What ****ing genius thought it would be a good idea to have commercial breaks in the middle of on-demand programs?!? Hello! There's a reason I don't watch live TV (aside from sports) - I don't like commercials. I either record and fast forward through em, or I watch my programs via on-demand, both movies and tv series.

I had gotten somewhat used to the single commercial break in the middle of the tv programs, but last night I plunked myself down to watch a movie, and the friggin thing had a commercial break every 15 minutes, and worse, they cut parts out of the movie to make it fit a certain total time length. Look, you monkey ****-eating assholes, cutting parts out of movies so you can tell me about viagra (for the 6th time) doesn't make me want to go out and buy viagra. It makes me want to find a rifle and snipe your dumb ass. I've got no problem if you cut parts out of stuff that has to fit into actual programming slots. I get it. Time is a constraint there. But there's no ****ing time constraint for on-demand. None. There's no ****ing reason to chop parts out of a movie to make something be a certain length, especially when you added to the length by throwing commercials in!

****ers. I hope you catch swine flu, with a side case of ebola and melt.

because making money is bad.

If it was On Demand and it had commercials in it, I would ask for my money back.

That's ****ing ********.

Yeah, from OnDemand, that's crap. You paid for it already, it's not like they NEED the advertising dollars on top of that.

I personally don't understand the hate for commercials that some people have. It's either live with the model we have now or producers, and advertisers will come up with something worse that you won't be able to ignore. You think product placement is bad now just wait until advertising revenue drops to a point a won't cover production costs.

And I don't ever want to hear someone who hates commercials bitch about crappy TV, and reality TV. Without add revenue they will just keep on making cheaper and cheaper shows.

Screw that. I'm entitled to free entertainment. In fact, I want the actors to come into my living room and put on a live performance for me, whenever I want. For free.

It's not about wanting "free" entertainment. It was from the On Demand service, you know, that whole PPV thing. Do you really want commercials in the middle of a movie at a theater instead of just the beginning (as if that isn't ****ing annoying enough)? It's the same thing.

I can understand how it would be annoying to have them in an On Demand showing, but I also doubt that the $4.95 you pay for the On Demand show brings in the same amount of money as 16 minutes of commercials.

Get over yourself, you're not so important that 60 seconds is going to ruin your life and everyone's around you.

There was also the complaint that they edited the movie for time, because of those commercials - like they do on regular, non-PVP channels. That would make me cancel my OnDemand service right then and there.

Just because you like getting ****ed for paying for a product doesn't mean we do. You paid that $4.95 (or whatever) on top of the revenue they already got for their commercials on the normal channels. Doing PPV is NOT the same as programming over the air or on a normal access plan, and should not follow the same model just because they can, or we aren't important enough to deserve better.

If you can't see the parallels between the movie theater comment, well, I don't know what to say. Why don't you suggest they start having commercials every 8 minutes at a movie to help bring in more revenue because Lord knows they don't make enough money. I'm sure you would "get over it" too.

I swear, people aren't allowed to dissent against anything any more. Don't like it? Bring your own lube when you get ****ed.

The movie part I agree with 100% because I don't see viewing an On Demand movie any differently than renting a DVD. I could understand a commercial or two before the movie starts, but anything over that is too much. And if an OnDemand movie I paid for and edited I agree I probably wouldn't stick with that service, The Red Box, and Netflix would get my business.

I wouldn't be happy with commercials during a movie in a theater either, because the theaters already have plenty of ways to create revenue. On the other hand if you don't think there are already commercials in the middle of movies you're not paying attention. They even managed to stick a Pepsi add in the middle of Enemy Mine, a freaking movie about two warring species crash landed a desert freaking plantet.

My first post was about not understanding why people hate commercial so much. They are a neccesary evil, and we will be advertised to one way or another. I prefer the little 30 second blocks we have now to something more nefarious, and unavoidable, and you can almost garuntee that advertisers are working on those right now.

But they didn't stop Enemy Mine (which I have seen several times) for any length of time to do a Pepsi commercial. It's not the same. Product placement is a totally different beast.

As to commercial hate, I wasn't trying to convey I hate ALL commercials. I know they are a necessary evil. But commercials in the middle of a PPV/Movie that you pay extra? No way.

Product placement is still an advertisement for a product, and a much more sneaky one at that.

And I'm not arguing the point about commercials in the middle of a PPV movie. Like I said I don't view PPV any differently than a rented DVD. Like I said if I paid for a PPV movie and it was stopped for commercial interuptions it would be the last PPV movie I got. That's the real way to fix the problem. Call your TV provider and inform them that when your contract is up you will be switching to a provider that gives you what you feel you're paying for.

*nod* Like I said though, product placement doesn't usually affect the flow of a movie so it doesn't bother me. In fact, I am to the point where I just filter it out. Excuse me for a minute while I go get a Pepsi and check my e-mail on the latest cell phone.

I also understand about switching providers. It doesn't stop my desire to bitch about it.

I fully understand the need for commercials, as a way for the people who put all those nice programs on tv to make money. I really do. But, since I personally don't like commercials at all, I have already made the choice to not watch very much regular TV. Plus, I'm a night owl, I watch most of my TV between the hours of midnight at 6 AM. Lord, the late night commercials are even dumber then the ones during regular hours... eXtenze anyone?!?!?!? /facepalm

My issue was with the movie I ordered having commercials plus the double '****-you Sincro' whammy of portions of the movie cut out to fit a time constraint. That's ********.

