Overwhelmed by Advertising

[imoldernu]

Ads everywhere....

5 minutes of continuous commercials on TV. Stopwatch!

Internet- Uncountable - Virtually impossible to read articles of any kind, and totally impossible to read news.

Thank you ER... for being there. An Island in a sea of insanity.

 

[davebarnes]

1. Use the mute button on the TV remote. Works like magic.
2. Watch TV shows on Hulu (or similar) and get fewer commercials.
3. Use an adblocker on your browser. I see almost zero ads.

But, I do have a list of 39 drugs (I have no idea what they do) that I "need to talk to my doctor about". She is not going to be happy when I send her the email prior to my annual wellness visit.

 

[Red Badger]

What Dave said.

We also have classical and a bluegrass public radio (both from local colleges) that are awesome and commercial free.
I read often -no commercials there.

 

[Aerides]

Tivo, streaming, adblock, and satellite/npr for radio. etc.

Been using some combination of the above since early aughts, and i can't tell you how many times I have to draw a blank when someone says "did you see that commercial?"

 

[Qs Laptop]

Ads everywhere....

5 minutes of continuous commercials on TV. Stopwatch!

It is intolerable. Live sporting events are the worst for enduring commercials.

I've taken to recording any network show I want to watch and then sitting down 15 minutes into it and starting to view my recording. That way I can skip through the commercials and end up with the show ending 45 minutes later, at the top of the next hour.

Comcast has basically thrown the towel in on people recording their programming. There is now a feature called "smart skip" (or somesuch) that allows you to press the fast forward button during commercials, I use 3X speed, and it will automatically stop and start playing the recording at the point where the last commercial in that commercial block ends. No more hunting and guessing when to press "play" while skipping through commercials.

I've discovered TUBI TV. They have (mostly) mid-to-low quality on demand programming with some higher quality stuff. They have commercial breaks of one minute in length and they give you a 10 second countdown warning as to when the commercials are going to kick in. Even just that one minute in commercial time is jarring once you get accustomed to never seeing commercials.

Another endless source of ads is snail mail. I often wonder what my neighbors think when I go to the street, retrieve my mail, and then place it directly in my trash container on the side of the garage. I don't even bring it into the house anymore. Think of the trees!

 

[Sunset]

1. Use the mute button on the TV remote. Works like magic.
2. Watch TV shows on Hulu (or similar) and get fewer commercials.
3. Use an adblocker on your browser. I see almost zero ads.

I mute all commercials, but even better is I've noticed we don't watch much TV because we have gotten use to Netflix. Now we can hardly stand the 20 min of commercials per hour (guess) in some tv series.

On Netflix we watch a series, and there are zero commercials. Much more efficient use of our time. We can usually watch a year's worth of a series within a week or less, no more waiting until next week for the next episode

 

[Kwirk]

I use ad blockers with my browser. I wouldn't mind static ads like in newspapers and magazines but advertisers seem to do everything possible to get our attention and ruin our experience.

I don't watch a lot of TV but DW likes to watch a few hours each day. She records her shows with Windows Media Center using HDHomeRun cable card tuners. She's a whiz with the skip buttons. Unfortunately, the future for this solution seems to grow a little dimmer each day.

Some media streaming services help a lot but I'm sure advertising will increasingly creep in. DW definitely prefers the media streamers that limit or eliminate ads and we're willing to pay for that.

 

[Walt34]

The only place I watch TV anymore is at the gym, and that only because the screens are in front of some machines like the treadmill and elliptical. Thankfully, the sound is muted. Otherwise I've given up TV entirely mostly because of the advertising. Content is generally aimed at idiots anyway so I don't feel I'm missing anything.

I run an adblocker in the browsers of course. If a site won't let me view it without whitelisting it I just move on. If the topic is important it'll pop up someplace else.

One reason I like my 17-year-old pickup truck so much (besides that it's reliable and everything works) is that the radio has a mute button on the steering wheel. Very convenient! Most of the time I don't even have the radio turned on anymore though - too much advertising. If the radio broke I probably wouldn't bother to get it fixed.

 

[HadEnuff]

my personal favorite: the TV that blares advertising at the gas pump. Where I live they are not universally present. At this point, when I find one, I avoid that place unless I'm desperate. I suppose soon they will all have them.
It's quite remarkable really, how the noise effects my functioning. It takes me at least twice as long to read and follow the prompts with that TV blaring...I hate them.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

We either mute or skip commercials, depending on whether a show is live or recorded.

We DVR a particular show on a regular basis and I've learned how many times to hit "30 second skip" on the remote at different breaks. Let's see... 3 just before it comes on (it's programmed to start a bit early), 9 at the first break, 8 at the second, then 11, then aarrrghhhh!

When I was working it happened a few times a year that someone would casually mention, "you know that commercial where ...?" I always gave them a blank look. Some people thought it was sad that I was so clueless about pop culture; I felt sad they knew so much about it.

 

[rk911]

Ads everywhere....

5 minutes of continuous commercials on TV. Stopwatch!

