alcazar

iTrader: (2)

WHY do we pay so much for cable/Sky, then have to watch interminable adverts?

SURELY the braodacasters are making ENOUGH from the ads alone to give us the repeats, fly on the wall documentaries, TV bullying, let's do up/sell/buy a house and "watch-those-coppers-chasing-motorists" that consitutes mainstream TV these days, for free?

Jamz3k

Hey, Sky just gave me free HD for 4 months. I will not be slabbering about them today.

davyboy

ITV might be able to sell ad space when progams are watched by 10 million.....sky would not be able to command the same amount thats for sure.

However for direct marketing it's great - ocean finance, we buy anycar and other buy now pay later council house deals!

Jamz3k

The Iceland advert is frightfully **** boilingly annoying.

Torquemada

I Sky+ everything and fast forward the ads. Otherwise you'd be hearing about me on the news

StickyMicky

Advert sales are apparently going down though, less people stop in to watch the "prime time" Saturday night type shows, as they would much rather go out and get tanked up/arrested/given an STD by some skank

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

WHY? Sadly, because there are countless of stupid/willing enough to pay for it. If everyone cancelled thier sky/virgin TV package, they'd soon get the point, but oh no, people want their precious Sky Sports.....there was a time you didn't need to pay to watch football.

It doesn't suprise me; I visited the states enough times to know what was instore for British television and even back in the early 1990s it was nothing but adverts and repeats. All the UK has done is follow suit.

Having said that, I barely watch live TV....its either on time-lapse or recorded, so no adverts for me anyway.

Anyhoo; Madmax BT is on later....AGAIN, when was it on last? Few months ago? Seriously who scheduled this on ITV of all channels?

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

You think it's bad here, you should try cable TV in the US - 20 minutes of ads per hour of programming

Edit: not wanting to repeat what Ali said, but I recently heard that was the official/legal allowed amount of ads there (against 7 minutes per hour here).

Dedrater

I wouldn't ever pay Sky/Virgin or the TV Licence, if my life depended on it.

It is such a ridiculous concept in my mind.

Dedrater

Is it not 16 p/h?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

The BBC could have gone subscription based when DVB was rolled out. Most TVs and set-top boxes (except for cheap junk) have a PCMCIA slot for a decoder/smart card CAM.

Then it could save even more money by junking the TVLA and their bully-boy tactics.

RA Dunk

I've never timed it but I would say yes it is 16.

I'm so very close to cancelling Sky because of the Ad's TBH.

corradoboy

Can I cancel Channel 4 as well ? In fact, any channel with a '4' in it's name ! Shame, as many of the programs are pretty good, but having to suffer all the ads, as well as the endless 'coming ups' stodging out 13 minutes of footage into a one hour program is ruining the hard work some program makers are putting in.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

The only thing channel 4 is missing is Sherrif John Bunnell narrating everything. Get him on there and we'd then have a pretty close replica of a typical US TV channel.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

While we're on the subject of pointless ads, what about the current campaign they're apparently running at the moment of seaside safety ads? In the middle of the coldest December for 20 years ffs, and probably paid for out of our taxes

PaulC72

Many years ago when cable was installed it was worth the money as it was still cheap to have the channels and the BB, but when that died and Sky was born things took a turn for the worse, they have a bit of a monopoly so think they can do what they like, TBH Virgin is a poor contender, probably due to the locational limitations of the cable installations.

I can honestly say I have never paid for Sky and never will unless I can get some basic channels at a very cheap rate, our BT vision freeview box offers us all the freeview channels (do not pay for the pay for ones) plus we have the added benefit of being able to record programmes like you can on Sky...and it only cost me £30.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

That's WAY out. My Virgin cable starts a programme on the hour, and fits in the first 5 minute ad break at 6-8 minutes past.
There will be another at twenty five past the hour, another at twenty to and a final one at ten to.

I make that FOUR five minute breaks. At the moment they are about haf adverts and half the same set of trailers over and over again.

ANOTHER thing we can thank the Lying Labour party for.

scunnered

iTrader: (1)

A one hour program on Sky (mostly American imports) last twenty minutes when you edit out the ad breaks. Some are as little as eighteen minutes.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Did a bit of research to satisfy my own curiosity, and according to Wikipedia (Television Advertisement - United Kingdom) it's supposed to be 7 mins per hour on average per Ofcom rules, but up to 12 minutes in any one hour maximum. That doesn't of course include trailers and the like, so 40 minutes actual programming per hour at peak times probably isn't far off the mark.

Last time I was in the states, I tried watching a movie at 3am (jet-lag, so couldn't sleep) and even that late there were so many and such long breaks I had to give up after half an hour.