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Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

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Re: Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

#171

Post by mynameisvlad »

nostrademons wrote: post #131
jjeaff wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that is certain is that there are more commercials now. If you watch an episode of The Big Bang Theory sans commercials, you will notice that it is only 17 minutes long! And that includes the 60 second intro. So 13 minutes of commercials for 16 minutes of actual content. No chance I'll be going back to regular TV.

Is that all that different from what it was before? My recollection of 80s sitcoms & children's programs is that they had 3 commercials of 3 minutes apiece, plus a 3 minute break between programs. That's 12 minutes. Actually, I can test this...I've got some old My Little Pony episodes lying around on a hard disk. They're 9 minutes apiece. IIRC they ran 2 to a timeslot, so that's 18 minutes of show per 30 minute times…

Taking a look specifically at the Big Bang Theory, up until Season 10, most episodes were around 21 minutes. Season 10 had episodes around 20-21 minutes, and the current season (11) hovers around the 19-20 minute mark.

When I was in High School, our English teacher actually wrote and produced a TV show and was telling us about her experience and some of the things she had to do to cut episodes in the right amount of time for commercials. At the time (mid 2000s), the average was 23 minutes of show per 30 minute episode.

Looking across my library at recent shows, it seems to average about 21 minutes nowadays.

Re: Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

#172

Post by make3 »

nostrademons wrote: post #51
neals wrote: post #5

I accidentally watched some TV the other day. Having not seen any regular programming for at least a year, I was amazed at how much ... dumber it has become. Also, why did we sit through so many commercials for so long? It feel a little like a twilight zone episode, where we sit there watching a box telling us what to buy.

I suspect regular programming isn't getting dumber, the alternatives are just getting smarter. When I look at the crap I watched as a kid in the 80s (which included a good amount of 70s reruns), basically all broadcast TV today is far superior. But the competition for broadcast TV isn't "no competition" now, it's the Internet, and computer games, and Netflix. The entertainment industry has been blown wide open by the…

except that smart games like factorio only accounts a super tiny amount of gamers, most of which are actually playing games like league of legends, call of duty, cs go, dota 2, hearthstone and overwatch. they're all really fun games don't get me wrong.

Re: Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

#173

Post by theptip »

tomc1985 wrote: post #122
ahelwer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This unfortunately makes Zachtronics games a non-starter for me. Software development and Zachtronics games is a fast track to burnout. Their last two involve literal programming.

I never got that feeling about Factorio (though I don't do EE), but I did with SpaceChem

Likewise; I think that's because (my interaction with) Factorio is much simpler; it's scratching the "build and organize" itch. I find this game to be relaxing after a hard day at work. (I'm sure this would change if I was trying to build and debug a complex circuit network).

As others have mentioned, Zachlikes are basically programming, and in particular the debugging / pipeline optimization parts can quickly drain my enthusiasm if I've been doing a lot of hard coding at work.

Re: Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

#174

Post by d33 »

make3 wrote: post #172
nostrademons wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect regular programming isn't getting dumber, the alternatives are just getting smarter. When I look at the crap I watched as a kid in the 80s (which included a good amount of 70s reruns), basically all broadcast TV today is far superior. But the competition for broadcast TV isn't "no competition" now, it's the Internet, and computer games, and Netflix. The entertainment industry has been blown wide open by the…

except that smart games like factorio only accounts a super tiny amount of gamers, most of which are actually playing games like league of legends, call of duty, cs go, dota 2, hearthstone and overwatch. they're all really fun games don't get me wrong.

Those games still definitely involve much more than muscle memory and I'd argue that they are indeed smarter as well.

Re: Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

#175

Post by xj9 »

MBCook wrote: post #85
DubiousPusher wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think TV remains popular with certain people largely out of ease of use. You can just turn it on and you don't have to make a decision about what to watch. It's always there. Also, changing would require learning something new. People genuinely find learning to have a level of discomfort so they avoid it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/03/learning-hurts-your-...

That’s sort of where I am. Most of it is garbage but there are some channels that during some times of day have some decent stuff on. It’s just random what episode it is. One thing I’d kind of like on Netflix and their ilk would be a way to choose a series and say “play me a random episode“. Some shows work well that way. I don’t want to have to go choose through six seasons to find something that appeals to me, I’ll…

that's what i do with Plex. i use my legally obtained library of shows i like (updated on the regular), i open one up, and press shuffle.

Re: Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

#176

Post by kaybe »

manishsharan wrote: post #113

On the other hand, Kids in Netflix only homes are probably not exposed to news and world events that does not come from Facebook and Twitter and other filtered media. They are probably not exposed to opposing or uncomfortable opinions and views. Those Netflix only homes should at least get PBS.

I'd argue that news is not for kids, unless it is specifically tailored to them (eg the German public kids TV channel has special kids news (and no ads)). It is easier to learn about the world's problems from less explicit sources. News can be worse than horror films, which are at least known to be fictional.

Re: Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

#177

Post by xj9 »

macintux wrote: post #106
__jal wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Visiting relatives frequently involves me watching them flip channels until I can't take it anymore and go read. Having never owned a TV myself, I'm actually considering buying one now. The fact that shows are actually getting better, combined with how easy it is to wait for other people to be a filter, combined with no ads makes TV actually attractive to me for the first time since I was like 5. But still zero…

When the digital transition took place, my TV sat idle for about a year until a line of severe storms rolled through and I decided making it usable again made some sense. Went out, bought a nice directional antenna, bought a converter box from a friend, turned it on. 5 minutes later I realized I had zero tolerance for ads shouting at me, boxed everything up, and eventually took the TV to recycling. (It also nearly pu…

get a tv, a small computer, plex, and a wireless media keyboard

its amazing

Re: Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

#178

Post by kaybe »

coding123 wrote: post #50
the_common_man wrote: post #11

> The average child watches 2.68 hours of television a day, or almost 980 hours a year This is a very sad statistic. I cannot imagine what this non-stop television consumption is doing to their brains. I am guessing this does not include the tablet screen time which is another 3 hours per day or so.

It's pretty horrible - I grew up with about that much per day. I grew up pretty successfully however I would have to admit that success is only due to everyone else my age growing up like that. If I had to live by the rules of the people we call fuddy-duddies we'd be totally f'd. The older generation takes more time to do tasks right, spends time to talk to each other on the phone, has a much stronger sense of belong…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuddy-duddy

In case anyone else does not know.

Re: Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

#179

Post by aembleton »

nuclearchicken wrote: post #83
viraptor wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting rid of adverts on yt for all family is $10/mo, which I'm thinking is not that crazy. It's also a part of Google music family subscription for $15/mo - you get YouTube Red included.

uBlock Origin and similar other add-ons, plus some hostfile entries largely mean I don't see any ads anywhere. I also block them on my router for extra diligence. They simply don't get called. The way it's supposed to be.

How do you block them on your router? I'm using Pi-hole but I still get Youtube ads through my Chromecast.

Re: Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year

#180

Post by pixelcloud »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #110
pixelcloud wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That type of advertising is fairly ineffective at "convincing" someone to make a purchase. Compared to more modern advertising techniques (like Facebook or Google) and their advertising resulted in me making a 100k purchase of software. The TV cannot market particular seminars, or blog posts that I might find relevant to what i'm doing right now, but google and FB can. It's scary and interesting.

Ok, I have to ask - what kind of software was that?

Monitoring software (elastic, splunk, etc..). That stuff is expensive!
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