Just look at the overall view of television. You have the end credit crunch which I don't like. You have off the clock programming which I don't like.Which leads to more commercials which I don't like. Plus if your watching a network for a long period of time they show the same commercials over and over again. The commercials happen sometimes when a person is speaking and it's very annoying. Then you have pop up ads during shows which is annoying. Some of them take up a quarter of the screen. And now the two new things. Having a Countdown to Christmas starting Oct. 23 on two channels which is way too early and overexposed. And the other new thing is Apple TV showing The Peanuts special instead of being on Free TV.

So, when will this all end? I mean ViacomCBS is lousy. You have Paramount Network becoming yet another movie channel with tv movies. I mean haven't we seen enough of those channels. Ex. of those channels would be UP and The Hallmark Channel.

I guess the real reason I'm posting this is because there is no way that Hallmark Channel should have 24/7 Christmas movie channel for over 2 months. Not to mention it's on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries as well.

Man, I'll tell you what. I've been on Wikipedia looking up old shows and wrote some shows down, shows that I put on a classic network. Because that's what it's coming too. Putting up a mock tv schedule because tv is so lousy. I plan on getting the mock tv schedule up soon.

But, back to my original point, when is enough,enough??

There are actually three channels with non stop Christmas movies starting Friday. Lifetime is doing the same thing.

I don't know what to say. It all boils down to money, doesn't it?

I don't have the answer. I think the state of television(almost every single thing about it) has been absolutely terrible for quite some time now, so I don't see it really improving. About the only thing that could fix the problems of excessive advertising and so on is to regulate advertising again, ban screen clutter and so on, which would be great but I would be very surprised if it happened. And even that won't solve the other problems. TV has become like an old fashioned tangled telephone cord. Instead of trying to fix it, you may as well just throw it out.

I agree! How long has nick@niTe & TVLAND kept the same schedule?

The commercials are so bad on any network and streaming device.The commercials sometimes were just as good as the show.

Look at ABC the sitcoms just returned and there going to be preempted already for Country Music Awards. Than there going to be preempted for the Holidays. Than it will be Summer again than on a Hiatus. What is it maybe 10 episodes a year?

Whatever happened to Family time on ABC, NBC, CBS?

Enough is Enough.

By the way how come hardly anyone complains about what a sewer TV has become. People just seem to just take it and put up with it. Afterall, back in the day America used to have one of the best systems of TV in the world, now look at it.

Look at the large number of channels Discovery Networks has gobbled up. Probably their highest rated one is HGTV, which has the screen littered with all sorts of pop up ads. Some are there constantly, others pop up frequently.

Since the audience is so fragmented, they buy up various existing channels with different content, and they're probably happy if the combined rating of all of them shows success.

There are actually three channels with non stop Christmas movies starting Friday. Lifetime is doing the same thing.

Who on earth wants to watch Christmas movies more than a week before Halloween? :eek:

Look at the large number of channels Discovery Networks has gobbled up. Probably their highest rated one is HGTV, which has the screen littered with all sorts of pop up ads. Some are there constantly, others pop up frequently.

Since the audience is so fragmented, they buy up various existing channels with different content, and they're probably happy if the combined rating of all of them shows success.
On a related note. It must take something like 1 thousand commercials to reach the audience that just 1 commercial did back in TVs heyday. I no longer watch commercials but I know certain companies saturate many TV channels with the same commercials over and over again. Frankly I don't understand why anyone would advertise on TV anymore. However considering that for the most part the sleazy companies and outfits that do, it is good to see them throwing their money away.

That's why I'm thinking about putting a mock schedule together. If I had a tv network, I'd have multiple channels like a ViacomCBS although mine would be much better. No credit crunches and a pay service like a Hulu or Amazon Prime where you could watch old shows with the original commericals.

I mentioned this before but I'll repeat it. Honestly we all were so much better off back in the days when there were only the 3 big networks, PBS and a few local channels. I don't remember anyone ever complaining about TV back then.

I agree, and there was nothing really wrong (IMO) WAY back when the sponsors actually owned the shows, and contracted the production to a studio. The commercials were way better than now (although still making outlandish claims), and the breaks were 30 or 60 seconds only. The ads were mostly for normal products we buy at the grocery store--now, on many channels we get junk lawyer ads and appeals for money from dubious "charities."

When I look at this from a Swedish perspective, I'm so glad that we have no commercial breaks on SVT.
That's the public service network, that gets all of its fundings from the government.
However, TV4 is the only commercial channel with any chance of competing with SVT's number of viewers.
But SVT is also obligated to broadcast some TV shows with very small followings.
Which is for example news in minority langages like Finnish and Sámi and Sign Language.
Also, there will be a broadcasts from a church service on every Sunday and (I think) religious holidays.
These days, they will even acknowledge some non-Christian holidays like Yom Kippur and Eid-al-Fitr.
Commercial networks are free to ignore minority groups and focus on the smallest common denominator.
But they also have to rely on being funded by commercials and still are the underdogs compared to SVT.

Furienna, if I were in Sweden these days I would feel the same way. Or for that matter if I were in the UK for example I would be happy there is the BBC. And as I understand it even your commercial channels still have a fraction of the amount of ads that American channels have these days.

How many networks are still independent and not part of some entertainment conglomerate?

Just look at the overall view of television. You have the end credit crunch which I don't like. You have off the clock programming which I don't like.Which leads to more commercials which I don't like. Plus if your watching a network for a long period of time they show the same commercials over and over again. The commercials happen sometimes when a person is speaking and it's very annoying. Then you have pop up ads during shows which is annoying. Some of them take up a quarter of the screen. And now the two new things. Having a Countdown to Christmas starting Oct. 23 on two channels which is way too early and overexposed. And the other new thing is Apple TV showing The Peanuts special instead of being on Free TV.

