No commercials, what a concept
TV advertisers are angry with me. Well, not me personally, but people like me who have stopped watching live television. We’re good enough to only watch television recorded on our digital video recorders. Whatever, whenever — Letterman at 8 a.m., “Desperate Housewives” at 5:47 on a Tuesday, the evening news at noon. My eyes have seen the glory of Tyra after dinner. (And, because DVR’s archive feature, Tyra’s glory will continue far beyond her eventual cancellation. Why? Because I can.)
DVR is like a casual-dress fantasy camp with Rupert Murdoch — me and Rupes sharing some Pop Secret during “The War at Home,” crushing the old “Andy Richter Controls the Universe,” and coldly calculating our diabolical programming strategy for November sweeps week — “maybe we should bring back ‘Ned and Stacey,’ Rupie?” I say, elbowing Murdoch.
But who’s got time for fantasizing? It cuts into my tube time.
Watching all three CSIs in a Saturday afternoon marathon isn’t what’s bothering advertisers. What bothers them is that all DVRs have one thing in common — there is a button on the remote controls that eradicates commercials. They call it “fast-forward” and it’s saving lives. Four commercials in a row? Hit the button four times. Poof! You’re back to watching Jethro tease Abby on “NCIS.”
I watch the evening news in 22 minutes, which I’m convinced I can get down to 10 when I zip through Katie’s segments. I can skip through the commercials and boring songs on “American Idol,” just to hear what the judges have to say after each performance, finishing a recent episode in eight minutes.
The strange thing is I don’t think most of us mind watching commercials — once or twice. Some are clever, some are informative, some of them are selling things I may actually want to buy. But after the 10,000th time, if people skip through your ad, face it advertisers, it’s your own fault. If a company makes enough money to advertise on a Top 10 TV show, they are also making enough money to film a new commercial each week. The networks make new shows every week, why can’t the advertisers?
One genre I always skip through is the automobile ads. Because, like most people I know, I’ve already got a car. To whom are they advertising? People without cars? People who want the most cars on their suburban block? What percentage of the audience is that? Five, 10 percent? Are they really going to notice if I skip through the ad? Anyone who has at least one year of TV experience is probably doing that mentally.
What percentage of people watching television need to take the medicine that will make them urinate less frequently at night? Five, seven percent? I fast-forward through that commercial all the time, sometimes fighting the need to urinate in order to prove my point. Now I understand that many prospective customers may miss the commercial because they’re in the bathroom when it’s on. But the last thing an incontinent citizen needs is to be reminded about the affliction three times during one commercial break.
I am starting to notice an odd side effect to all my fast forwarding and pausing and rewinding. It leaks over into other parts of my life in strange and unexpected ways. I’ll be listening to a news story in the car, let my attention wander off and suddenly, six sentences into a story, I’ll realize it’s something worth hearing. I’ll make a stab for the non-existent playback button on my car radio.
“What is the matter with this thing? Why isn’t it recording?” Maybe they’ll replay it if I drive home backwards.
Jim Mullen can be reached at [email protected].