I noticed something interesting the other day as I watching some old MacGyver episodes from DVD (HUGE fan). I just happened to pay attention to the running time for the episodes I was watching. They were in the 48 – 50 minute range per episode. For some reason I reflected on this for a moment, and thought to myself, “wow, that seems like a lot of time for commercials!”.

I guess it just rolled around in my head for far too long, because I found myself switching shows to something more recent (Heroes), and found that the running time per episode there was about 42 – 44 minutes. I proceeded to look through a couple of my DVD’s, and found that some so-called hour-long shows were actually 38 minutes in length! That means that almost 37% of the “show”, at least when it airs on television, is advertising time.

Frankly, it just boggled my mind – that we would allow advertisers to cut 37% of our favorite shows to bombard us with their ads. Then I thought about it a bit more and realized that the only way this could happen is if the show itself was limiting its run-time to allow for these ads. Now, people may say that’s just the way things are done. I’ll agree with them it is in North America, which is a shame. Why is it then that British television is able to offer fantastic shows like Top Gear (my favorite car show of all time, and is perhaps one of the funnier shows on tv today), which run for the entire hour, without ANY commercials whatsoever?

Just something to think about the next time you are watching your favorite show and wish that there were just a few more minutes left. There could have been – if advertisers hadn’t taken it to let you know about the latest and greatest ways to spend your hard-earned money.

*** Although I think it is a shame that advertisers are taking away from our viewing time of our favorite shows, I do understand that advertising is part of our lives, and a lot of people rely on it for their livelihoods. I simply think that they can do a lot better, and should, without infringing on our lives.