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Netflix Cuts Out Over 6 Days Of Commercials From Your Life Per Year, Compared To Cable TV (businessinsider.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Netflix knows their customers hate ads. "We know one of the benefits of an ecosystem like Netflix is its lack of advertising," Howard Shimmel, a chief research officer at Time Warner, told Bloomberg last year. "Consumers are being trained there are places they can go to avoid ads." In response to Netflix's advertising policy, many networks have actually cut back on the amount of ads they show in an effort to lure back in the younger Netflix generation. CordCutting.com crunched some numbers and found that each Netflix subscriber saves themselves about 158.5 hours of commercials per year. Here is how they figured that out: "First, it took Netflix's recent 75 million subscriber mark. Then, it combined that with a quote from CEO Reed Hastings that said subscribers stream 125 million hours every day. That means every subscriber streams about 1 2/3 hours per day. Then it looked at Nielsen data, which showed that the typical hour of cable TV includes 15 minutes and 38 seconds of commercials. If you combine that with the Netflix subscriber data, then you get that each subscriber avoids around 158.5 hours per year of commercials -- if they were watching Netflix instead of cable TV," writes Nathan McAlone via Business Insider.
Netflix shows have a ton of product placement, just because the ads are on while the show is running doesn't mean it isn't there.
"the typical hour of cable TV includes 15 minutes and 38 seconds of commercials"
Unless you have a DVR. It takes me about 30 seconds to skip past those 15 minutes of commercials on my TiVo. News is about the only thing I watch live.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Oh, and commercial breaks also gives the opportunity to mentally disengage from the tv screen
You know what else does that? The pause button. We use that when we want to talk about what we're watching. Then we un-pause, and go on watching it... on our schedule.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We have been using MythTV for over a decade. The automatic commercial detection is pretty good, but we usually take a minute to set cutpoints (tweaking the detected commercials), and then transcode the recording to drop the commercials. Our son *never* sees commercials. I'm sure that has saved us tons of begging for toys and whatnot.
I wouldn't exactly call my feelings "moral outrage," but commercials are actually quite annoying. I personally never noticed it until I "cut the cord" and haven't had cable for quite a few years. Once you get used to TV all the time without commercials, you realize how truly disruptive and annoying they can be. Personally, when I stay with family or whatever now and they have broadcast TV on, I usually just leave the room and go do something else. TV is already mostly a waste of time, but with commercials it has now become unbearable for me.
Imagine if you were trying to read a book or look at art in a museum or something, and every 5 minutes some annoying person would come around and shout at you or do something random and stupid to distract you... That would be really ridiculous, but most people accept it when watching TV. Once you live without those distractions for a while though, you realize how weird it is.
While watching FX at my friend's place the other day, we put a stop watch on the shows.
8:30 of show, then 4:30 of commercials, repeat.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Or alternatively clicking on "download torrent" :)
Satan isn't so bad ... compared with cable TV.
I'd like to add to this that not just the concept of commercials becomes foreign to you, but even more so the actual content of them.
Once you're not used to commercials anymore, their absurdity becomes very readily apparent: Three people in big plastic balls rolling into a pool and subsequently drinking ice tea(tm). What the actual fuck?
We all understand that the main thing about commercials is standing out and getting brand recognition, but that changes nothing about how weird it is to behold them.
Not watching TV at all saves you more than 6 days a month. Close the TV and go outside! Have fun!
Here is how they figured that out: "First, it took Netflix's recent 75 million subscriber mark. Then, it combined that with a quote from CEO Reed Hastings that said subscribers stream 125 million hours every day.
There is not a 1:1 relationship between subscribers and viewers; husband, wife, 1.25 kids, yada. I suspect--wild ass guess--it is more on the order of ~1:3. So the hours saved per account doesn't change but hours per viewer goes down by ~third. I'm a little surprised it is so few streamed hours per subscriber.
I will be watching some tv program on NF, one that was designed/edited to be shown with commercials.
Perhaps something from the History Channel.
You can tell when the program is going to cut to a commercial, the music queues it up...
But then...
No commercial!
I love it!
What is interesting is sometimes I get an almost anticipatory anxiety, when I can tell it would normally go to a commercial.
But then when the ad doesn't show and the program just keeps on going, its almost blissful.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Not exactly "nobody", but I imagine that the majority of TV watchers aren't willing to pay $200-$300 for a TiVo device and $600 more for a subscription to the required service. Or to which competing "digital recording device" do you refer?