by Julia Mcconnell

Created on: March 03, 2010

When television first became part of my life in 1955 I thought it was, without a doubt, one of the true joys of life; a friend to cheer me, entertain, educate, keep me company at dinner time and raise a tear or two.  At that time there were only seven channels; 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 in the Manhattan area.  And this friendship ended at midnight with the playing of the Stars Spangled Banner and display of our flag. 

I will not even venture a guess as to the number of channels available today, but there are more than seven and probably closer to seven hundred.  As I use the remote, another invention to keep us from any unnecessary movements; to surf from channel to channel, rarely do I come onto a show in progress.  What I click onto is one commercial after another.  One evening I decided to time the length of show time compared with commercial time; show time was ten minutes and commercial time three minutes.  Three minutes of ten or twelve commercials.

The sole advantage of a remote to me is the ability to turn off the sound once a commercial is displayed.  Now I understand that these companies pay a hefty price to advertise their goods.  But I would be more inclined to actually listen to their sales pitch if they were to use the beginning and the end of the production to sell their products.

Many commercials are delivered with such irritating delivery, that ‘Heads On’ piece is one of the worst offenders.  And I would rather have a headache to end all headaches rather than buy their, probably useless, headache solution.

Please understand; I am not against commercials.  Another annoyance is the level of sound that increases when a commercial comes on.    Maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t there a law that prohibits the increase of sound during commercial sales? I’m sure there is but it is being completely ignored. 

Silly me, I had the idea that once we had cable TV that would eliminate commercials.  It’s true to a small degree if you consider HBO, Showtime and the other movie channels, but not so with the others.

I am watching less and less television.  And that saddens me greatly.  I am losing my friend; my educator, my entertainer, my company at dinner time.  Maybe we can make up but I’m not going to make the first move. 

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