MrBritUSA

Is it just me or does anyone else notice that American TV has way too many commercials. (None can hold a candle to brit adverts) You are watching a show for a few minutes and then you are blasted by loud mouth arrogant yanks who always smile and look like they are on drugs and are in your face, always trying to sell you something, disgusting food commercials where they always show the food up close or medical commercials urging to call now. Well you get what I’m saying. I am really fed up with American TV. Sorry but it’s crap. Glad I’m going home next year.

BristolUK

dunroving

Bill Bryson wrote a couple of pages in one of his books about US TV commercials (or adverts, as we call them over here ). I'd paste a transcript of some of them, but it would probably transgress copyright.

Essentially he just sat with a stopwatch for about two hours, then did some statistics on shortest ad, longest ad, total time in ads, longest programme segment, shortest programme segment, etc. I'm sure you can imagine the results, but it was still a little eye-boggling to see the facts in print.

I now have a Freesat recorder here in the UK - very handy for FF over the ads.

The annoying thing on telly here is the "flavour of the month" phenomenon, as I call it - TV personalities (I use the term loosely) who seem to be on every time you turn the telly on. I don't mean the newscasters, either. I mean people like Matt Baker, Sarah Millican et al who seem to be everywhere.

Bevm

Yes, get a DVR, Tivo, or some way of recording and then zoom over the ads. You get a feel for how long it'll be, but I must say that seems much more predictable on British TV, which is great, and of course they come less often.

I like the programmes that have a particular ad at the end of the ad stream. I can see the advantage for the advertizer because you have to be a bit aware of it, but it's a signal that the programme's about to begin again.

I've been watching The Mentalist recently and the one there is wonga.com. Very odd looking but means nothing. I just looked it up on line and it seems to be a pay day load place! A bit disturbing if they find TV ads worthwhile.

Bev

RChappo

And the ad soundtracks are much LOUDER than the program soundtracks so you have to reach for the volume control so your ears don't get blasted.

My wife likes to watch the Big Bang Theory and if we miss it I'll download it for her to watch another time. With the ads cut out the show runs for about 22 minutes in a 30 minute time slot!

And if you figure in those shows that do a few minutes recap/preview at the start/end of each ad break, that cuts the time of original programming down even more.

The US ads are much more annoying than the UK ones - there is no wit or cleverness about most of them and the ones for medical products are really depressing. The rest tend to be about products that can allegedly make you look/feel younger. They feeds into people's paranoia.

I actually download quite a lot of old UK TV ads from the 70's and 80's and will often sit and watch them of an evening (how sad! ). I find it much more entertaining that most US TV.

Mummy in the foothills

That makes me crazy too.

KetteringEnglandRocks2005

Yes, I have to agree with you.

I have been in the US for over 15 years now and the US does have way to many adverts and it has gotten so much worst in the past 15 years. I mean the shows are now anywhere between 3 to 5 min shorter than they were 15 years ago because of the adverts.

The worst ones are all of the prescription Drug ads that you see on TV nowadays. You know the ones for heart problems, the ones for depression, the ones for overactive bladder, and my favorite the ones about E.D. You know the ones for drugs like viagra. I love those ones because these are shown during sporting events when kids are watching and do I really want to explain to some 8 year old kid that is not mine what E.D is. No, I do not want to because a sporting event is not a good time to explain to a kid what ED is. Like any time is when a kid is only 8 years old. Especially when the kid is not mine.

But the worst thing about adverts is how loud they are. They are so much louder then the program it self. The are so loud that you have to have a remote handy so you can either turn down the sound or to mute it so you do not have to hear them.

This is however one of the many bad things about living in the US.

I hope that you enjoy your move back to the UK and I hope that things go well for you and your family back in the UK. I wish you and your family all of the best. Have a great holiday season.

kitmax

with you on that one, we are at the point now where we don't watch any 'normal' tele, I had already digitised my movie collection so had my TV attached to my Home Theatre PC which streamed movies from my server, well I ended getting very familiar with ways of downloading TV from back home so it's like we never left now, even my one year old only watches cbbc so if we end up moving back home, again, (back on the fence) he won't sound like the adverts.

Englishman43

Don't they call that art imitating life . I threw my idiot box away 8 years ago and haven't looked back .

MrBritUSA

I also have a way to watch Brit TV. I use PROXPN which connects me to a UK server. I can then watch BBC 1, 2, and 3, ITV 1, 2, 3 and 4 Channel 4 and Channel 5. I then connect this to my big screen TV via HDMI out on my laptop. I love the selection. Hundreds of brit shows to watch all for only $5.00 a month. Well worth it. Highly recommended for any of us Brits who miss UK TV.

kimilseung

I hate the ad breaks that begin with the show host saying "we'll be back in a minute" then the ad break, then straight on returning to the show the host says "bye, see you next time". Its OK when you get used to which shows do this. The Colbert Show being one of them, I now know to turn off immediately after the he says "we'll be back" after the interview.

sallysimmons

Aw, I think Sarah Millican is really funny. I caught her on a few things recently (like you say, she's definitely popular now) but she does make me laugh. We could use more of that humor here!

The thing I can't stand here are the ads for drugs or medical products. I'll be watching a news show and all of a sudden someone's telling me that I don't have to reuse old catheters anymore (YUK!) or telling me that my erectile dysfunction can be a thing of the past. As I only watch live American TV when I'm in the kitchen cooking, it can be a real stomach turner

But for ads, radio is even worse than TV. I cannot listen to the radio in the car anymore because every few minutes they stop the music for a huge block of cheap, annoying ads. How does anyone stand it?

KetteringEnglandRocks2005

I agree with you 100% about the ads for drugs or medical products. Its like come on I do not care about your drug or medical product so just stop pushing your product on me.

I also agree with you on the ads on the radio. I hate the ads on the radio also that is why I rarely listen to the radio these days. They should call these radio stations ad stations not music stations since they air way more ads than music nowadays anyway.

Bevm

There's always PBS.

Bev

sallysimmons

PBS has the occasional show worth watching but not enough funding to be a great station IMO. Tivo is a Godsend, but it doesn't help with the radio.

But like others, I mainly just download shows from the UK, or watch via VPN, so US advertising only bothers me when I try to watch the evening shows on MSNBC.