#31: Loud TV Commercials

WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH TV COMMERCIALS BEING SO LOUD?

I'm sick and tired of having to ride the volume button between my favorite shows and the commercial breaks. Some networks/stations are worse than others. UPN is absolutely terrible about it. As is Comedy Central. Thank God for DVR's...now I can skip past the annoying attempts at TRYING TO SELL ME SOMETHING BY SHOUTING AT ME FOR 30 SECONDS STRAIGHT!

Monday night is one of my favorite television-watching nights. CBS has a string of great comedies: Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men and New Adventures of Old Christine. Good stuff...and perfect placement by the network. I'm usually in dire need of a few good laughs after a Monday at work!

BUT THEN COME THE COMMERCIAL BREAKS!

HOLY COW!

Let's be honest: I know advertisers try to bump their audio up to get your attention. But this is frickin' 2008. Why don't we have a device that regulates audio coming into our television sets. (Do they still call them "sets"...geez, I'm a geezer.) And if you figure out how to make all the audio the same level--across the board--could someone please teach the people at iPod that too? It's impossible to get all of your songs to play at the same level on that device too. But I'm getting off-track here.

LOUD TV COMMERCIALS: YOU SUCK!

#19: Banner Ads on TV

So I'm watching one of my favorite TV shows the other night, when all of the sudden this image of a ball of fire bursts into the bottom right corner. Then, through the fire comes barrelling a sports car, spinning out and cutting donuts across the bottom third of the screen.

"What the...?"

Then up pops the text telling me that this is a promo for some movie that's coming up next. Are you kidding me? I already have to deal with commercial breaks when I watch my program, but now I have to deal with commercials IN the program? C'mon! These things are terribly distracting. By the time the stupid explosions and spinouts were done, I realized I missed what the actors were saying.

"What? What did I miss? What did he say?" UGH!

Let's be honest: I know advertising is how the networks make their money. And it's only a matter of time before we see these banner ads promoting products and not just other programs. Imagine, you're watching the season finale of LOST, when all of the sudden jungle leaves show up on the bottom of the screen...and they start to spread apart to show the new 4-door Jeep Wrangler tearing it up across the grassy hillsides. The text reads: "Jack could get across the island a lot quicker with a new Jeep Wrangler Unlimited" Starting at $21,600. As shown: $31,250. Ha! (Maybe I should go into advertising, no?)
Seriously...Commercial breaks are already ridiculously long. We don't need the added distractions to our shows. Take 'em away!

Banner Ads on TV: You Suck.