
Cable networks are speeding up TV shows to cram in ads - prostoalex
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cable-networks-are-speeding-up-tv-shows-to-cram-in-ads/
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taneq
I'm still boggled by the fact that people pay for cable TV service and then
accept ads at all, let alone ads at the cost of messing with the actual
content.

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michaelt
If you imagine you escape ads when you pay for content, you're going to be
disappointed. Even Netflix does paid product placement in 74% of its original
series [1]

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hulu-netflix-
driving-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hulu-netflix-driving-
product-placement-deals-2018-6?IR=T)

~~~
oblio
That's different. It's waaaay less disruptive to see a Toyota logo in the
background than to stop the whole show for 5 minutes or show those awful pop-
over ads.

~~~
gaius
There’s an episode of CSI Miami where someone says let’s have a video
conference and someone else asks but is it secure and Horatio looks right at
the camera and says of course it’s secure, it’s Cisco.

~~~
dave7
My favourite is CSI New York - "I'll create a GUI Interface using Visual
Basic, see if I can track an IP address"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU)

~~~
genericid
Do you think that was product placement?

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lower
Here in the EU (edit: at least in Germany), TV stations sometimes _slow down_
their shows to cram in more ads. There are rules that there may be only one
block of ads in a show of up to 45 minutes, two blocks in a show of up to 90
minutes, and three blocks in a show of up to 110 minutes. So, if the content
is just under 90 minutes or so, stations will stretch it slightly, so that it
comes above the limit.

~~~
Aaargh20318
Not sure if it’s a EU wide rule though. IIRC the rule in my country is just a
maximum of 12 minutes per hour.

~~~
genericid
Chapter VII of the Audiovidual Media Services Directive [2010/13/EU] sets
rules on "television advertising and teleshopping". Maybe member states can
set stricter limits.

[2010/13/EU] [http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...](http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:095:0001:0024:en:PDF)

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marmot777
Since I 100% stopped watching regular TV, watching shows on netflix, etc., so
that even a few minutes of regular TV drives me crazy. It's the frenetic ads,
the toxicity of many of the shows, and god knows what else that's crazy
making. Now I know that it's actually sped up. How could that not affect
someone's mental health in some way even a subtle way?

~~~
0xcafecafe
Same here. In addition I can't stand the wild swings in volume. Baby sleeping
in the other room so you set it to the lowest volume possible where you can
hear. When it breaks into a commercial, the volume seems to increase by 50%

~~~
icebraining
If you're in the US, that's now illegal, and you can file a complaint:
[https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/loud-
commercials](https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/loud-commercials)

Other countries have similar rules, complain to your regulator!

~~~
0xcafecafe
I am in the US. However, I read somewhere that the ads are allowed to be at
the level of the maximum volume in the program, which sort of muddies the
waters.

~~~
LeftTurnSignal
I also think they're encoded very very poorly, compared to normal shows, which
can have some nasty volume spikes.

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scarface74
Besides sports, I don’t see why anyone watches live TV on a schedule in 2018
when both a DVR and on demand is a thing - even if you do have a cable
subscription or an OTA service like Sling and DirecTV.

If I recall correctly from my time having Comcast, they don’t show commercials
when you watch on demand after three days. I think it has something to do with
ratings only count live + 3 days.

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bittermang
TBS has been doing this for YEARS. They use every trick in the book, but
messing with the timing of episodes is the most jarring. And frankly, ruins a
lot of shows, comedy is all about timing after all.

~~~
scarface74
It was even worse “Turner Time”, where they would start and end all shows 5
minutes pass the hour to make you miss the first 5 minutes of a show on
another network to convince you to keep watching.

[https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1626/why-do-
wtbs-s...](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1626/why-do-wtbs-shows-
start-at-05-and/)

~~~
bittermang
Comedy Central is doing a similar but different thing. They're adding more
commercials to a commercial break, so now a 30 minute block is like 34
minutes, creating a weird stagger in the schedule. MTV does this too, but they
play catch up on the occasional episode by cutting out the intro completely,
and their schedule stays on the half hour. Both are Viacom networks.

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jyriand
Probably that's why soccer is not popular in US. You can't interrupt soccer
game for an ad. That's not the case with NFL, where you see an ad every time
players stop playing.

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a_f
From my experience the US broadcasts of soccer do have a ad popover the
playing game on some games; often over or in addition to the scoreboard. It is
much like an animated banner that you would get on a website. It does not
cover the entire screen; but it is still intrusive. Of course there is still
exposure to the stadium side banners, and shirt sponsors as with all soccer
games.

