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Netflix Cuts Out Over 6 Days Of Commercials From Your Life Per Year, Compared To Cable TV (businessinsider.com) 127

Posted by BeauHD from the not-to-be-missed dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Netflix knows their customers hate ads. "We know one of the benefits of an ecosystem like Netflix is its lack of advertising," Howard Shimmel, a chief research officer at Time Warner, told Bloomberg last year. "Consumers are being trained there are places they can go to avoid ads." In response to Netflix's advertising policy, many networks have actually cut back on the amount of ads they show in an effort to lure back in the younger Netflix generation. CordCutting.com crunched some numbers and found that each Netflix subscriber saves themselves about 158.5 hours of commercials per year. Here is how they figured that out: "First, it took Netflix's recent 75 million subscriber mark. Then, it combined that with a quote from CEO Reed Hastings that said subscribers stream 125 million hours every day. That means every subscriber streams about 1 2/3 hours per day. Then it looked at Nielsen data, which showed that the typical hour of cable TV includes 15 minutes and 38 seconds of commercials. If you combine that with the Netflix subscriber data, then you get that each subscriber avoids around 158.5 hours per year of commercials -- if they were watching Netflix instead of cable TV," writes Nathan McAlone via Business Insider.
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Netflix Cuts Out Over 6 Days Of Commercials From Your Life Per Year, Compared To Cable TV More

Netflix Cuts Out Over 6 Days Of Commercials From Your Life Per Year, Compared To Cable TV

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  • Between Netflix and Adblocker, your brain is maybe in need of a wash.

  • product placement = ads (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Netflix shows have a ton of product placement, just because the ads are on while the show is running doesn't mean it isn't there.

    • Re:product placement = ads (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sims 2 ( 994794 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2016 @08:36PM (#52088145)

      Product placement doesn't bother me that much as long as its not blatant https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
      And I don't watch much of the netflix originals so I haven't really noticed it. However It does annoy me when I get to the end of a movie and it minimizes the credits so it can show me a full screen ad for house of cards or whatever the new original crap they are currently trying to push. I wanted to watch the dance scene at the end of the credits dang it.

      • I can watch the credits full screen by arrowing to the small credits box and pressing select. Your particular button selection might be different.

        • Ahoy there! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dbIII ( 701233 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2016 @10:45PM (#52088741)
          Or alternatively clicking on "download torrent" :)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gsslay ( 807818 )

          Any way of configuring things so that it never does this?

          Sometimes this switch to minimized is really jarring and intrudes on stuff that the film producer wants people to see. I also like to know who I've been watching, who made it, what the music was, etc. I shouldn't have to leap for my remote in order to not have that interrupted.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vux984 ( 928602 )

        If you click or select the minimized credits area, it restores them to full screen. Works with most netflix UIs I've run into... but if you are using the app built into your smart TV or something... all bets are off :)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      Netflix certainly doesn't have ads to the extent of most channels. But you don't escape it entirely. It is always plugging their own shows (complete with automatic trailers these days) on the service AND on tv/radio/web. It's funny how often I'm recommended to watch some shows regardless of what my viewing history might say to the contrary. And the children's section is heavily laced with ads albeit in the form of TV shows - LEGO, Barbie etc. I wonder if Netflix even paid for these shows or if the toy manuf

  • Uh, no. (Score:3)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2016 @08:13PM (#52088003)
    "the typical hour of cable TV includes 15 minutes and 38 seconds of commercials"

    Unless you have a DVR. It takes me about 30 seconds to skip past those 15 minutes of commercials on my TiVo. News is about the only thing I watch live.

    • Anyone with half a brain is skipping the commercials, using that time to get some food/drink, use the toilet, yell at the kids, channel surfing, or *anything* other than staring at the commercials.

      • Anyone with half a brain is skipping the commercials, using that time to get some food/drink, use the toilet, yell at the kids, channel surfing, or *anything* other than staring at the commercials.

        You can't avoid commercials by surfing.... all the stations have synced their commercials so you have no choice but to surf to 'their' commercial.

        • I surf my phone during commercials when watching broadcast. I glance up for movie trailers sometimes.

        • You can't avoid commercials by surfing.... all the stations have synced their commercials so you have no choice but to surf to 'their' commercial.

