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Do You Actually Watch Commericals?

Do You Watch the Ads?

  • I watch and listen!

    Votes: 9 28.1%
  • I turn the volume down

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I mute the TV

    Votes: 7 21.9%
  • I watch something else instead

    Votes: 13 40.6%
  • I only watch online downloads without ads

    Votes: 3 9.4%

  • Total voters
    32
Most of my TV watching is time-shifted so I just skip ads. I do mute web video ads and look at other windows while waiting.

For live TV I just tune out and do something else with the time.
 
I usually just mute the TV and screw around online if I'm watching something live. At the very least I'm not watching them "actively".

And of course, I skip right through that crap when something's on the DVR, like any sensible person would.
 
Some of the local commercials are amusingly bizarre:

The auto dealer that stood on top of his rather tall sign. This was several decades ago and it looked pretty convincing, so he probably actually stood up there!

A more recent auto dealer whose ads frequently a female "customer" pursuing him to show an unwanted degree of gratitude. She's been in so many of that dealer's commercials I'm beginning to wonder if the character is portrayed by the guy's wife.

The window company ads that featured a boy throwing a baseball through a window, conveniently covered by the retailer's lifetime breakage warranty.

The chimney sweeps wearing their top hats. One commercial even features "customers" in colonial era costumes to show how such services have continued to be necessary over the centuries.
 
Nope. When they break for commercials, I start channel surfing to see what else is on. Depending on what I find, the program I was watching may or may not get me back.
 
If I'm watching live, I usually don't pay attention to commercials. If I recorded something, I'll fast-forward through them, but if something catches my eye, I'll stop and go back to see what it was. I wonder if commercials these days are designed that way... To get someone's attention even when they're fast-forwarding through them.

The ones that I really hate are the guy with the beard and raspy voice in the messy tuxedo saying "I'm a (insert dangerous thing)" here. He says it in exactly the same voice each time. I haven't watched it in such a long time I forgot what it was an ad for; maybe life insurance?
These ones?
 
I usually leave the TV on without changing the volume, but I'll at least channel surf for a minute. I don't go out of my way to listen and understand the commercials, but it's been known time to time for me to actually hear a commercial.

Does the volume change ever bug you? Sometimes it's SO MUCH LOUDER than the regular programming that I'll end up hitting mute or turning the volume up and down throughout the course of the show. Really irritating, and actually turns me off commercials more.
I HATE that with a passion. On TV, there's not usually much difference, so it's not so bad, but online that's a completely different story. Go watch a TV show at a network's site, and you'll have to watch a few ads. Those ads are almost uniformly much louder than the show. It really pisses me off because usually when I'm watching something like that it's in the evening after my kids have gone to bed. I have the volume down so that I don't keep them up, then along comes a commercial that is uncomfortably loud and it wakes up my kids. I've gotten pretty good at knowing when it's coming and turning off the speakers before the ad starts, but it's still a major nuisance. The negative experience associated with the product certainly doesn't entice me to buy it.

As for me, I avoid ads whenever possible. Most of the TV I watch is recorded so that I can watch it later and skip the ads. I even refuse to watch any Youtube videos that have ads. If an ad comes on first, it's suddenly not worth my time and I'll go find something else. Likewise, I don't even notice banner ads on the internet. My kids will comment on an ad sometime on a page I'm looking at and I have no idea what they're talking about. I've even missed stuff on some webpages before because the content is in a part of the page usually occupied by ads. I just completely avoid looking at those areas of webpages.
 
I DVR almost everything and fast forward through the commercials. Tivo was really good about picking up the beginning of shows after commercial breaks, but Dish's DVR won't let you do that.

If I'm watching something on Hulu, I just surf.

If I'm on Netflix, I don't have to worry about it!
 
By the time TV shows reach me, they tend not to contain adverts anymore. And if I do actually watch something on TV, 99% of the time it's on the BBC anyway and doesn't have adverts.

I don't think i've seen a commercial on TV in a year at least.
 
During commercials I usually just talk to whoever else is in the room, or get a drink, or pee out earlier drinks. I never bother to go as far as muting them or anything, but I don't sit there giving commercials the same attention as the show itself. Commercials never advertise anything of relevance or interest to me anyway. I don't think I've ever been influenced by a commercial to buy a product.

Oh, that's just a load of rich, creamery butter.
 
I usually don't just watch TV, I have my notebook and/or Xbox 360/PS3 running simulatenously or in the background, so I just switch to that.
 
I watch and I listen, in fact I am a big fan of commercials and I marvel at the genius of some marketing teams. Some of the commercials I have seen through the years have been just brilliant.
 
Mute.

And/or I flip through the channels, go to the loo, fetch another cupper, put on some washing/hang it up to dry, do the dishes, entertain myself on-line, go to the corner-shop...

But I rarely watch anything on commercial channels anyway (which has saved me a small fortune in cable-bills :bolian: )
 
I rarely watch commercials. I almost always watch shows with DVR rather than live, and fast forward through most commercials, although occasionally one will catch my eye and I'll slow down for it.
 
Do You Actually Watch Commericals?
Sometimes (your poll doesn't have an option for this.)

I really watch very little "sitting in front of the set" television; when I do I often mentally tune the commercials out, but every now and then there'll be one which is clever or entertaining enough that I'll watch. When watching online I'm also occasionally confronted with ads, and these get more or less the same treatment - tuned out unless they somehow catch my interest.
 
Rarely. I hit the mute button during ads; very occasionally there's an ad that catches my eye for whatever reason (something I'm interested in, actual cleverness etc), but that doesn't happen very often.
 
Never ever. Well, except for Superbowl ads that I specifically look for online after the game. Everything we watch is either timeshifted or downloaded commercial free, thank God!
 
If I'm watching TV, I've usually also got my computer in my lap. I often just let the commercials play at their regular volume, but my mind is focused elsewhere.
 
I usually watch the BBC so the only "ads" I see are for those promoting their own shows, and even those can become annoying. As others have mentioned I rarely just sit in front of the television without my laptop or some knitting, so when any kind of ads come on I have somewhere else to focus my attention.
 
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