Tonight I spent four hours watching a movie that was just under three hours (less if you count parts that might have been cut). "The Godfather" has to be one of the best movies ever! Virtually everything about it is great! It aired on AMC, which touts its philosophy of "story matters here."


Unfortunately, I was struck by a few things. First, I found myself really getting into the story and characters, but throughout the viewing experience were incessant commercial interruptions (hence the extra hour). I found myself thinking how much they hurt the flow of the story. When there weren't actual commercials, there was the constant network logo in the lower right hand corner of the screen and intrusive ads for the network's other shows in the lower left corner, which actually was big enough to cover several inches of the movie. I may be wrong, but I believe at one time the promise of paying for cable TV was no commercials - that by paying a premium for TV stations, commercials wouldn't be needed. Silly me.

I think everything became clear to me years ago during a basketball game I happened to have on (I don't watch basketball, so I am not sure of the circumstances - maybe it was the end of a game and I was waiting for the news). Anyhow, the thing I hate most about basketball is it often takes three hours to play the last two minutes, but that's another story. In one of the end zones (or whatever the area outside the end of the court is called), there was a long low box-like device that featured an ad for something or other. Then, right before my eyes, the ad slid up into the box and another ad appeared for something else! I don't know why that bothered me so much, but it did!

If I didn't know better, I'd say that TV shows are just filler between the ads, which are really what's important. When I was a local DJ (many years ago), in the weeks before Christmas the ad load picked up so much that I really wanted to say, "We'll be back with more ads right after this short musical break!" It was that bad.

On TV, group them if necessary, but leave the picture alone! Too much is too much!

xxx

Hey, we'll be back for more ranting right after this message: "Be sure to catch the latest edition of Berman's Bits, updated every Sunday, which can be found at www.bermansbits.com." (One thing I can promise you is there are no ads there.)