Didn't news anchors or other on-air personalities used to flog the cigarettes they were smoking while on air?

"b-e-s-u-r-e-t-o-d-r-i-n-k-y-o-u-r-o-v-a-l-t-i-n-e"

It doesn't make it any less frustrating, but it is old hat, isn't it?

edit to add some facts:

How Much TV Commercial Length has Grown over the Years:

We all accept commercials as a necessary evil because they pay for the TV shows we 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. Combining these with currently aired shows provided the following:

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

1958 - 13 percent

1961 - 18 percent

1963 - 20 percent

1964 - 18 percent

1967 - 19 percent

1976 - 17 percent

1977 - 18 percent

1981 - 18 percent

1990 - 22 percent

1994 - 24 percent

2001 - 30 percent

2004 - 30 percent

2006 - 30 percent

2007 - 30 percent

2008 - 32 percent

2009 - 30 percent

2010 - 32 percent

2011 - 31 percent

2012 - 33 percent

2013 - 32 percent

2014 - 30 percent

2015 - 30 percent

2016 - 31 percent

2017 - 31 percent

Not as much as I would expect, but still.

In the middle of a half hour show. And it was LIVE. they would make a tuna sandwich and spread on the mayo. I kid you not we actually looked forward to the commercial. Don't laugh.

to get some news in before another commercial. Sometimes they talk so fast, I don't catch all of it cause I'm hard of hearing and have to sometimes process what I hear.

That the entire rest of the world has only half the ads as US TV. And it has NO pharma ads at all.

play a 2 hour movie that lasts 3 hours because of the ads. There are many more ads now and I only put up with it for the show Blacklist. Have given up on most everything else.

on a split screen with the opening credits of the next program, so as to free up more time for ads.

Also, final credits are often scrolled at twice or three times the speed they were meant to be played at, also to free up time for more ads.

Just so crass and, yes, commercial.

Shows that start 3 minutes before the hour. Like Jeopardy. You have to miss the last 3 minutes of what you were watching or you miss the first 3 minutes of the show. Some History Channel shows do that, too. What's up with that?

I remember the great promise of cable TV when it came on the scene. You paid a monthly fee to them and there were no commercials in the cable created programing.

Without a DVR of some type these days to record your favorite shows or picking them up on Dvd's it's difficult to get through even a half hour program.

There's easy choices to deal with it, such as just recording it and skipping commercials later (skip button on my tivo is wonderful) or wait for the show to hit streaming.

by drug commercials! Now, how bad is that? You can't even watch someone trying to sell you something without commercials trying to sell you something.

My wife and I stream Netflix and Amazon Prime, and buy the occasional movie from apple. We even buy DVDs occasionally, like a season set of a episodes of a serial that we've seen and really liked. My tolerance to ads is near zero. I can take the ones on NPR, but I guess that's my limit. so, my point is, you can take steps to remove ads from your life if you want to. But you might have to give up watching professional sports...

or you’re right, I NEED A LIFE WITHOUT professional sports. thanks.