Pet Peeve #2

Take a good look at the image below. This is the future of broadcast and cable TV. Actually, it's pretty much the present. I made this illustration in Photoshop, but the more I tried to exaggerate the assemblage, the more true-to-life it became.



As if it weren't bad enough that the ratio of editorial/advertising has changed so dramatically over the years, TV commercials are now invading the shows themselves, overlapping and elbowing their way onto the screen when they're not supposed to be there. Network greedheads are actually allowing their viewers to suffer the ultimate distraction: logos, pop-up ads for other shows and bottom-screen crawls that tear our eyes away from the dramatic, unfolding action of their own series. Are there any viewers out there who actually don't mind this bullshit?

I can't finish this diatribe without complaining about the state of affairs at the movie theater. You plunk down $10 per ticket, plus another $8 for popcorn and a soda...and then you're forced to watch 15 minutes of TV commercials before they even get to the 15 minutes of movie trailers. Even worse are the anti-piracy ads that feature a stunt man who pleads with us not to download movies over the internet because it's killing the industry as well as his livelihood—after all, he puts his very LIFE on the line for movies. Hey, pal! Why the hell are you bitching to ME? I PAID TO GET IN HERE! The people in this movie house are not the problem. The real culprits are home, watching the bootlegs! These ads make me want to get up, go home, and download movies out of spite.

What recourse do we have? How long before they start interrupting feature films with commercials?