Soap Operas

Every Saturday morning in the UK we have on ITV2 from 6am until 1pm, 7 hours of Soap omnibuses catch ups. The culprits in question are Coronation Street and Emmerdale, and East Enders is just as bad. All three are basically the same, no real plot or storyline, just lots of screeching females and houses burning down. You wouldn't meet a real actor anywhere. It's no wonder that half the country is as thick as two short planks when they get exposed to this sort of drivel.

Is it the same in other countries?

and all those talent shows.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Yuk:(
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Thanks for that feedback, it's quite interesting to see that it's similar in other countries. The producers say that soaps reflect real life, whereas it's becoming the other way round. People sit watching their screens and think what they see is an acceptable way to behave because other people are there doing it in front of them. They get so immersed in it they forget it is actors reading a script provided by writers.

Whatever happened to decent TV?

At one time there were going to be smart video recorders that would either automatically fast forward the ads when played back, or stop recording during them. Then there was an idea for a smart TV that would delay transmission of a programme then play it for you minus the ads. If I recall the ideas were dropped because of opposition from the media industry, advertisers wouldn't use TV any more, and income would drop.

In the UK the average is 12 minutes of ads per hour or 20%, but of course it seems much more! But nearly every film including TV series is available on DVD now. It also has to be remembered that it is the ads that are paying for what you are watching for free, if you discount the Annual licence fee.

AD lengths

Not too mention that the acting in many of the ads is far better than that in most of the soaps.
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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

not forgetting that some of them became soap operas in their own right. Gold Blend was one of the best.
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What really pees me off is an ad with an irritating jingle that is aired EVERY ad break all day for days on end. In the end I get so fed up I wouldn't use their product if they paid me to. But media advertising is a very scientific business, and each ad is carefully tailored to appeal to the desired socio economic audience it is aimed at. You can get University degrees in Media Studies.

It's just like the skill in laying out supermarkets in particular ways and regularly changing them around, to make sure that customers have to search the whole store to find what they want, and impulse buy as they work their way round. The simple days of just fitting pink tubes above the meat counter, and sweets at the checkouts and leaving it at that, are long gone. You would be surprised why you actually buy what you buy!

But Sirius is right, some ad series were exceptional. The Broooke Bond tea chimps, Katie in the OXO ads, Nicole & Papa in the Renault Clio series, the secret admirer in the Milk Tray ads, and the Cadburys nutcase ones. I think they were better in the past than today, where we have too much computer generated stuff.

Not too mention that the acting in many of the ads is far better than that in most of the soaps.

Spot on! Many a day all my siblings and I were entertained by the ads. They were so good, we ended up not bothering about the program we originally intended watching.

To make matters worse, the UK TV channels have started delaying American series until January every year. I looked forward to seeing my 2 favourites early October, only for the last 2 years now find that they start broadcasting them 3 months later.

Fortunately, have a good friend in the States so I watch them 24 hours after being broadcast over there.

The problem though is one that UK broadcasters have started doing. While watching the program, up pops an annoying ad informing us of what time and channel another program is due to start. As for the ad breaks, they were taken out, so that's a saving grace.

To be quite honest, I feel sorry for the Yanks, thankful that ours hasn't got that bad - YET.
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