I diligently mute them, I’m a freak I cannot stand them. But from the nature of many people’s complaints about ads, it seems like they listen to them and want to retain the words they’ve said?
I solved this problem by having not watched cable television in like ten years.
same. something like 17 years here.
Caught some TV a couple months ago at my moms place, and was horrified about the amount of ad breaks and length. I don’t know how anyone can tolerate this
I don’t watch it, but I definitely second hand consume it because my parents still watch cable. I don’t really have a choice either since most every night I’m helping cook dinner while my dad watches his nightly reruns of MASH and Emergency (unless it’s something else for a change). The ads aren’t extremely unbearable because they’re aimed at middle-aged to elderly people like my dad, but I don’t care for them.
I found a cool way of ad-blocking back when I watched TV. Probably does not work anymore, and relies on Teletext page 888 (closed captions, the number varies by country) not being updated during ads.
- Mute
- Switch to another channel and back to clear Teletext cache
- Turn on fullscreen Teletext, any page (I like the 89x test patterns)
- Type “888” as the page you want to go to
- The TV will now wait for 888 to be broadcast, which only happens after ads and trailers
- The program is now running with captions. Disable Teletext and unmute if you want sound instead.
https://www.noblecollection.com/Item--i-PRP-HP-8050
Raise it straight up in the air and say “Addi-nau-seum” into the microphone, then quickly point it at the TV.
Sadly I don’t think Teletext has been broadcast (in the UK at least) in over a decade
It definitely still works in the Czech Republic and Germany. Our pre-2023 president was an avid user. Public TV stations hand-format their own and syndicated news for 39 columns and pick monthly poetry. Commercial stations just automatically jam syndicated news into the format, sometimes overflowing to another subpage just by 1 word, and host huge amounts of banner and fullscreen ads with meh graphics by Teletext standards, mostly for dodgy phone services like tarot and erotic hotlines. They also host “chat24”, probably the worst message board ever: imagine a public IRC room but $0.50 per message (by SMS) including setting your nickname and color.
Why you askin Lemmy what normal people do?!
What are ads?
I haven’t had an ad in my house or on my devices in like 15years. I block all ads.
When I go elsewhere or out and see an ad I literally get confused for a second before I remember people still let them play.
Don’t suffer through ads friend.
