Cable I believe was originally supposed to be TV shows without commercials for one monthly price. Unfortunately cable found out it was able to screw us and charge us the monthly fee and get money from commercials as well because they knew we would still pay for it. As a man of 19 years of age behind me I can say honestly, I'm sick of commercials and would pay more to the TV provider if it meant I didn't have to watch commercials anymore. What about you?

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Pay even more than they're already charging? So they can just start running commercials on THAT service in a few more years? Nah. I don't watch much TV as it is, nor should anyone else (it rots your brain, especially with the shows that are popular nowadays ).

I do like SOME commercials because they are funny. But commercials get annoying when i'm trying to watch my daily does of "the young and they restless".

The Internet's the same way. Also, the provider doesn't get money from the commercials. It's the networks.

Cable channels must get some money from the ads. I see nation-wide channels air local ads on cable. I've never seen a local ad on satellite.

Also, thats how most networks make their money from what I understand. Shows get cancelled, not because no one watches them, but because no one watches the ads (either flips the channel or fast-forwards recored shows.)

TV without commercials? next you're going to ask me to pay a TV tax like in European countries.

**** that that's bull**** and communism.

If it existed, my poll choice would be "Yes, I'll pay what I pay now, and just keep skipping/fast forwarding through commercials."

But your idea of "I'd pay a lot more to have no commercials" already happens. Channels like HBO don't show advertisers' commercials, but they cost me extra. (I pay first for basic cable, then extra if I want HBO on top of that.) I suspect that most of the extra goes to HBO and replaces the ad money that HBO doesn't get.

Some of the cost for basic cable makes sense to me. There are some costs to my cable company for laying/maintaining cable, having the equipment to download and relay shows, having technicians, billing, and support people, and so on. Note that I'm not saying whether or not the prices are reasonable, but just pointing out that basic cable does cost the cable company something. So I'd expect some kind of charge, even for the ultra-basic option that only shows channels that broadcast locally.

Uh-oh, the next part gets a bit long-winded. Skip if you don't care about history ("what cable was originally supposed to be").

I'm not so sure that there's been as much change as it seems. My memory of early cable is patchy, but most of the channels seemed to be in the style of HBO: you paid extra to have them, but you got no commercials. In other words, the 'no commercials' channels worked the same back then as they do now. I can't remember whether all cable channels worked that way (MTV, for example). (If anyone actually cares, I'll ask my mom and see whether she remembers whether MTV had commercials, and whether she had to pay extra to have it included.)

I think the main thing that's changed is that there are now major networks that only air through cable. It used to be that if you wanted to see ABC, CBS, etc., your city had to have a local affiliate station that maintained its own staff and broadcast equipment, showed some local programming, solicited and inserted commercial advertisements, and so on. So some of the commercials gave money to the parent network, and the local commercials gave money to the local affiliate station. It seems that the cable company acts like the local affiliate for cable networks like TNT, Nick, etc. The cable company does most of the same things that the local affiliate stations used to (minus the local programming). So it's not surprising to me that they have continued the same advertising model.

[/uncontrolled pedantry]

Hell no. I love the fact that there are commercials. It gives me a chance to use the bathroom, cook, or do something that I've been meaning to do. I don't want to have to record all of my shows just because I needed to take a piss!

OR, you could get Foxtel IQ? Wait, do they have that in America? Maybe watch less T.V?

Just kidding, I HATE this show.