Tonight I was watching G.I.Jane, and right at the last 30 pivotal minutes of the show, it cut to commercial, then came back to the beginning...and NEVER fixed the glitch! Who the heck is supposed to be monitoring the broadcasting? I went to the website to complain, and their support is sub-par, to say the least. I'm so freakin' angry!@ArtDonovansLovechild:

I know this because my TiVo NEVER recommends anything on TBS. ;p

Eh, it's not as bad as MTV. Notice how the commercial breaks seem to be a little long? They've gotta be pushing five minutes per break. Nothing like selling tons of crap to the people who can convince parents to buy them stuff. And MTV2, when they show videos, cover up half the screen (the middle, no less) for the credits. Que pain.

To quote a 50 year old show,
"Nip it in the bud!"

@B: rotfl FTW!

Why have adverts just before something ends, then finish the last 5 minutes, then start something else straight away. It's crazy.

Adverts between programmes or no adverts at all if there's anything good on the BBC is where it's at!

TBS can be good at times but the way they cut up tv shows and movies really annoys me. I also don't appreciate when they choose to air a movie that does not meet their censors ultra high paranoid ideals and they hack and slash it to bits so that it no longer resembles the original movie. They should just play Disney movies if they are going to be that over sensitive though I am sure they might take offence to some things mentioned in some disney films.

And to be honest, if I have to watch television, I watch it on my internet/computer. With no commercials.

Do something about it, I did. There are websites with contact info.

guess what: the point of TV is to advertise. The shows you watch are filler for the ads. The characters and story lines convince you that you need to buy stuff because your life is incomplete and then the network is more than happy to show you which products to buy.

You aren't paying for the shows. You pay for the ads and the ads pay for the shows.

"oh glowing box of wonderment, please tell me what i should buy so that i can be just like these people that you say are perfect!"

i'll pass.

Didn't they used to advertise themselves as "The Braves Station"?

I think you people are over reacting just a little bit. You're acting like Bill Engvall's breaking into your house, waking you up in the middle of the night and telling you about his show. It's a commercial for God's sake. What I hate are those stupid pop up style banner ads. They even have ones with sound so you have trouble hearing what you're watching, now that's irritating.

Post Thought : If NBC tries picking up this "innovative form of advertising" when Heroes' second season comes out, I'm gonna be pissed. The show is awesome, but for being an hour long it's got an actual running time of, what, 35 minutes? I agree with Rhett; for all the money we pay to put the stations on the air, they run way too many advertisements.

So it's not enough that a half-hour TV show is really only fifteen minutes long due to commercials, but now they have the gall to take away even one extra minute? Yeah, it might be one minute, but when the actual running time of the show is half of the half-hour time slot it's supposed to fill, you would figure the execs running the station wouldn't be stupid enough to say, "Hey, what else can we do to take the enjoyment out of watching TV?"

The commercials end and...NOTHING. The friggin' 11 PM local news comes on. Yeah, OK, NBC, you tricked me. Good job. Think I'm not pissed off and resentful? *I* think *you* better hope I don't take it out on you when I talk to the Neilsen people who sent me a postcard the other day to tell me they're going to be calling with a phone survey.

I have the feeling I'm going to be reporting a LOT of C-SPAN viewing.

On the other (still annoying) hand, Everybody Loves Raymond comes on 6 different channels simultaneously in 4 hour blocks....just change the channel.

I wish cable and satellite would go to more of an a-la-carte system. Packages suck. If there are 20 channels you normally watch, with 10 in package A and 10 in package B, you're stuck paying more money for both packages for more channels that you never watch. I'd rather pick and choose what channels I want. Why am I paying for crap like Faux News and the bible channels when I'd much rather have HBO and Playboy? I want to replace the golf and nascar channels with NHL center ice. I've never seen a fight break out at a golf game, and left turns get boring after the 2nd lap. Give me the channels I mentioned and Comedy Central and I'll be happy. Throw in MSNBC too....To Catch A Predator has got to be the funniest thing on TV since Beavis and Butthead.

As for the TBS hating, I don't watch the network much at all, but I did witness something nice they did once. I got sucked into a King of Queens episode (I know, I'm an idiot) because the opening was extremely funny. Anyways, they hardly had any commercials during a large portion of the show and then stacked most of the ads at the end. I would say there was 2 breaks with 2 total minutes of commercials during the first 23 or so, and then there was two 3 minute breaks sandwiching the final minute of the show. I guess they don't do this often?