          Right, because no one watches TV with a digital recording device that is capable of skipping ahead 10-30 seconds at a time, or skipping commercials almost automatically by pressing a single button.

          • Not exactly "nobody", but I imagine that the majority of TV watchers aren't willing to pay $200-$300 for a TiVo device and $600 more for a subscription to the required service. Or to which competing "digital recording device" do you refer?

    • We (my wife and I) don't watch live TV, too often. Where we can, we set the DVR and wait 15 minutes.

      We then happily add skip and usually end up finishing the show live - Sometimes we end up catching up to the live stream during the final add break, but such is life.

      • But they have crippled fast forward to where you see the ads.

        When Dish started, you could skip 30 seconds forward by pressing the skip forward button.
        You didn't "fast forward" thru the content unless you pushed the fast forward button.

        Since most show are 42 minutes on DVD, they must have 18 minutes of non show / non-credit content.

        • Yes, Such restrictions are coming on content recorders here also. (New Zealand)

          My 1st DVD recorder (Panasonic) came with a Manual Skip functions - Automatic 30 Seconds. (preNZ Freeview)
          My 1st BluRay HDD recorder (Panasonic) increased the manual skip function to 1 Minute increments (non Freeview certified) - Also allowed HD output via component cabling.
          My 2nd BluRay HDD recorder (Panasonic) removed ManualSkip function altogether although we do use fastforward (FreeView Certified) Only Allows HD output via HD

    • MythTV Removing Ads (Score:5, Informative)

      by crow ( 16139 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2016 @09:18PM (#52088359) Homepage Journal

      We have been using MythTV for over a decade. The automatic commercial detection is pretty good, but we usually take a minute to set cutpoints (tweaking the detected commercials), and then transcode the recording to drop the commercials. Our son *never* sees commercials. I'm sure that has saved us tons of begging for toys and whatnot.

      • Our son *never* sees commercials.

        Unless you homeschool your son and your son doesn't have any friend or classmate, this protection won't last long.

        Commercials and the influence they wield will get to him eventually.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by crow ( 16139 )

          To some extent, that's true. He's young enough that play with friends is still a bit managed (in large part because his friends are in different neighborhoods, so driving is involved). I expect the lack of exposure will reduce the impact they have on him when he does see them.

          On the other hand, he often gets excited about seeing ads the few times it happens because they're so rare.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

            We cut cable years ago. At a hotel this weekend my 3-year-old complained every time a commercial came on, because she thought I'd changed the show on her. It was hard trying to explain why hotel TV was so obnoxious.

            On the other hand, even without commercials the kids never seem to run out of things to ask for, so I'm not sure it's that much of a benefit. Just not having to see/listen to the commercials is still the biggest perk, for me.

      • Re:MythTV Removing Ads (Score:4, Interesting)

        by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2016 @12:21AM (#52089041) Journal

        We have been using MythTV for over a decade. The automatic commercial detection is pretty good, but we usually take a minute to set cutpoints (tweaking the detected commercials), and then transcode the recording to drop the commercials. Our son *never* sees commercials. I'm sure that has saved us tons of begging for toys and whatnot.

        My friend does this too, it makes for great kids that don't nag, which is exactly what the billions of dollars of psychology invested in commercials is designed to create. From what I've seen (they're about 10 now) you are on the right track to producing some well balanced human beings that won't require therapy later on in life.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swb ( 14022 )

        Any child about 12 or under who grew up in a technology household with DVRs and streaming likely has seen a fraction of the commercials children 10 or more years old saw, even if there isn't any effort to specifically block them.

        I think you might be surprised at your son's reaction had he seen them. The few commercials my son does watch, it always surprises me how he sees through so many of them. "Dad, why is it the viagra commercials always have a woman a lot younger than the man?" stands out, but it's k

      • Re:MythTV Removing Ads (Score:4)

        by allo ( 1728082 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2016 @07:44AM (#52090081)

        Here in germany, the tv companies went another road. Now they use overlays on the movie for advertisment (additional to the breaks).
        They not only place them above the bottom of the movie (instead of inside the black bars, when there are some), but they even tried to awful extensions
        - Movie zoomes out. Blue border, to the left a video advertisment, to the right the movie
        - A Fullscreen Overlay (with some transparent non-square border) over the full movie. In an horror movie in an thrilling scene.
        Pretty desperate. Or pretty evil. Or both.

