How Much TV Commercial Length has Grown over the Years:

We all accept commercials as a necessary evil because they pay for the shows we love to watch. But, how much is commercial time is reasonable to accept? This question was answered for me while watching a 2004 episode of Star Trek Enterprise. The commercials came so often and lasted so long that is was almost impossible to maintain a sense of continuity with the show.

This situation got me wondering about how much the percentage of time given to a show is lost to commercials has increased over the years. Thanks to the availability of video recordings of past shows this was easy to determine. Scouring my video library I found shows ranging from 1952 to 2004. Here's what I discovered:

1952 - 13 percent of the time was spent watching commercials (only 4 minutes out of every half hour!)

1958 - still 13 percent

1964 - 17.8 percent

1977 - 18 percent

1994 - 24 percent

2004 - 30 percent

2006 - 30 percent

2007 - 30 percent

2008 - 32 percent

 
These were all for main line shows aired during prime time hours.

So, how did the show that kicked this little study off do? Would you believe that a full 35 percent of the air time given to Star Trek Enterprise in 2004 was sacrificed to commercials? It was, and to make matters worse the end credits were pushed into the far right margin to make room for a side bar ad, the station logo was continually displayed in the lower right hand corner of the screen, and twice an annoying pop up add appeared in the left hand corner of the screen during the show. Taking these into account the total effective commercial time was crowding 38 percent. That means only 62 percent of the time was available to watch the show.

Another aspect of modern television that increases the commercial time, though not as distracting as actual commercials, is the "imbedded commercial." This is where a character uses or displays a product in such a way that the brand is clearly evident. Cars and soft drinks are the two most common users of this technique.

Dates are useful bookmarks of significant turning points in history. As far as commercials are concerned, February 2, 2006 will be an important and depressing day to remember. It was a Thursday night and I was watching Smallville when the imbedded commercial evolved from being covert (hidden) to overt (obvious.) Up to this time every imbedded commercial I'd seen was low-profile in nature: you had to look for it to see it. In this particular episode of Smallville, the object of the imbedded commercial was Acuview contact lenses. Instead of just discretely displaying the box, the actress held it up, label pointed directly at the camera, and said in a clear loud voice that Acuview contacts had solved a big problem for her. Only more disturbing than the clumsy and amateurish way it was done was the fact that this marked a major turning point in commercial television. If consumers let this catch on then such imbedded commercials could become so prevalent that the shows between commercials may soon become little more than multiple-product infomercials.

I've kept an eye on the 2007-2008 season and so far am happy to report that the blatantly imbedded commercial has not proliferated. Yes, characters still park cars so that the make and model are clearly visible, but they don't use dialog to draw attention to it.

Correction: During a 2008 summer episode of Eureka, the lead star picked up a deodorant dispenser in such an awkward way to keep the label facing the camera that is was insultingly obvious it was a commercial. Worse still, this was a science fiction show in which the actor was caught in a repeating time loop. That's right, the viewer was forced to watch the clumsy bit of imbedded commercialization every time the time loop repeated.

 
Shows used for this page:

1952 - Dragnet
1958 - Peter Gunn
1964 - The Addams Family
1977 - MASH
1994 - Frasier
2004 - Will and Grace
2006 - Smallville
2007 - Smallville, Heroes and House
2008 - Smallville, Eureka, Burn Notice and Bones

(Note: From 1952 to 2006 the commercial time was based on one show. Starting in the Fall of the 2007-2008 season I began using the average of at least three shows ranked in the top ten for viewership. While this is more accurate, it creates the impression that the percentage of time taken up by commercials remained constant from 2006 to 2007 at 30-percent. This is an artifact of the change in methodology. If the commercial time for only Smallville is used in both 2006 (30.0-percent) and 2007 (32.3-percent) a significant increase would have identified. However, because in 2007 Heroes only had 28.9-percent and House 27.5-percent they brought the average down to 30-percent.)

 
For those preferring a visual representation, here's a chart of the percent of time spent watching commercials versus the year of the show:

If this rate of increase continues, by 2010 we'll hit the 35-percent point where so much time is lost to commercials that maintaining a sense of continuity is almost impossible. At this point I would expect an increase in pay-for-view commercial-free television channels. By 2020 50-percent of television time will be commercials.

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