Television, But First, This Word . . .

I confess that I don’t watch a lot of television, mainly because of lack of time. I do watch the local news as I’m getting dressed in the morning, which is mainly limited to weather, traffic, and a smattering of journalism. There are a few prime-time shows I like, but normally we watch those through the DVR.
I understand that commercial advertisements pay the bills for television stations, but sometimes it seems a bit overdone. I have never timed it, but it seems like the local morning news is about 50 percent commercials. There are pitches for replacement windows, new and used cars, lawyers, furniture stores, pawn shops, and even churches. During elections they add a ton of political attack ads. Alas, while I’m trying to wake up in the morning, I’m not particularly persuaded to seek anything from those advertisements.
Our cable company overrides customers’ ability to record the most popular prime-time programs on the in-house DVR, but instead shifts them to their “On Demand” service. The difference is that with their recording one can no longer fast forward through the commercials; if you pause the program for too long, it disengages and you have to restart the program from the very beginning.
The commercials on the time-shifted programs include erectile dysfunction drugs, other programs from the same network, erectile dysfunction drugs, public service announcements, erectile dysfunction drugs, an occasional product, and, of course, erectile dysfunction drugs. I suspect that these are not exactly the same as during the original broadcast, but that’s just a guess.
It’s no wonder I prefer movies and books.