Why do we now have commericals on cable television?
Back when cable television first came into being, the cable companies advertised, “join our cable company, we are commercial-free”. now, i am paying for cable and i am forced to watch commercials and infomercials and i hate it. i can change channels, but thats not the point. are cable companies double-dipping? receiving money from subscribers and money from the commercials, also? what happened? was this just the old bait and switch by the cable companies to entice more customers in the beginning?
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11 Answers
Not the defend the cable companies, but their operating and infrastructure costs are constantly going up. The money’s got to come from somewhere.
Many of the cable networks are owned by the major networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX), and ad revenue on cable channels serves as revenue to the parent company.
I honestly don’t remember cable without commercials. I’m sure it happened at some point, but I don’t have any recollection (going back to the 80’s) of this phenomenon. It must have been nice.
This is what the cable companies promised the people. was this promise just for so many years? i do not know. i have directv and there are now more commercials than variety shows. somehow, i feel cheated.
The pay channels don’t have commercials, do they? For regular you’re just paying for the service. The pay channels should be different.
On a side note, at the wife’s house watching TV today. I was skimming the channels and discarding channels based on the commercials I had already seen, not a show I’d already seen.
Pay channels are triple-dipping. you pay more for no commercials for something that was suppose to be the original intent in the beginning. i think i will subscribe to Netflex and just watch movies on a dvd.
DVR! it’s kind of commercial free.
I am in Australia and we say the same thing all the time. We have Austar and there are more damned commercials than free to air. And yes they used to advertise that they were commercial free, but no more!
Because apparently someone needs more money so they dump more ads to pay for their station and programming. I hate commercials with a passion and they are now in everything that we watch or do both on TV and on the computer. You can’t even go to YouTube now without seeing ads. Absolutly rediculous.
Simple answer: Cable companies do it because they can get away with it and customers will pay for it! Is it double dipping, yes.
What is worse the do not pay the TV stations for the content of these stations that they resell.
It is little less than piracy!
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