I found this article in the USA Today. I think it is interesting it is about comericals during TV shows and how there are more or less of them and how it effects some of the shows. They are one reason why I like shows on cable better sometimes. I love 24 but wonder how much better it would be with out the breaks.

Ad glut turns off viewers
By Gary Levin, USA TODAY
Can't Bree grieve anymore without a MasterCard commercial loudly interfering?

Commercial gridlock: Shirley Knight plays Bree’s (Marcia Cross) mother-in-law on Desperate Housewives.
ABC

Lately, fans of Desperate Housewives, Lost and other top shows have been complaining about excessive commercials that seem more intrusive than ever and slow down the programs they surround.

"I have definitely noticed that the shows on ABC that I watch have significantly more commercials this season," complains Julie Raines, 33, of Denver. "It's so frustrating. Once you are really getting into a juicy story line, it stops, and you are bombarded with the same ads over and over."

Viewers have been griping about ads on TV since the days of black-and-white sets. Some have turned to digital video recorders such as TiVo to skip commercials altogether. Others sit and bear it.

We'll be back

The amount of “clutter,” including network and local commercials and plugs for other shows, steadily has increased on broadcast and cable, to the point where an “hour-long”
drama is about 40 minutes of original programming. Average non-program minutes in an hour of prime-time for each year:

Year Broadcast Cable
1996 9:53 12:46
1999 14:00 13:53
2001 14:39 14:30
2004 15:48 14:55

Note: Reflects prime-time hours on the six broadcast networks and all basic cable networks measured by Nielsen. Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus






ABC ad-sales chief Mike Shaw says he's perplexed by increasing complaints.

"We've had the exact same commercial load for three years in a row," he says of the 9 p.m. ET/PT Sunday time slot, home to Housewives and before that, Alias. Viewers must "feel that way because they love the show so much, that they really notice it when the breaks are there."

But across prime-time TV, the number of ads and promos has increased sharply over the years. A typical "one-hour" prime-time series clocks in at less than 42 minutes, down from 44 minutes several years ago and nearly 48 minutes in the 1980s.

And shaving off the "previously on ..." recap, opening credits and a teaser for next week's episode, Sunday's Housewives ran 40 minutes and 30 seconds, meaning for every two minutes of programming, there's a minute of commercials or promos for other network shows. On cable, MTV has even more so-called clutter, with USA and Lifetime close behind.

But ABC, which studies show has slightly more commercials than other broadcast networks, has changed its drama format in a way that makes it seem even more loaded with ads.

Until recently, dramas unfolded in four segments, or "acts," often preceded by an introductory teaser that aired before the opening credits.

Starting this fall, ABC required all drama producers to carve up each episode into six portions. For some shows, including Housewives, the first segment runs for nine to 11 minutes before the first break. Once viewers are hooked, they're confronted with four more commercial breaks, each about 3½ minutes long, over the next 45 minutes.

To prevent channel surfing, networks increasingly avoid airing commercials between shows. Instead, they save several minutes of more substantial scenes for a show's ending and then move "seamlessly" into the next program. The upshot is that more ads and promos air within programs.

'Housewives' adds to clutter

Prime-time dramas are being broken up into smaller segments and interrupted more frequently by commercials and network promo spots.

Sunday’s Desperate Housewives, which carries 30 seconds more of ads than other ABC shows, featured six “acts,” up from four traditionally.

The shortest ran for 4 minutes 14 seconds, not much longer than the commercial breaks that surrounded it.

The total episode included 40:30 of programming, 13:49 of commercials and 5:45 of promos, credits and a recap. The breakdown in minutes and seconds:

9 p.m.: Recap, “Teaser”
(opening scene), Opening credits

Break 1: (9:09:45; 6 national
commercials, 3 promos)

Break 2: (9:22:25; 3 national
commercials, 2 promos,
3 local commercials)

Break 3: (9:30:22; 5 national
commercials, 3 promos)

Break 4: (9:40:43; 5 national commercials, 2 promos,
2 local commercials)

Break 5: (9:51:07; 6 national
commercials, 3 promos)

End credits/teaser for next
week’s episode/promo for
Housewives DVD






"The way the structure was before didn't make any sense," says ABC Entertainment chief Steve McPherson. "You'd have people sit through a commercial break to come back to 30 seconds of programming" at the end of an episode.

Lost and Housewives adopted the six-act structure early last season. ABC quickly expanded the practice to its entire lineup of hour-long series. Competitors followed suit: WB's dramas began adopting the same format last January and since last month has used it on every show. CBS and NBC employ it on newer shows including Criminal Minds, Las Vegas, Numb3rs and Surface, although producers of CSI, Law & Order and ER refused to go along. Fox uses it only on Bones.

McPherson says most producers "like it because you have real content in each of the acts."

But Boston Legal producer David E. Kelley isn't among them.

"There's no opportunity to develop any kind of storytelling momentum," Kelley says, fearing that quiet scenes of dialogue will never hold up to increasingly loud — and frequent — commercial breaks. "High-octane shows, or puzzle shows, will be immune to it.

"If a knife is plunged into someone's sternum, you pay attention," Kelley says. "But for shows that don't depend on violence or melodramatic scenes, it's tougher to compete in a six-act show than in four acts, or in 41 minutes instead of 45 minutes. You have to be a little more aggressive with them, musically or filmically, just to get people's attention back."

