This is going to be a rant, so please prepare.
I’ve recently been lucky enough to travel to the USA for an amazing 2 weeks in Florida. We did the parks, the beach, the food (not AS big as we thought), it truly was a great holiday, so much fun. However something did shock and annoy me throughout the 2 weeks.
At the end of a long day in the parks we’d get home and put the TV on. Once we’d figured out what channels weren’t just crazy news stories or canned laughter filled sitcoms and settled on something to watch, it was ruined by the number of adverts, sorry commercials. Unlike the UK where you know that an advert will come every 15 minutes, meaning you can time your tea and biscuit breaks accordingly, the US have adverts every few minutes, for varying lengths of time, so there never is that chance to get up for a wee just in case you miss your show.
Take The Big Bang Theory. My whole family, including the grandparents, love this show and we watch it most evenings. We know that 10 minutes in there will be an advert, however watching on holiday was a whole new experience. With breaks 2 minutes after it started, then another 10 minutes in, it was bizarre. The most bizarre though has to be the break it has right at the end. Why go to adverts only to come back for 1 minutes worth of show; which I may add is in a small box on the corner of the screen as the next show is starting too!
This constant attack of adverts also has an effect on how long a show will last. Due to jet lag we woke up quite early so switched a film on. This would normally be a 2 hour film, but watching with all the adverts made it last over 3 hours! Safe to say we didn’t watch it all.
With my rant over I shall be gracing you with some further findings from my trip later in the week. I shall try and make it less rant-y