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prestonpesek
If they are this desperate, prepare for net neutrality to become more
important. I’ve already started to experience delays in streaming speeds and
reliability. Please call or write to your representative and express concern
that your internet service provider has a clear incentive to inhibit the free
flow of information to your home, and that you are deeply concerned about
this.

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massysett
[2015]

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imgabe
Is anyone still watching network/cable TV?

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smelendez
Yes. And they are disproportionately heavy video consumers with indifference
to how many ads they see.

~~~
smegger001
Or is the TV just left on while no one watches? I know I have been to
relatives with Cable/Satalite and it gets left on all the time even if no one
is watching. Netlfix Hulu Amazon (usually) eventually check to make sure you
are still there to save bandwitdth/licening fees. Weirdly some shows on
netflix don't seems to ask too play next episode having woken up 8 hours
latter and a season or so farther than I was before.

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kj4ips
Does this mean that the networks are creating derivative works of the content
they licensed, and then airing that? Especially if they are cutting out
opening titles.

Overlays and EAS have usually been acceptable, and composing the end titles
with something else is a longstanding practice, but it doesn't actually modify
the content directly.

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chrisper
So happy to live in a country where downloading TV shows from the web is
legal.

No more annoying ads and restrictions.

~~~
dmortin
Is uploading legal too? Because downloading is legal in other EU contries too,
but uploading is not, so you can't use torrent to download, because that
uploads too.

So if uploading is not legal then you can't use torrent.

~~~
chrisper
Yeah. Uploading is not legal. That's why I use Usenet!

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qrbLPHiKpiux
Comparison video blocked, copywrite claim. Disagree. It’s fair use
demonstrating allegations.

~~~
Senderman
With automated processes for copyright claims becoming so common, fair use is
really getting trampled on.

~~~
icebraining
Unfortunately fair use is merely a defence, not a right.

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marsrover
This is pretty user hostile. Glad I don’t have cable anymore.

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mrfusion
This is how the death spiral starts for cable.

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ssttoo
Well, isn’t that a standard practice in radio? The songs are a tad shorter
and, as a result, a bit pitched up. Part of it is about ads, but mostly it’s
about increasing the chance of you liking what you hear (more songs means
maybe you’ll like one, at least) and not changing the station. If we can fit
11 songs in the space of 10, that’s a wider net.

Why wouldn’t TV follow suit?

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usrusr
No need to speed up music, just fade it out early. Pop music has evolved to be
structured in a way that not much will be lost, survival and success of the
most radio-friendly. Few songs break that rule and those that do are either
deliberately short or way too elaborate for radio anyways.

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ddtaylor
What percentage do they speed it up?

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Jaruzel
Up to 9.0% now apparently.

Working link to the Seinfeld example on YouTube:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6i1VVikRu0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6i1VVikRu0)

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kokey
Read all about it on a news web site that confine the text to part of the page
in order to cram in ads.

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rutthenut
2015, not new news

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tjoener
Reminds me the first time I watched a european version of lost. Being used to
the show so much, I noticed the pitch of the intro sound was different. Then I
realized PAL is 25fps vs NTSCs 23.976. I was surprised I could hear the
difference at all

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radiowave
It was probably shot on film at 24fps, then a 3:2 frame sequence is applied to
convert to 30fps, which is then slowed down to 29.97. This slowdown (known as
a "pulldown" in the jargon) causes the drop in pitch of the audio.

(Sometimes things _are_ actually shot at 23.976, so that they can be sequenced
straight into 29.97 without needing the pulldown, but I'm not sure how common
this is).

The other thing is that when converting to PAL, you have two choices - either
apply a very complicated frame squence that I've long since forgotten all the
details of, or just speed up the footage from 24fps (or 23.976) to 25fps,
causing a raise in pitch.

So it's quite possible that neither of the versions you watched were actually
at true speed or pitch - the NTSC version could have been slow and the PAL
version could have been fast.

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smelendez
I'm sure ads are the primary reason, but 2018 audiences do expect faster paced
shows. There's a reason the lede refers to Seinfeld getting funnier.

Jokes that were cutting edge 20-30 years ago need less introduction now. The
easiest way to cut that unnecessary intro is just to speed up the show.

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close04
I read "sounds funnier" as _funny-strange_ not _funny-haha_. :)

Another common practice years ago was simply to cut parts of a movie. They'd
go to commercials and come back skipping a few scenes.

