One of my beefs about modern programming is the amount of padding in the form of repetition.
In "fiction" TV, the "mystery box" is frequently used in this way - and the "mystery" is rarely worth it. In "factual" or "reality" TV, it's telling you what you are going to see, recaps of what you have just seen and all-too-common "reminders of the journey " (ie clips from previous shows). For live sports, it's various forms of "time-out" and advertising.
Recording the programme and skipping these boring and inessential parts reduces many shows quite considerably. (I have in mind an "hour-long" documentary that contained about 18 minutes of actual material and many "quiz" shows are 2/3rds empty chatter, 1/3rd, questions)
In theory, I share your horror. In practice, fast-forwarding reduces the amount of time wasted.