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Pugwash

New Member
Do you skip these bits of programmes too or is it just me? I find it intensely irritating to be shown what will happen after the break and usually fast forward it.
 
We always record any commercial station in order to skip adverts etc. Surely that is why you are recording them too ?
 
I dislike them too. Anything that tells you what is going to happen after the break or next week. I thought it was a fairly modern trend but then I watched an old episode of Magnum where they showed you a synopsis of the whole episode at the start! Same on old Airwolf and A-Team episodes.

I can't remember the last time I watched an advert though.
 
I think that you'll find the Americans don't like 'whodunits' . Take most of the American cop shows that tell you who done it in the first few mins, then go on to explain how the cops found the culprit.
 
I'm convinced the "coming next" insert during the credits of the current programme are to prevent a clean recording.
 
I skip all the non-programme stuff as a rule. Occasionally something will catch my eye while skipping (like a cat with a headset) and I'll stop and see what it was about.
What really annoys me is getting the 'coming next' before the break AND a 'what happened'/'what it's about' after the break.
I used to watch a motoring programme on C5 (IIRC) which was nominally an hour, but less adverts, the 'competition' and the above bits it was about 35 minutes.
Then it went to a 30 minute slot and had about 15 minutes of unique content (ie. by the time I'd skipped all the c**p I could watch the whole thing in 15 mins). So I gave up on it.
 
In programs like Homes under the Hammer, cops and robbers etc.. "We'll see how they got on later in the programme". Then later in the programme they screen a lengthly précis of what went on just 5 mins ago 'Earlier in the programme'. Difficult to skip even if you've recorded it. Why not just show the complete story in one go?
 
They annoy me too, the tasters of what is coming up. They are at the end of a program and either side of commercial breaks, and I prefer to have a surprise rather than have that ruined.

Sometimes, a clip is shown in the previous show, at the beginning of the current one, and several times before its real appearance. It's poor quality programming IMHO: take 20 minutes of filming and stretch it to 60.

Don't you just love it on the news, though, where, before each interview in the field, we have to have a demonstration of the interviewee's ability to walk?
 
It's a classic approach in these channel4/5 documentaries.
Basically, it enables them to turn a 40 minute program into an hour with the adverts as well.
They seem to think that the whole audience is suffering from memory loss. "Just in case you forgot what happened before the adverts ...".
 
It's all about aiming programmes at the commercial market. Even BBC programmes come in bite-sized chunks with a burst of music and a logo where an ad break can be inserted if required, and the "what you missed" and "still to come" are for the benefit of channel hoppers.

What particularly galls me is the current fashion for documentaries (eg Horizon) to summarise the conclusion to the investigation (or whatever) right at the start, and then spend another 50 minutes stretching out a story that could have been told in sufficient detail in maybe 15. Horizon used to be brilliant, now I only watch it if the subject is of particular interest.
 
At least we don't (yet) have as many advert breaks as in the US. That's one of the reasons I don't watch much TV when I'm over there!
I've been catching up with Walking Dead and, although it has a lot of advert breaks, it's easy to see where others would have been in the original transmission.
 
Regarding ad breaks, on E4 I have seen programmes (US imports) where a break cuts in immediately after the opening credits. This is just like it is in the US. Thin end of the wedge!
 
Saw that happen with Walking Dead last night, although there was an unusually long run before the credits on that particular episode.
 
About 60 years ago (terrifyingly), when I was a young lad and Violet Carson was probably not old, my gran and her friend took me and a friend to the cinema. But we had to leave half an hour before the end of the main film because my gran's friend had to get home to watch Coronation Street.

I suspect that was when my dislike of soaps began :mad:
 
About 60 years ago (terrifyingly), when I was a young lad and Violet Carson was probably not old, my gran and her friend took me and a friend to the cinema. But we had to leave half an hour before the end of the main film because my gran's friend had to get home to watch Coronation Street.

I suspect that was when my dislike of soaps began :mad:
If only the domestic video recorder had been available at that time, you could have got to see the end of the film.:D
 
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