Commercials Commercials

On the fridge, our landlady stuck a small note which reads, "Do not allow television to steal your brain."

...

I don't like to watch movie on the television because there are simply too many commercials breaks. They disrupt the show and prolonged the viewing time unnecessarily. Thus, my wife and I often watch DVDs which we loaned from the library. The other day, I was intriqued to note a tv network promoting its movie night by promising “limited interruptions and commercials”!

I read that the average American is exposed to 1,000 television commercials a week. By the time he is 18, the typical American child has sat goggle-eye through no fewer than 350,000 television adverts. Below is an interesting and comical extract from Bill Bryson:

“The problem with American commercials is that they are simply so constant. Most channels have a commercial break about every 5 or 6 minutes. CNN, as far as I can tell, has nothing but commercial breaks. It occurred to me that this is rather a sweeping statement, so I have just taken a half-hour, at no extra cost to you, to monitor a typical CNN programme, and here are my findings.

In a single 30-minute period, CNN interrupted its programme 5 times to show 20 commercials. Altogether it showed 10 minutes of commercials in a 30-minute slot. Apart from a 7-minute span at the start of the programme, the longest period without commercials was 4 minutes and 59 seconds. The shortest interval between commercials was 2 minutes. For the benefit of people who suffered a serious brain injury during the programme, 3 of the commercials were repeated.

This, I hasten to add, is completely typical. Last night, one of the networks showed the movie The Fugitive, and I did a similar exercise. In order to watch about 100 minutes of movie, it was necessary to sit through almost 50 minutes of commercials, spread over about 20 interruptions. (One every 7 minutes, on average.)”

In short, commercials are inescapable in the US – not just at home. Talking about commercials, Penn State University inked a unique 10-year contract with Pepsi in 1992. For US$14 million, Pepsi became the official beverage of Penn State. With the exclusive deal, Pepsi got its arch-rival Coca-Cola banished from the campus. Thus, you will not be able to find coke in any of the cafeterias in the campus. This deal started a trend in other universities where the two giants, Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola, fight for exclusive rights to sell soda in the campuses. This may be one way the universities in Singapore could raise monies for bursaries and scholarships. But imagine not having Coke in the campus!

...

:) If you are imaginative enough, you can also find commercials in the Bible! For example, if you pronounce "Habakkuk" (a book in the old testament) quickly, it sounds like "How about coke?"

...

Source: Bill Bryson, Notes from a Big Country