Everwood producer Greg Berlanti says carving up emotion-packed dramas into even smaller pieces can be "annoying," even if it's a necessary evil in a business that exists to sell advertising. "It makes you long for the day when everything comes out in boxed sets of DVDs so you can enjoy it."

And advertising researchers say the cluttered airwaves, which also include logos and promos during shows, risk turning off viewers even from must-see shows and worsening recall of their ads.

Yet Nielsen Media Research says TV viewership in U.S. homes hit record highs last season.

"There's been a lot of hand-wringing in the business about when viewers are going to say, 'Enough's enough,' but they haven't," says Tim Brooks, a TV historian and research chief at Lifetime. "It may never be that commercials drive people away from the set, but it makes them pay less attention to avoid the irrelevant interruptions."

No federal agency regulates the amount of commercial time on television. Until 1982, the major networks adhered to a voluntary code of the National Association of Broadcasters that limited commercials to 9.5 minutes per hour in prime time. But since the code was dropped, the number of commercials on prime-time TV has crept steadily higher.

Housewives sells 11 minutes, 15 seconds of national ad time and about 2½ minutes of local spots. On Sunday, it ran 4 minutes, 10 seconds of promos for 11 other series. Added up, they account for nearly 18 of the show's 61 minutes.

Housewives is among TV's most expensive shows. Thirty-second spots that sold for $450,000 in May, in advance of the season, now fetch $500,000 to $600,000, Shaw says, meaning the network rakes in at least $5 million an episode.

"If we had extra time to sell, I would tell everybody," he says.

Advertisers tolerate the excess bunching of commercials for the sake of reaching 25 million viewers in TV's biggest hits.

Housewives is among a handful of shows "where there's tremendous attention, passion and a halo effect where your commercial might actually resonate," says Initiative Media's top ad buyer Tim Spengler. "Up to a certain point, (they) look the other way."

Last night I had fun. I didn't know any of Halestrom's music or much of 30 seconds till mars but really enjoyed both of them a lot. 30 seconds singer went into the crowd a couple times and sang that was cool. I have seen Seether before and they where great the first time I saw them and they where great again. The next show that I'm going to there is Henery Rollins spoken word tour. I missed him the last time he did one in Buffalo. I saw one of his spoken word shows from a couple years ago on VH1 it was very good. There are a lot of great bands coming to Townballroom.

I am going to try and explain what it looks like inside the best that I can for those who have never been there. As they check ID's and take tickets at the door there is a bar that runs down the middle of the room. Near the end of the bar there are ladies rooms to the left and a mens room to the right. The bar makes an oval shape and then you have two sets of doors and between those two doors is the merch area. Once those doors open you walk into the concert area. Try to imagine Studio Arena or some other theatre where there is a round stage with seats on the left and right of the stage then they go up an incline as they go away from the stage. That is how it is except there are no seats. You have the elevated stage and the floor area. Then there are steps that lead down to the floor and a medium level U shaped isle or standing area. Back to the doors for a minute as you walk through them you would be looking down on the stage and floor and the other standing area. There is a bar up there then last night they had soe seats up there. I belive that there is are seats abouve where you walk through the doors but I've never gone up there. I wish I had a picture of the place it would make more sense.



not sure if my crappy drawing made things better or worse. but the palce is till set up like the theatre it used to be but the cahirs are gone. On a side note on my way home I went down allen and it looked and sounded like a bunch of people where having fun at allen st. hardware I just jurried past to go home and I caught the end of the Steelsers game. They won it was a great ending.

Tonight I going to the Seether/30 secods till mars/halestorm show at town ballroom should be a lot of fun. The sabres are playing the penguins. Then it is also game 5 of the yankees series so there are a lot of activities for people to partake in. Then You also Have The Chargers vs. Steelers on monday night football then Monday Night Raw is on. I'm sure there are other things going on also that I don't know about but it seems like a busy Holiday to me. I havn't done much today really finished watching some DVD's.

I admit I am a fan of Warren Miller. I have seen a few of his ski/snowboarding moves. They are really more then that. Some of the locations they film in are amazing. I forget when but his most recent movie did show in Buffalo a while back but I don't remmber what it was called. I missed it as it turned out I was doing something else that one day it was here. But this morning I watched my tape of his movie Warren Miller's Journey. It was on starz last night. It was very good I thought. Maybe some day I will get to see one of his movies at a theatre. But untill then watching them on cable is good enough. That being said I would still love to see what it looks like on the big screen.






















I found those pictures on line. They are a small refection of some of amazing stuff in the movie.

Last night I feal asleep on wrestling missed the hockey game Bill Maher and Real sex and some stand up comedy. I knew I was tired but not that tired. But today was a much better day I went to the Elmwood Regal to see Waiting.... It was very funny, in a crude kinda American Pie sort of way. I can't really expalin it better with out giving away anything. I will say this if you are planing on going to a movie and dinner, eat first. Or if you are adventurous see the movie then go to Applebee's or Fridays or even Bennigens. Sometimes I'm the only one who found the movie funny but there where others laugfing at stuff I didn't find funny. It is about a resturant and most of the movie does take place there but it was still very good.

On my way out of the theatre I checked the movie times and A history of Violance was coming on soon so I saw that to. It was nice and violant but it also had a story to it. IF violance is your thing then I would recomend it.