Internet- Uncountable - Virtually impossible to read articles of any kind, and totally impossible to read news.

Thank you ER... for being there. An Island in a sea of insanity.

we record virtually everything on a DVR and watch it later fast-forwarding thru the commercials. totally agree with you regarding reading almost anything on line. we still subscribe to an actual printed newspaper and watch a local non-network tv channel to keep up. we get very little "news" from online sources and zero from so called social media.

 

[rk911]

...I don't watch a lot of TV but DW likes to watch a few hours each day. She records her shows with Windows Media Center using HDHomeRun cable card tuners. She's a whiz with the skip buttons. Unfortunately, the future for this solution seems to grow a little dimmer each day...

i was really surprised when the local comcast outlet here has actually made it easier to skip thru commercials on recorded programs from the major broadcast channels. hit the FF button 1-4 times (1=slow: 4=super fast) the commercial is skipped and the program re-starts automatically.

 

[rk911]

...Another endless source of ads is snail mail. I often wonder what my neighbors think when I go to the street, retrieve my mail, and then place it directly in my trash container on the side of the garage. I don't even bring it into the house anymore. Think of the trees!

99% of our bills are paperless so if it wasn't for ads or pleas to donate $ (we support about 30-charities) we wouldn't get hardly any mail and a lot of people would be out of a job.

 

[audreyh1]

Ads everywhere....

5 minutes of continuous commercials on TV. Stopwatch!

Internet- Uncountable - Virtually impossible to read articles of any kind, and totally impossible to read news.

Thank you ER... for being there. An Island in a sea of insanity.

We’ve managed to get almost all the advertising out of our lives except for billboards which we rarely notice.

We don’t watch broadcast TV or cable or listen to to broadcast or satellite rap radio - that takes care of the worst of it.

Have adblocker on my iPad, but not on my laptop. I don’t notice the ads on my laptop, maybe the sites I visit have minimal ads.

Watch YouTube videos, so 5 seconds initial ad a little intrusive, but then that’s it for most of them.

Very little mail.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I think we are immune to them, or numb at least. We NEVER buy anything from an Ad. Use Add Blockers and other packages and apps (Designed by me) and never watch commercial TV anymore. We DL all our TV series and watch them at leisure. Our Techy Friends use non Cable or Sat provider supplied DVRs (Privately Sourced and installed), that records anything from anywhere. Personally I do not use a DVR as I have 3 discrete Media Players each with large Hard Drives.

They (Ads) must work though as they are expensive to produce. Not sure who the target market is. Do people REALLY ask their doctor if drugs are right for them?

 

[Car-Guy]

I have become immune to adds on the Internet and ignore them, for the most part. ER.Ogr isn't as bad as most but they still have plenty. I DVR most stuff on TV and skip though 99% of the adds.

However, business news and sports (particularly football) is terrible since I like to watch them live. Same commercials over and over and over again. It's so bad sometimes I think to myself, I'll never buy that product (crap) again. It's getting worse too. I've notice this year that often when the game returns we have missed part of it (ex.refs decision, a play is in progress). I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth watching sports live between all the ads and the worthless/annoying commentators. (e.g. Collinsworth, Buck, etc)

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

We've had DVRs (our own, not the cable company ones) on every TV since 2000. When the kid was a toddler, we went to my in-laws' house, and the kid wanted to watch TV. When a commercial came on, they said "Skip it, daddy!" So I had to explain that their TV couldn't do that.

 

[scrabbler1]

It doesn't always work, but for years I make sure there is another show on TV I don't mind watching. Then, I can hit the "Last" button on the remote to toggle back and forth between the 2 shows quickly. Sometimes, the second show is also in an ad break, but often it is not. Of course, I have to make sure I get back to the first show in time.


It is maddening when you get an ad break of 5 or even 6 minutes. Another peeve is when there is an ad break, then they return to the show for maybe 15 seconds so the host can tell you, "We will be right back after another ad break." This means you end up with 6 or 7 minutes of ads. I find this happens on those Sunday morning talking head news shows.


In addition to the ads, you get those endless promos for other TV shows. Some TV stations have banner ads for other shows while the actual show is on, taking up about 1/4 of the screen. Pisses me off a lot!


Some hour-long prime time dramas have actual running time of only 42 minutes, so there are 18 minutes of ads. Sheesh!

 

[Amethyst]

Ad blockers for the Internet. The difference with Ghostery on, and off (so I can get rebates) is astonishing.

"Training" for FB (FB is funded with advertising, after all - you're gonna see ads, and that's that). By training, I mean telling FB which ads you don't like, and clicking like on those you do. I finally started getting really interesting ads, some of which prompted me to buy stuff.

Then again, every single time I buy shoes, I have to re-train FB not to send me ads for plus-sized clothing, control-top leggings (complete with video of jiggly models pulling them on), and the biggest underwear I have ever seen. All because I wear an extra-wide shoe.

 

[mountainsoft]

I use "Ad Blocker Ultimate" in my Firefox browser so I rarely see ads online. The few that sneak by are easy to ignore.

