Lost: Whored out to Corporate America

Has anyone noticed that the third season of Lost has an OBSCENE amount of commercial breaks? I first noticed it during the season premier, but wrote it off as more advertisements because of the hype of the show for the premier episode. But several episodes into the show, and they are still putting a lot more commercial breaks than other shows.

Here is what my TiVo tells me:

For every 10min of the show, there is 6min of actual program, and 4min of commercials.

Add this up. That is only 36min of actual show to watch (the TV standard has pretty much been around 41min-43min). That also adds up to 7 commercial breaks during an hour how they do it. Shows used to have 4 beaks, 5 tops.

Now granted, I have a TiVo so I skip right on through those commercials, but I'm still a little bent out of shape at how many commercials they try to slip into a popular show --- and more to the point --- I'm bent at how much story they cut out as a result of it.

Am I alone here?

Has anyone noticed that the third season of Lost has an OBSCENE amount of commercial breaks?

Click to expand...

I haven't noticed, no ..

My recordings of the episodes are about 41-43 minutes each, so quite normal by US standards. Could it be that it has a bigger slot than usual shows? If not, my guess is that the TiVo is off or taking its data from an especially add padded part of the episode.

All the S3 Lost eps I've watched have been 41ish minutes, with about a minute and a half more for credits at the end.

Perhaps your TiVo is stealing from you, Recoil.

What I dont like however is that episode 6 is going to air the first week of November I think, then there will be no new eps until Feb. At least however when it comes back in Feb they are suppose to show all of them without re-runs.

At least however when it comes back in Feb they are suppose to show all of them without re-runs.

Click to expand...

That's the whole idea. Rather than alternating blocks of new eps and reruns (to preserve the first-run episodes for ratings sweeps periods) the show started "late" and will run in two continuous blocks separated by a couple of months during the traditional low-viewership period between Thanksgiving and the New Year. Thus it ends in November (end of the first major sweeps period), picks up in February (2nd sweeps period) and ends in May (third sweeps.)

(July is the other sweeps period, but nobody really cares about it since overall TV viewership is way down in the summer.)

And what's this "whoring out to corporate America" crap Recoil? You have something against the people who advertise on the show? Well who do you think makes Lost? The American Cancer Society? Try Disney. Corporate America is paying the bills, which is why you can watch Lost for free instead of paying HBO or Showtime for the privilege.

You pay for TV. Nobody's giving it away for free, and there's no reason they should. This stuff costs milliions of dollars to turn out. You either pay by having about a quarter of the timeslot devoted to commercials or you write a check to PBS or HBO or whoever. (And a few of your tax dollars go to to PBS and NPR whether you write them a check or not. ) BTW, I have no idea where your TiVo is getting its numbers, but I'd check 'em.

Regards,

Joe

I've definitely noticed additional commercials and it's come up on other message boards so you're not alone. I think part of it is additional commercial breaks (think more shorter breaks rather than a few longer ones). I noticed at least once each show we go through a period where there is only about 4-5 minutes of actual showtime in between two of the commercial breaks (usually about two thirds of the way through the episode).

And what's this "whoring out to corporate America" crap Recoil?

Click to expand...

Just a fun way to get the conversation started.

I think I first got that mindset from watching the cartoon "The Tick" back in the day. The Tick, who was home sick with a cold and watching TV on his couch, told his sidekick Arthur during a commercial break to "Brace yourself while Corporate America tries to sell us its wretched things"

God that cartoon was years ahead of its time...

/Spoooooooooooooooooon

In the UK its been sold hook line and sinker to Murdoch's Sky channel, its gone from terestrial TV now, which sucks for a lot of folk...

Its threads like this that make me glad we've got channels over here with no adverts on, that sometime show good TV. But then i'm reminded of the license fee I will have to pay in three months, and how much that sucks....

The licence fee would be a fair onus if we only had to pay for quality programmes. Unfortunately because of the very nature of the licence fee and the BBC's mandate... they have to pick up all the reality rubbish, daytime chat, cookery, gardening, quiz shows and other pap that interests other people.

The BBC IMHO is doing a bit of an ISN. We don't have very effective political opposition in the UK (although that has improved somewhat)... the Beeb has played a significant role in criticising government policy.... dangerous as it's biting the hand that feeds you.... but I'm glad they have done it occasionally.

This is why you watch TV shows on DVD, or, if you can't do that, online.

