Does anyone remember the days when TV shows would go to commercials,

[Sogo]

the break lasted for one minute.....Seriously, only one minute....

[Ocelot II]

1. Typically there would be only one commercial, not a whole string of them,

most of which you already saw during previous commercial breaks.

[Sogo]

3. Yes. The one minute commercial.....

It was a big deal when they started making shorter, 30 and 15 second commercials and thus cramming several commercials into the minute break.

[Aristus]

15. Television shows became too expensive to be funded by just one sponsor.

And back when they had one sponsor per show, the name of the sponsor was usually right in the show's title, obviating the need for endless commercial breaks.

The Texaco Star Hour, Mutual Of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, etc.

[Sneederbunk]

2. Yes, and they had station identification.

[cinematicdiversions]

4. Honestly Sogo I can't remember when TV had commercials.

Are you referring to the little previews before the next show streams?

[Sogo]

7. Ha Ha Ha! I'm talking about the days when "streams"

were little bodies of flowing water....

[Ferrets are Cool]

8. This

[FakeNoose]

5. Sometimes the local station got to run their 10 second blurb too

This was all happening when it didn't cost $ millions to produce every frickin' TV show.

[Archae]

6. To me, the worst offender is TBS.

I swear, they have half-hour ad breaks.

[LeftInTX]

9. I think CNN is the worst

They will have a huge breaking news story...It will be on for several days and there will be no ads...Then, when the disaster is over, they cram all the commercials in.

[targetpractice]

10. Back then there were about 8-10 minutes of commercials...

...per hour episode. That's why hour long shows from back then, that can be streamed now are typically 50 minutes.

Nowadays, it's 17-18 minutes of commercial per hour long episode, and streams with no ads are 42 minutes long.

[Orrex]

11. When was that?

Not in the past 40+ years, I’d guess.

[Sogo]

12. I remember it as being before there was color TV,

so a while ago....

Maybe it continued for a while after color, I don't know specifically....But, for sure, when TV was still B&W.

[Orrex]

13. Ah. Yes, those days are gone

A “half hour” program was something like 25+ minutes. Compare that to a episode of Friends, which I think ran about 4.5 minutes including credits.

[bluewater]

14. Tell us about the sound the "remote control" used to make in the long long ago

[wnylib]

16. In the "long, long ago"

remote control meant mom or dad told the kid to get up and change the channel.