As for switching providers, that ain't an option. If I want cable TV, my choices are: Comcast. And, Comcast. The location of our house prevents a DirectTV signal for some reason, and there are no other competitors for cable TV in my area.

So, my options for protest are: A) Stop watching cable TV altogether. B) Stop ordering On-Demand and renting movies from somewhere. I'm going with option B. Doesn't mean I hafta like it.

Well, if I rented a dvd and they decided that say the Joker's little speech to Batman wasn't worthy of staying in the dvd, nor the car chase because they had to put in a commercial for viagra I'd go back to the video rental and demand my money back and not leave until they gave it back, also someone would get exposed to a lot of new interesting words and phrases. There's limits to how much ******** you can force on a customer, and generally not giving them what they were under the impression they were buying (such as the complete film) is not a way to keep said customers.

Oh, and until 6 years ago or so we didn't have commercial breaks during shows here. It was considered extremely rude to interrupt a show for commercials. Everything seemed to work just fine despite that. So don't think the whole system of tv would just collapse automatically if there were no commercial breaks, it would just take some adapting to it. Same way we adapted to having interruptions in shows now (except on the state channel which only interrupts events like award shows that have natural breaks already in with commercial breaks). I still hate it and I still prefer watching shows on dvds, I don't like being taken out of the show. I put up with it if the ads are about the same as the quality of whatever I'm not even halfway watching - reality shows are great for soothing white noise while doing something else like writing, running some numbers or farming in a game - but for stuff that actually interests me it just annoys me.

And I'm not suggesting anyone actually stop bitching, I enjoy doing it myself way too much to suggest that.

I wished the US did it like Germany does it (or used to do it). Uninterrupted TV for each show and then after that show and between the next is where they play(ed) the commercials. AD companies, TV stations, and manufacturers still make their money and John Q. Public doesn't get his show interrupted.

That's exactly how it used to be here. Was very nice and still is on the one channel that still does things that way, which remains my favorite channel and the one where I'll actually watch stuff rather than just leave the white noise on.

Wouldn't work here because advertisers would probably argue there is no proof that there are butts in seats while their commercial airs. Where as placed in the middle of a show, you can probably count on a certain percentage of people staying put and watching the adds even if they ignore them. But with a 16 minute block between one hour long show and the next you can bet a large portion of people are going to get up and go do other things in that time.

Like Germany used to do it 10-15 years ago. Only a handful of stations (the state owned ones) do that, and even then only during prime time.

All the private stations (~90-95%) do TONS of add breaks. Like one break of 5 mins ever 20 mins of the movie.

That's gay Sinc. Seems they should put the commercials before the feature begins, like they do in theaters (right before the previews)

Cutting out content of a program you paid for = extra gay.

You have to pay for OnDemand? I get free OnDemand for like, half my channels. If I had HBO I'd get all of that stuff free too, but I don't.

I can OnDemand a ton of stuff, at any time, with no cost. There's specific PPV channels but that is like, Movies or Sporting events (or Wrestling, which is sort of a sporting event, heh).

I don't bother with any of it, though, as I have other ways of getting shows I want to watch that I missed. I've always thought about making a DVR or getting it from the cable company... but the other way is just as fast and there's NO commercials, ever. <shrugs>

I don't know about other cable providers but for Cablevision (northeastern US) they have all sorts of different on demand. They have FreeOD which has older movies and you can watch, obviously for free, whenever. Then there are premium channel on demand (HBO, CMAX, SHO). Those cost $5 a month. They have newer movies and also channel specific shows (Weeds, Dexter, etc). Then there's HD OnDemand. Not sure what the monthly cost is (or even if they have it) but to watch an individual movie which you have unlimited viewing for 24hrs costs $5-$7 per movie.

I've never heard of any of the cable companies giving you OD for free - at least not the ones around here - Cablevision, Time Warner, and RCN i believe.

Comcast ondemand stopped carrying Top Gear.

Asshats.

That's the only way I ever got to watch it!

People are willing to pay for good entertainment.

I'm convinced that big media wants to make you hate their delivery channels, just so they have a scapegoat for declining revenues when you go and get it on "the internets"

Example: Cut on-demand to 24 hours, but disable fast forward on on demand - What? I can't fast forward to the part of the show I stopped at yesterday? Asshats.

Look at Hulu. I watch most of my television on either Hulu or my Tivo now. Guess which service gets me to watch commercials? Hulu, with one commercial at a time. Five minutes of commercials? Thank you 20x FF.

Even if I'm home and remember to watch a show when it's on I will do something else and watch it on hulu the next day. That is 10-15min of commercials I don't have to sit through while having pause/ff/rw.
I won't pay attention to tv commercials... they are so long you can go do something till they are over. Hulu you can not, you sit and watch it it's only 10-30sec.

The only time Ive used my on demand was when I watched The Blob (80s version) on FearNet HD apart from just testing it with something else the day I got the cable hooked up. It had a few commercials in it, but not like how you described. They were all just trailers for some upcoming horror movie in theatres. I kinda kick myself for not watching Silent Hill while it was on there, didn't get around to it since I had just recently watched it again on my computer even though I know my TV would be out that experience. I need to check and see if Martyrs is still available, and if it is, if it is subbed.

speaking of commercials the mcdonalds one where they add the accented e onto the end of everything is ****ing stupid.

Also, I just saw one today for Miller Lite touting the air-sealed protection of the caps on their bottles to keep air from tainting the beer before you open it. How dumb do they think people are? The only way for carbonation to build up inside the bottle is to make it air tight.

It's American beer it's already tainted.

Probably exactly as dumb as people actually are....