TV ad breaks could get longer as rules are reviewed

28 comments
  1. This reminds me of those dying print magazines that lose circulation and start filling their pages with ads instead of content.

  2. Not long til we get closer to the US model, where you pay for a channel of adverts and they sometimes deem to air content between the advert blocks!

  3. They are the ‘pop ups’ of TV that are a pain to block. They’re fundamental rude, if included in the duration of a show, and sometimes so intrusive, it makes the show unwatchable. New rules should restrict ads to the the beginning and end of programmes.

  4. [The first episode of “The Prisoner” (TV Series -1967) titled “Arrival” has a run time of 50 minutes](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0679174/technical); although I only watched it when it was repeated many years later I vividly remember running to and from the kitchen to make a cup of tea during the ad break and still I missed a bit of the programme. Now one could cook a meal during ad breaks.

  5. Ah yes, the solution to viewers switching off is more advertising. That’ll bring them back.

  6. Less ads are needed. TV channels should charge more to show ads as they’re limited rather than hoping to cram as many as possible. And rather than fucking with allowing more ads how about you chuckle fucks clamp down on gambling ads that are causing damage.

  7. More ads? To push viewers to buy (get more in debt) more shit they do not need? Mama mia! Insane proposal. Save the planet. Reduce consumption.

  8. I haven’t watched traditional TV in 10 years, I imagine a lot of young people are trending the same way as me.

    Honestly unless you’re into footie I can’t imagine why people pay for things like Sky these days

  9. I attempted to watch something I had recorded off broadcast last night, it had been punted at the last moment to a different channel. Ended up streaming catch-up anyway.

    I beat virgin down on their last increase because we don’t use the landline (unplugged in a cupboard) and barely use broadcast cable (twice a month?).

    Streaming all the way

  10. I stopped watching TV, in the traditional sense, twelve years ago. I’d recommend everyone else do the same thing.

  11. If you want me to pay for a licence or pay for a service, I don’t expect to then be bombarded with adverts

  12. On the subject of TV advertising. Has anyone else noticed that pharmaceutical companies are advertising illnesses?

    They’re not advertising products, just the illnesses with a message like “speak to your GBP about clicky knee syndrome and tell em GSK sent you, wink wink”

    They can’t advertise prescription drugs products directly to consumers, so this is obviously their workaround.

    If you’ve ever been to the states, you’ll have noticed that every other ad if for a pharmaceutical. If this strategy works, we can expect the same to happen here.

    Has something changed in the rules? Why has this only just started happening? I smell a rotten fish.

  13. It really is a case of those with money pushing and pushing to see what the maximum is they can fleece us for/profit off us.

    Can they not take a day off every once in a while?

  14. >Previous Ofcom research found that many older audiences “often prefer to record content as a series so that they can skip the ads” – while younger viewers also aired frustrations with the amount of adverts.

    Yep, so the answer of course is to make them longer and more frequent. How do they not yet understand that the more they take the piss, the less we’ll watch or the more we’ll look to alternative sources?

  15. Remember watching The Simpsons as a teen on Channel 4, 18:00-18:30pm.

    It would start 18:05pm, ad at 18:15pm and finished 18:25pm. They were cutting episodes short as I remember parts of an episode just being cut out, or they would play the episode on like 1.1x speed.

    I don’t tend to watch TV now but TV and Radio is just riddled with ad’s.

  16. >The regulator pledged to “listen to different views and examine what TV viewers say” before any changes.

    *sarcastic chuckling* yes. im sure.

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