Just to tell a stupid story I was reminded of: Was watching The West Wing on Bravo a couple years ago. It was the 2nd episode of season 1, they goto commercial break with 10 minutes left, but when they comeback, they air the last 10 minutes of the pilot instead of the final 10 minutes of the episode I was watching. Would love to know how that happened.

The worst thing about this whole thing is that people are admitting to watching Everyone Loves Raymond.

=p

I really can't understand why people are SO afraid to vote with their wallet. Why can't you stand up for yourselves?

I dumped cable completely several years ago because I got so fed up with all the annoying advertising. TBS was the worst of them. When they started those irritating ads that come out from the side right in the middle of a show I said enough.

Remember when you PAID for cable TV so you didn't have to watch commercials on like broadcast TV? Well now cable has more commercials that broadcast TV so I gave it the boot.

The sooner you start complaining loudly enough (by disconnecting your service) the sooner things will improve.

I boycotted TBS years ago. Between the brutal cutting jobs on movies and then still rating the movie R and giving the viewer warnings, to the excruciatingly long commercial breaks, it drove me insane. This is not surprising.

Still lame, though.

I cant believe no one noticed that they Spelled Bill Engvall wrong in their own commercial!! In one commercial they spell it Bill Engvall and Bill Enval at two different points.

YES, it is very annoying. NO, they have not actually cut off anyone speaking yet. Most commonly the fake "pause" happens when the canned laughter and piano "de-de-de-diddily-dum" music is happening right as they go to commercial break anyways.

Its a lame way to advertise, but for those of you who are having a stroke over a tv show thats been in syndication for a year or two....wow.

@ENRIQUEZ: I understand that. It's just insulting and basically says, "(S)He isn't smart to figure out what's funny and neither can you. So tune in to us and we'll tell you what is."

I just find them incredibly annoying.

FearNet does something similar. They don't stop the action but they do something just as despicable. A few weeks ago my wife and I were watching Jacob's Ladder on FearNet on demand. Periodically, they would put up an ad for one of their own shows. They did not stop the action but their stupid ad would cover half of the screen. Way to screw up the atmosphere of the film, idiots!

They're totally doing this, I've noticed it while watching Everybody Loves Raymond in particular. They don't seem to be doing it when Friends is on (directly after Raymond) though.

Well gang, now's the time to speak up. I'll be heading over to their site or looking up CS numbers to bitch; suggest you do the same if you don't want this to spread to other stations and get even worse.

I am getting sick of the 'bug' with the network logo. Some channels, like NOGGIN and PBS SPROUT (I have a toddler) have their logos so large, that they block characters, or subtitles.

I get 'LIFESKOOL' as an on-demand, and their log also covers a large portion of the screen, as ell as subtitles. It's 1/2way across the bottom of my screen.

Oh, di I mention that there is a purpleish haze in the lower right corner now? I betcha that's related...

TBS not so funny

Also, I hate their commercials where someone calls in trying to find out if something is funny. Are people so stupid they have to be told what's funny? I won't watch TBS because it annoys me so.

It happens every farking episode. My wife and I watch Raymond all the time (it's one of the few shows we can agree on), and every episode, right toward the end, Bill Engvall pops up, CLICKS ON A REMOTE CONTROL, and pauses the TV. Then he does his "ad", CLICKS THE REMOTE again, and unpauses the TV just long enough to finish episode, usually just in time for another commerical for the "Bill Engvall" show. It's definitely delibrate. The man's pushing the PAUSE button on a remote, for cripes sake. Between that and the godawful House of Payne (RETCH!), it makes me stabby..

I get all my TV shows from Netflix. I've watched all seasons of Arrested Development, CSI, and my other favorites on DVD.

When I catch a show on actual television and see all the garbage cluttering the screen I wonder why I'm still even paying for cable.

james...

It's all about making more money than last year. Wall Street asks "what have you done for me this month?" and the consumer is treated to gross disregard.

I haven't watched anything on TBS in a long time, now I know that if I'm treated like this as a viewer, I'll find something else to watch.

@B: Ohhh BURN

/seen it, hate it.. They stopped Raymond mid joke (not that I like that show) to drop a Bill Engval ad in. Serisouly annoying