing on cable or satellite altogether and leaving the television set “unconnected.”

As a result, the role of the television set in the typical house or apartment would change fundamentally, including even how it is perceived. The device would go from something that is always on to something that is only used occasionally and for certain purposes, such as to play a dvd or serve as a larger computer screen for internet or movies. There was a time when I would have freaked out had my television set not been able to receive any channels. I remember the sense of panic when a storm would knock out cable. I’m cut off from the outside world! Even as early as 2013, however, I had become just fine with the “box” being left unconnected. I didn’t even bother hooking up my digital box. I had come to perceive the televsion as something that is to be used with my dvd player. I watched Downton Abbey simply by clicking “watch online” at PBS on my laptop. I felt no desire to watch anything on commercial television. Why go through the motions to be connected? Maybe keeping the home a little less connected is not such a bad thing after all.

Viewing the television set as a device to be occasionally used to play a downloaded movie or dvd would mean no longer seeing the set as something that is to be almost always on or even necessarily hooked up to receive broadcast channels. The addiction to constancy can thus perhaps be broken, if only in terms of television. In a sense, the transformation dimly anticipated even as early as 2013 would be one of increasing quiet, and thus privacy in the home as the outside world that is admitted is more closely narrowed to particular story-worlds of interest, absent exogenous “messages” and even programming.

The change being advanced can be viewed as rather positive in nature. Ironically, removing from the television set its constant airing of programming could return the home to its pre-television quietude. Moreover, the addiction to constancy—such as in constantly smoking or constantly having the television on—may come to be viewed as a distinctly twentieth-century cultural phenomenon. Put another way, activities that in other eras would have been indulged in occasionally may in the context of the twentieth century have fed an addiction to constancy—an almost-obsessive desire to keep doing something notwithstanding the decline in its marginal utility. Often the activity or product constant in use is rather insignificant, and thus easily hackneyed into daily use. Rather than viewing a drink or cigarette as indulged in occasionally for social occasions, “cocktail hour” and “a cigarette with coffee in the morning” (and, indeed, having a coffee every morning) were allowed to become part of the popular culture in the twentieth century, at least in America. The resulting dire health impacts should have given people a hint that items geared by their nature to occasional use at best were part of a compulsive desire for constancy. The regular or even constant use of such banal items overstates their significance.

Although not having the health downside of nicotine or caffeine, television too had come by the 1970s to a constancy not justified by the underlying significance of the programming. “Being connected” meant always having the TV on in one’s house, even if this meant giving up too much control over what enters one’s home (e.g., commercials). The “being connected” to the outside world we allowed to become a constancy. Silence eclipsing the “white noise” was as though tantamount to succumbing unconditionally to a void of existential emptiness. How strange this fear would have sounded to a person living in the Victorian world before even phonographs and telephones, not to mention radios and televisions.

If one had looked to the future from 2012 or even further back in 2010, the question might have been whether computers would come to be sucked into the illusion of constancy-as-fullness, essentially replacing the television set as hegemon in the house. Already by 2013, smartphones and ipods had become the new means for constant connectivity (especially for young adults). Is this sort of constant communication really a deterrent to the sort of boredom that comes with an empty sense of being? Ironically, might there be more fullness of being were stillness or quiet to return as the default in the home? Perhaps a hypertrophic desire to constantly be connected externally undercuts one’s connectivity to oneself and one’s family. Severing the television cable permits an opportunity. The question is perhaps whether we moderns have the stamina to tolerate the resulting sense of void in our homes without instinctively filling it with another means of constant connectivity. Put another way, might the twentieth century household be remembered as an aberration rather than as the beginning of the modern world come into our living rooms? At the very least, the eclipse of commercial television means more control for the viewer in terms of what is admitted into the home.

The Increasing Decadence in American Business (and Society): The Case of On-Screen Distractions during Television Programs

While watching Lord of the Rings on TBS in 2010, I noticed that the network was posting not only its logo on the bottom right of the screen, but also advertising for its programming on the bottom left. Also, “more movie, less commercials” was written to accompany the logo. What really got to me during the movie was when pictures advertising a television show were shown. They took up almost an eighth of the screen and thus could not but distract the viewer from watching the movie. I decided I would not watch movies on networks that compromise or prostitute their own programing in order to sell themselves while "in progress." It is like sitting down at a restaurant and having the waitor sell me on other dishes while I am trying to enjoy the one that I'm eating. “I just want to enjoy this fine meal, thank you,” any discerning customer would be wont to say. Once at Starbucks, the customer in front of me at the register was paying $25 for a variety of products.  As I was thinking that the store had made a good sale, the clerk tried to sell the customer on a certain food item for the next visit--as if the present sale was not enough.  The same propensity wherein nothing is ever enough is evinced by the television networks that can't seem to restrain themselves from adding more and more self-promotions onto the screen during their own programming.  These networks are playing off the mitigated nature of the additions being incremental, and thus not objectionable to the average viewer. 