The BBC is in an unenviable position really as far as the licence fee goes.

On the one hand, people complain at having to pay a licence fee for the BBC to produce the same types of popular show that appear on all the commercial channels, just without commercials.

On the other, (the same?) people complain at having to pay a licence fee for the BBC to produce niche interest programmes that not many people watch and that the commercial channels would not touch with a bargepole.

So ... they have to try and strike a balance between popular programmes that lots of people are interested (and will watch) in and minority interest stuff that needs to be shown under their Public Service mandate but isn't going to be of interest to a whole lot of people.

Personally, my fave part of the BBC is its radio output. Quite simply the best and most varied there is.

Getting back on topic ... I didn't know that Sky had snaffled Lost from C4. That's sad, particularly for those who have made the move to Freeview Digital rather than Sky, as they will not be able to see it at all unless and until Sky chooses to put it on Sky 3. As they have only just got S3 of 24, that is unlikely to be any time soon.

Looks like Sky are taking the approach of keeping popular US shows off terrestrial stations (BSG and now Lost) as a marketing tool. Understandable I suppose, but still frustrating ... and I have got Sky. I just don't want to see everything end up on the same damn channel all the time.

That doesn't sound right at all Recoil. People have always complained it had too many commercials, so I checked my S1 DVD set and found it to be untrue, and People who have watched online, say (As KF did) that it's still running in the 41-43 minute range. Additionally, LOST doesn't have the minute or so of Opening credits sequence, because the credits are laid on top of the episode.

I defintely think there must be something wrong with your number gathering.

Most shows run at 40-41-42 min per episode. That would suck if they lowered it to 36. What they seem to be doing a lot of lately is having 5 minutes of show, then 2-3 min of commercials... then 3-4 minutes of show.. and 3-4 minutes of commercials. Instead of a full 10 minute block. It's why I wait for the DVD's honestly. You think LOST is bad, try watching Oprah. =)

What bothers me more is the ad-spam across the bottom of a screen now. I was watching the season premiere of "Drawn Together" and every time Ling Ling would be talking (using subtitles) the adspam would block it out and you couldn't read what he was saying.) That S*** his highly annoying.

That would be quite annoying.

Subtitles shouldn't be blocked out by anything, but I guess it's going to be hard to avoid.

Since I live directly on the border with Mexico, our local weather report comes from a town north of us, Tucson. They pop up that beautiful weather map, then run the information bar on top of my town.

There were times during the rainstorms that I NEVER got to see my town on the weathermap. Had to go to www.weather.com, instead.

That doesn't sound right at all Recoil. People have always complained it had too many commercials, so I checked my S1 DVD set and found it to be untrue, and People who have watched online, say (As KF did) that it's still running in the 41-43 minute range.

Click to expand...

Yea, but I'm not talking about Season 1, I'm talking about Season 3 that's going on right now. I'll do some actual math next week. I am 100% certain though, that at the 15min mark, a commercial break started, it ended at the 19min mark, then another one started at 25min, and ended at 29min, and that continued through the whole show.

I'll check this more closely next week.

That would be quite annoying.

Subtitles shouldn't be blocked out by anything, but I guess it's going to be hard to avoid.

Click to expand...

I noticed in Hereos the subtitles are appearing up high in the picture in random locations (normally in dead space). I wonder if that is partly why, with the ad spam becoming more common, the producers didn't want to loose anything from the show. (or it could be the comic book feel they want the show to have)

Through with the onslot of Tivo systems, advertisers are going to continue find creative ways to get their product out. (as product placement seems to be the real common thread to that one)

S.

Yea, I realize you are talking about S3. The complaints of "Too many commercials", have been since the beginning, and I verified S1 was not true. Several people I have seen posting that have verified the online S3 episodes are also 41-43 minutes long.

A lot of it can be subjective, especially if you're enjoying the story and it moves quickly. The commercial interruptions would seem more frequent and annoying.

It doesn't really bug me, but I have to admit it seems like there are more commercials! But again, the story is so fast paced, once they come back from the break it sucks me right back in and I don't think about it anymore!

And Hypatia, you're an Arizona girl? Me, too! I'm in Carefree! All the really cool people live in Arizona - obviously!

Yea, I'm down by the border with Mexico, though. Where it gets cold and actually snows a bit once or twice a year.

Carefree looks like a very charming community. What a nice place to live.