So, when will this all end? I mean ViacomCBS is lousy. You have Paramount Network becoming yet another movie channel with tv movies. I mean haven't we seen enough of those channels. Ex. of those channels would be UP and The Hallmark Channel.


But, back to my original point, when is enough,enough??

Man, I'll tell ya...I AGREE WITH YOU 100%! And the ads all seem to be for garbage I'm never gonna buy, anyway.

I suspect that part of it is they are having to give advertisers lower rates per ad, so they have to squeeze more ads into each hour to make up the difference.

I also hate it the way they are cycling the same movies through one network after another, such as the "Bourne" epochs.....this week on AMC, next week on BBC, week after that its on FX, and then a week later it's "A NETWORK PREMIER ON USA NETWORK for the very first time, the Bourne series!!!"
There seems to be about a dozen film series like this that just keep following one another through the loops, and it's getting sickening.

The Bournes, Matrixs, Avatar, The Expendables, John Wicks, Fast & Furious I, II, III, Dwayne Johnson's thrillaramas, the Jurassic universe,..etc

How many times do they think we need to see these before we drown in our own vomit?

I would like to say though with TVLand running 2 hours of Andy Griffith in the morning, my local indie station having another 2 episodes starting at noon, 4 more hours on TVLand starting at 4 PM until 8. And then MeTv having another 2 episodes staring at 8 PM.....that's feeling about right.

Although I start to get feelings of withdrawl over the weekends.....maybe I'll buy some DVDs?

Get Pluto. It's free, and loaded with channels that offer older sitcoms from the 50s all the way up to the 2000s. There's also movies and an on-demand library.

While there's no credit crunches or pop-ups, the commercial timing gets a little weird and the ads are repetitive, but it's worth it.

Perfect example of what I'm talking about. I was watching Happy Days on Hallmark Drama and speed up the closing credits. You mean to tell me they couldn't spare 30 seconds or whatever to show the closing credits in full?

Man, I'll tell ya...I AGREE WITH YOU 100%! And the ads all seem to be for garbage I'm never gonna buy, anyway.

I suspect that part of it is they are having to give advertisers lower rates per ad, so they have to squeeze more ads into each hour to make up the difference.

I also hate it the way they are cycling the same movies through one network after another, such as the "Bourne" epochs.....this week on AMC, next week on BBC, week after that its on FX, and then a week later it's "A NETWORK PREMIER ON USA NETWORK for the very first time, the Bourne series!!!"
There seems to be about a dozen film series like this that just keep following one another through the loops, and it's getting sickening.

The Bournes, Matrixs, Avatar, The Expendables, John Wicks, Fast & Furious I, II, III, Dwayne Johnson's thrillaramas, the Jurassic universe,..etc

How many times do they think we need to see these before we drown in our own vomit?

Or how about when they say "This movie is edited for time."Why? If the movie is playing on a channel why can't you show the whole movie. You dictate your schedule. You don't have schedule something when the movie is 2hrs. Say, for example, a movie, uncut, is an hour and 45 mins. You'll then see the movie in a two hour window which means they have to edit scenes out. Instead of a two hour window, why not show it in a two and a half hour window or a three hour window?

Not only that but what about the fact that they edit swearing in the movie when there channel shows more swearing than anything else. Ex., MTV, MTV2 etc. They can show a show with lots of swearing and no editing is done. Yet they can show a movie and edit the hell of it.

Well the way I think I understand that, if a movie is originally 115 minutes long, and they want to put it in a 2 1/2 hour window (150 minutes) ....their first priority will be to assure their "20 minutes per hour" advertising slots.

So, you take the 2 1/2 hour window X 20 minutes per hour = 50 minutes

150 minutes - 50 minutes = 100 minutes actual movie broadcast slot

115 minutes original movie run time - 100 minute available window = 15 "inconsequential" minutes of the movie are "edited out to conform to the available time format"

I think that at a very minimum, the stated run time in the program guides ought to conform to the actual time consumed by the material presented, exclusive of ads.

But it doesn't,... the time stated in the program guide is what the official run time of the movie is, before the hacksters start pruning "inconsequential" segments out to make rook for more adds

How many networks are still independent and not part of some entertainment conglomerate?

I have no idea if they have been keeping this up to date, but it should give some idea:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_pay_television_channels

A lot of shows are now putting the credits at the front of the show to avoid crunching.

I think TV is better now than it has ever been in the past. There is so much content. For $10-12.00 a month. you can subscribe to a streaming channel without commercials and no contract. A lot of people just switch between channels each month - Hulu one month, Netflix the next, etc.

I'll never in a million years go back to cable. Why pay $50+ a month when with an antenna for local stations and 12.00 for a streaming channel I can have all the commercial-free content I want without a contract?

How anyone can watch Antenna TV is beyond me with all the endless commercials.

Also, a lot of shows would have been lost forever and never seen again without streaming channels.

Nick, Nicktoons, TeenNick, and even NickRewind no longer use not so split screen credits (except for few on occassion but that might be small error). Nick@Nite is the only one that STILL currently use not so split screen credits that HAS been around since summer 2012 for end credits. Wonder when Nick@Nite will still be in format with other Nick networks? But still it's worse when ViacomCBS networks don't air ending credits tag anymore

Or about this. I'm watching Happy Days the other night and they actually went to commercial right when a person was talking!!! Literally, after a sentence they went to break. What the hell?

Also, you'd think having marathons of your favorite shows would be a good thing and I guess it is depending upon if you like the show. But on the flip side, I could see why it's bad with it being an endless marathon, crunch credits and some shows seem way overexposed. Examples of those shows being overexposed would be Friends, Law and Order, NCIS and CSI just to name a few. Do you guys have any others?

Television has been changing since it began.