I use an old program called RadioSure to stream radio stations on my computer. The vast majority do not have commercials. I usually listen to country music, but there are stations for every genre.

I record over-the-air TV broadcasts on my computer, then use a program called Comskip to remove the commercials from the recordings. It took some effort to get it all set up and automated, but I haven't seen a TV commercial in years except when I'm watching the nightly news live.

I use a program called 4K Video Downloader to download my favorite YouTube videos. This avoids the advertisements and lets me watch the videos at my convenience on my TV. I don't even open my web browser, I just copy the link from the email notifications.

I watch movies and some TV shows on Netflix without commercials.

All of my bills are autopay with electronic statements. So I get very little mail in our mailbox. You can reduce most of the remaining junk mail by signing up at: https://www.directmail.com/mail_preference/

You can also contact most catalog mailers and ask to be removed from their mailing lists.

The Do Not Call list will stop most junk phone calls: https://donotcall.gov/

It's impossible to completely eliminate advertisements (they're on buses, billboards, roadside stands, in magazines and newspapers, etc.) but the above steps lets me avoid the vast majority.

 

[Bir48die]

What blows me away is when you buy or stream a series that's been on TV. An hour show is like 42-45 minutes. Like everyone here we steam plus I use the Dish Hopper on prime time shows that cut out commercials.

That being said I'm curious if there are any Marketing people in this forum that were involved in ad buys. How did it work when there were three channels and then transitioned into 220 channels? How do you get your message across that broad of a spectrum plus social media? Do budgets go up or do they all just split up the pie in more pieces?

 

[easysurfer]

I'm a big fan of ad blocking as otherwise like the OP says, the ads are overwhelming.

Use and Ad blocker for web browsing. Ooma for landline phone. A call blocker app for smartphone. DVR to skip past commercials recorded from OTA TV.

The only one that trips me up is browsing on smartphone. Is there a good ad blockers to use? Or if I used a VPN would that block the ads out? Many times articles aren't readable as I try to scroll down the phone gets bombarded with ads so I give up and exit out.

Speaking of ads. I recorded the Country Music Awards show from the other day on my DVR. I wanted a DVD copy but at first try, putting a 3 hr long show on DVD totally made the copy hard to view (too low quality). So, I decided to delete the commercials (my DVR can do that.. cumbersome to do but effective). Deleting the commercials cut down the show from 3 hours to 2. So, that's 1 hour of commercials!

 

[jazz4cash]

we record virtually everything on a DVR and watch it later fast-forwarding thru the commercials. totally agree with you regarding reading almost anything on line. we still subscribe to an actual printed newspaper and watch a local non-network tv channel to keep up. we get very little "news" from online sources and zero from so called social media.

This!!

It’s fascinating how many old reruns get re-edited to condense 30 min down to 18. They speed up the credits and go to split screen to squeeze in more ads.

 

[W2R]

Nobody has mentioned the "reader view" built into their browser, but I love using the one in Microsoft Chromium Edge. It not only eliminates the ads, but also eliminates the popups, jumping up and down, automatically starting videos, and so on, that make some sites difficult to read. And all with the click of a button. I think most browsers include this feature these days. I first read about it here on this forum.

It amazes me that some people do not use the "mute" button on their televisions. I don't watch much TV, but on the rare occasion when I do, I mute all commercials and try to look away until they are done.

My email server makes it easy to delete spam before opening it. Usually I can tell just from the title of an email whether or not it is spam.

To me, the worst is snail mail advertising. Almost (but not quite) all of my snail mail is advertising junk. So, I take all of it to the kitchen and toss it, one by one, into the trash. Sometimes there is an actual letter in there or else I'd throw it all in the trash. When I think of all the trees that were used in making my snail mail trash, it's just pitiful even if the trees were grown for that purpose. At least email ads don't kill trees.

I hang up on junk phone calls, and the advent of robocalls makes that even easier to do because as soon as I hear a robotic voice, I hang up (even without knowing what the voice is going to urge me to buy).

I am 71 years old and I have never once bought one single thing that came to my attention due to an ad. Nor have ads influenced my desires or opinions of products. So all of this effort has been futile in my case and probably in everybody's case these days. I am amazed that companies are still throwing their money away on these stupid advertising campaigns.

 

[Chuckanut]

I often use the record button on my Tivo to start recording a show and I delay watching the recording for about 15-20 minutes so I can FF through the commercials. Also, for some prime-time shows Tivo has a 'Skip' option that allows pushing one button and skipping all but a few seconds of the commercials. Very nice.

What I really don't like is when a movie on TV starts with 20+ minutes of uninterrupted movie, and then the remainder of the movie tries to make up for this by squeezing in commercials every few minutes. Worse, is when they repeat the same commercial over and over and over again (One reason I dropped Hulu years ago).

I have noticed that some shows are telling us the length of the commercial break such as "That was Them will return in one minute". Perhaps that is a way to get us to endure watching the commercials if they are short breaks instead of 3-5 minutes of ongoing boredom.

+1 on Reader View for articles that are online.