"I can't tell you the shock when I started watching American TV. I couldn't believe people were putting up with this."

A lot of us aren't. I suspect that causes the TV companies to try to squeeze more out of who is left, which is a slow-motion death spiral.

Even if you were raised with it, as I basically was, it's gotten a lot worse. I sometimes buy shows that air on prime time on the legacy networks (ABC, CBS, etc.), and over the last few years I've been watching their run times creep steadily downwards. My current record so far is 19min of runtime for a 30min show with a popular 2019 release that I don't want to name to derail the conversation, plus of course the networks tend to shave off the front & back 30 seconds nowadays. If somebody told me they found a 16 I wouldn't be that shocked. By contrast, looking at MASH season 1 (1972) on Amazon, the runtimes are all 26 minutes. Syndication usually ran some cut versions for a bit more time, but, still. That's over 25% less time for a "half hour" timeslot.

Back when television shows made in the US were still made for cable and had to facilitate a bunch of advertisement blocks it used to be really obvious when you watched one of those shows in a country that didn't advertise quite as much. The show would wrap up a scene to prepare for a pause, and then instantly resume with a small recap of the action it ended with. That was the queue for us non-US viewers to know when viewers in the US must have had an ad break.

Of course with streaming services this phenomenon is mostly gone.

I actually realized that as well after my relocation. I finally understood why every 4 minutes there was a 1 second black screen during the show :)

I wish America would group TV ads together, it would make them much easier to skip and would remove the need for forced cutoffs (you really notice them when watching on non-cable sources)

> it would make them much easier to skip

Which is why the networks will never group them, given that their revenue is arising from those advertisements. Making them "easier to skip" also reduces the prices the network can extract from the advertisers (because the advertisers would see "easier to skip" as "less effective").

I'd go the other direction: don't group them (a lot of shows already account for / include commercial breaks, so it ain't like they're that disruptive) but make them shorter. The shorter the commercial, the less likely a viewer is to skip them or change the channel, which means more engagement. The ad's subject wins (more engagement), the viewer wins (less ads), the channel wins (more engagement + less supply = more leverage to charge higher prices for ad slots). Win-win-win.

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If I had the resources and know-how, I'd start a radio station on this premise. I've noticed that most radio stations feel like they play more commercials than actual music, with the sole exception of one station in Reno (96.1 Bob FM) that does hour-long non-stop music split up by very short (1-2 minutes at most) commercial breaks. I've also noticed that I never feel the need to switch from Bob FM to some other station because I know that the music will come back soon. Unsurprisingly, those commercials are way more impactful than the ones on other stations specifically because I'm actually listening to them instead of skipping them.

I'd like to take that to a greater extreme with 29-minute music blocks separated by single 30-second commercials (with 15-second station identification blurbs on either side of it, or perhaps combining them into a 30-second news update for e.g. traffic and weather). Companies probably wouldn't pay a premium for these ads at first, but I suspect once they see the upticks in customer engagement they'll be more willing to bid higher for those slots.

>If I had the resources and know-how, I'd start a radio station on this premise. I've noticed that most radio stations feel like they play more commercials than actual music

Of course. They're all owned by ClearChannel these days, so why should they play more music than ads? What are people going to do, switch to another (ClearChannel) radio station? You might also notice the ads are usually playing at the same time if you switch between stations.

Non-NPR radio is basically just like landlines and cable TV these days. The only people who still use/listen to/watch these things are dinosaurs who haven't moved on to streaming radio (or just buying your own music), cellphones, and streaming movies, so these companies are milking these people for all they're worth.

> The only people who still use/listen to/watch these things are dinosaurs who haven't moved on to streaming radio (or just buying your own music), cellphones, and streaming movies

Or people like me who drive cars that predate the widespread availability of AUX jacks (which I've worked around by using one of those cassette adapters, but I know of at least some people who drive cars in that awkward phase where cars had neither.

If you can't afford a newer car, that's understandable. If you have the means, though, cars that old are downright dangerous in a crash, and if you spend much time in your car it makes sense to upgrade to something newer that won't get you killed. People walk away from crashes in newer cars now that would have killed or severely maimed them in cars made 20 years ago.

> If you have the means, though

I don't, at least not comfortably (I probably could swing buying a newer car, but it'd definitely be painful). There are millions of Americans out there for whom that's probably out of the question entirely. And then there's the people who can't afford streaming radio (and/or a device + data plan to actually stream it) or buying music outright, or otherwise don't want to pay for those things, and at the same time don't feel like sailing the high seas for it (if your sails catch my drift).

>I don't, at least not comfortably (I probably could swing buying a newer car, but it'd definitely be painful)

Remember also, older cars cost a lot: they might not cost much to buy, but they cost a lot to keep running, because of repair costs. If you do your own work and have the time, this might not be a big issue, but for a lot of people it definitely is, and it's why they trade up to a newer car every so often: the repair costs on the old car become greater than the value of the car, so it's cheaper to just sell it and buy something newer that isn't breaking down all the time. On top of that, don't forget the cost of having a breakdown, as this can affect your job.

I feel like I'm at a dealership, lol

No, my repair costs + price of my current car ain't anywhere near what it'd cost to buy a newer car, at least not yet (if it gets to that point where it really is cheaper to buy a newer car than to fix my current one, then fine, but so far that hasn't been the case). This kind of assumption also hinges on the idea that newer cars don't break down as often (which may be true statistically, but is nowhere near guaranteed).

At best, one could argue that I'd save a lot in gas due to efficiency gains and/or electric drivetrains. That's probably true in the case of electrics, which is why I'm saving up to that effect, but those are - unfortunately - pretty expensive, especially for my needs (I routinely haul enough stuff to justify at least an SUV, if not an outright truck). In any other case, it'd take a long time to get to break-even.

Depending on how much work you do on your own car, and how long you keep it, new cars may not be a great investment, since they depreciate so rapidly. Basically there's a bathtub curve: too-old cars have very high repair costs, and too-new cars have high depreciation. So if you really want to be frugal, you want a car that's between 2 and 10 years old I think, depending on your finances and what you want to drive.

>This kind of assumption also hinges on the idea that newer cars don't break down as often (which may be true statistically, but is nowhere near guaranteed).

It's absolutely true statistically. It might not be guaranteed because there are lemons out there (as well as Chryslers...), but in general it's absolutely true: machines wear out over time so of course older cars have more things breaking on them. But some are definitely better than others. I know someone with an '01 Toyota Camry with 300,000 miles on it and it's still running great, though it's needed a few minor body things fixed (like a side mirror, probably broken by getting hit by something). I wouldn't expect an '01 Chevy to be that reliable, and certainly not an '01 Chrysler.

>I routinely haul enough stuff to justify at least an SUV, if not an outright truck

My suggestion here if you want to save gas is (assuming whatever you're hauling isn't too heavy, and this is an occasional task and not everyday) to get a car, add a tow hitch, and get a 4x8 utility trailer. I had one of these for a while and it was pretty fantastic for things like hauling appliances or furniture in town.

The "easier to skip" is why it likely won't happen. Easier to skip ads mean you get less money for the same ads.

Why would American advertisers want to do such a thing?

A lot of people don't anymore.