It is simply bad business to interfere with a customer’s enjoyment of a product by trying to promote the business or another product. The over-reaching has the bad smell of self-indulgence knowingly at others’ expense. It is impossible to enjoy a movie while animated characters run around the bottom of the screen to get the viewers' attention. The perpetrators ought to be regarded as children wherein if we give them an inch, they will indeed take a mile. Sadly, too many of us allow ourselves to be strung along the slippery slope--perhaps some viewers don't even notice the incremental intrusions. The smell of the network managers' over-reaching ought to be emetic, but perhaps the stench is so ubiquitous that we as a soceity are innoculated against even smelling it.  One can hope that one day, we shall wake up to the decadence and "smell the coffee." Perhaps only the loss of a significant viewership would mean that the sordid managers will be out of their jobs–unable to earn their high salaries for trying to manipulate us in new subterfuges. That, ladies and gentlemen, would be justice and a more salubrious society.  In the meantime, American television will increasingly come to reflect the lowest common denominator in the viewership because that is where the numbers are. In fact, perhaps it could be said that this nature of television reflects the values that are taking hold in American society.

Do we as a society value mutual respect and self-restraint, or are we too tolerant of selfishness and manipulatory behavior? Do we not value strength, but instead enable weakness? Are the stars of reality shows famous for fifteen minutes because they evince our society's actual values?  In other words, have we become a self-absorbed, petty people without realizing it?  If so, the television networks may simply be us taking advantage because it is condoned.

On Television’s Sunset: Thinking outside the Box

Sometimes I think the human mind is like a train in being limited to the tracks that have already been laid. We are habituated to think it sufficient that we can turn off the main line on to another at the next signal. We think this is change because it involves turning onto a different track, but is it really change if the train is still on track?

A while back, someone thinking outside the box suggested  to me that because many watches and clocks were already computerized as of 2012, we could have sunrise pegged at 7am and sunset at 7pm every day of the year. The number of seconds in a minute would be adjusted accordingly. During the winter, a minute during daylight would have less than sixty seconds and a minute at night would have more. During summer, it would be the reverse. The inventive mind behind this idea was trying to obviate the problems involved with when to go on and off daylight savings time. As it stood in 2012 in the United States, the two dates were not symmetrical with regard to the amount of daylight (going on daylight savings time during the second week in February would match the first week of November). Of course, there is nothing magical about 7, except perhaps in Judaism. Under the inventive scheme, the time of sunset could be extended even to 10pm during the summer (each minute during daylight would have less than sixty seconds), going back to 7pm during the fall, winter and early spring.

Besides the fact that time itself does not change, at least as experienced by us, one problem with “fixing” the times of sunrise and sunset as envisioned by the inventive mind is, as one critic said, “the power of television.” We are habituated to TV Guide, and thus would not want to see 60 Minutes scheduled for fifty minutes one week in one season and seventy-five in another season. Being of a certain length of time, a given television show would be scheduled for different durations, as per the number of seconds in a minute. “Television would never stand for that,” so said one detractor. Absolving myself of responsibility, I replied, “It was all his idea, not mine.” Even though I thought of the idea as a thought experiment having value in stretching the human mind beyond the existing tracks, it occurred to me that the assumption that television has too much power is too narrow. The thought experiment can have value in getting us off the tracks (rather than off track) of our usual way of circumscribed thinking.

 Larry King, formerly of CNN, embraced online programming.      CNN

On March 12, 2012, Ora.tv was announced. Financed by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú and co-founded by Larry King of New York, the planned internet television network “will have a slate of television shows of varying lengths and will stream them via the Internet to computers, phones, and television sets . . . by bypassing traditional television distribution systems."[1] Viewable on laptops, ipods, ipads, and smartphones, “television” shows could bypass the overpriced cable systems.

Even without Ora.tv, TV Guide was being relegated by the existence of video on demand, available on a laptop, ipad, or phone. Beyond video on demand, Ora.tv could only have an “irregular” schedule, given the differing lengths of the various programs. Having programs taped at varying lengths, it would not matter how long they run in real time even if there is a schedule (i.e., were the number of seconds in a minute changed so sunset would occur at 7pm year-round). So much for the power of television.

As early as 2010, people had told me they had disconnected their cable and were using their television screens to watch movies on DVD from Netflix or an already-antiquated video store. Television programs, like that which Larry King had on CNN and was planning for Ora.tv in 2012, do not benefit from a big screen as much as does a film like Avatar or Titanic. Hence Larry decided to discontinue his series of specials at CNN so he could turn to the internet venture that he had co-founded. Regarding his decision to depart CNN, King said, “When the train gets to the last station, you know to get off.”

What if technological change itself can outstrip even going onto another existing track? What if we have reached the last station with tracks? Might the human mind be able to travel trackless? Absent a way to rid Earth of its tilt, we are stuck with changing lengths of daylight. I mention proposal as a thought experiment to show how unnecessarily limited our way of thinking typically is (e.g., “television would never allow it.”). The context or paradigm itself can be thought of as variable in nature, rather than static. The human mind can indeed think up changes within a paradigm while simultaneously shifting the paradigm itself. We need not think only in terms of whether to shift the track ahead. Remember the train in one of the Back to the Future films taking off from the track? The human mind can do likewise, if we do not hold ourselves back out of sheer habit. We have only ourselves to blame if we don’t start thinking outside the box, or over yonder from the rusty tracks. It might be that the twenty-first century will be known as the century when weeds started growing through the tracks. We have only ourselves holding us back from getting off track.

1. Brian Stelter, “New Internet TV Network to Feature Larry King,” The New York Times, March 12, 2012.