    • FX (Score:3)

      by sycodon ( 149926 )

      While watching FX at my friend's place the other day, we put a stop watch on the shows.

      8:30 of show, then 4:30 of commercials, repeat.

    • Also, Netflix runs ads for its own content before shows and after shows.

      Of course, the CEO of Netflix states categorically that these previews Netflix forces you to watch (before being able to watch your own shows, or during the rolling of the credits) are not ads, but I don't think the idiot realizes that this kind of rhetoric doesn't help.

      As a customer, I can withstand ads of internal content, after all, they're not that bad, but having an asshole lie straight to my face over and over again and insult my

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        Also, Netflix runs ads for its own content before shows and after shows.

        On what platform? Is it recent? I have not seen that.

      • Also, Netflix runs ads for its own content before shows and after shows.

        What do you use for watching Netflix? We use an AppleTV and I've never seen this. I just tried it out, played an episode of Daredevil (one of their original series). The episode began playing immediately, no ads. I fast-forwarded to the end. The credits minimized to the left, and on the right it showed the info for the next Daredevil episode and a countdown timer for it to auto-play (if you consider that an ad, that is being really nitpicky). To see the credits in fullscreen, just select them and click.

        • Yup. I've never seen what the OP is talking about either. It's like you say - credits roll on the left, info about the next episode to the right. No ads for anything.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JazzLad ( 935151 )
        Pics or it didn't happen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      30 seconds? More like a minutes or so since there are many breaks! :(

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      This is what reporters don't seem to want to admit. The ad executives are all in an uproar because people can watch shows on netflix without commercials, but commercials on broadcast TV are largely optional, unless one has grown up in the 1950's and believe that TV must be consumed in real time, are a shut in, or a person who watches sports. Otherwise you can encode and strip commercials pretty automagically, or simply use one of the many devices to skip commercials with the press of a button.

      This is why

      • I mute the system the moment a commercial begins. I check my email real quick on my phone (just a matter of seconds), maybe get a snack, turn my head to talk to my SO, etc.

        Commercials don't bother me at all. Because I simply don't pay any attention to the content they present.

        Hulu has a nice feature, a little timer icon at the top left. You can tell exactly how much time remains in the commercial. I use that to get the mute button off at just the right time, and no sooner. :) But if it goes away, it's no bi

      • You assume everyone uses a DVR or such to do that.
        Sure, there are those who roll their own Myth TV or somesuch, but...
        the VAST MAJORITY of people with a DVR like device GET IT FROM THE CABLE OR SATELLITE company...
        Thanks for letting me clear that up for you.

        Myself, I don't have a DVR.
        I have NF and watch that or PBS.
        Occaisionally I watch the usual broadcast digital OTA channels also, which is when people mute the commercials.

  • There are 6 TV programs per week that I regularly watch. Commercial breaks are about 3 minutes a piece, and there are typically 5 such breaks in one hour. That works out to 15 minutes per show of commercials, and six such shows makes 90 minutes of commercials. There are as many as 26 weeks throughout the year where there is actually new programming, and I don't watch shows I've already seen so that works out to a grand total of as many as 39 hours of commercial watching in an entire year. That's kin

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      "commercial breaks also gives the opportunity to mentally disengage ..."

      Commercials are the opportunity to get some bread to go with the circus.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by WarJolt ( 990309 )

      Average American watches about 5 hours per day. You're the weird one.

      • Nothing wrong with being weird. Remember that if you vote that also makes you weird; if you read then you're weird; if you're on slashdot then you're so weird that tofurkey seems normal.

    • Re:Okay, let's calculate this.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday May 10, 2016 @08:53PM (#52088239) Homepage Journal

      Oh, and commercial breaks also gives the opportunity to mentally disengage from the tv screen

      You know what else does that? The pause button. We use that when we want to talk about what we're watching. Then we un-pause, and go on watching it... on our schedule.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )
        True.... but the pause button is an active disengagement... you may pause in the middle of somebody saying something, for example, even without meaning to. Commercial breaks are, at least, usually actually *between* scenes... and give you the opportunity to disengage from the TV without having to concentrate over when to hit that pause button.

        • but the pause button is an active disengagement... you may pause in the middle of somebody saying something, for example, even without meaning to. Commercial breaks are, at least, usually actually *between* scenes... and give you the opportunity to disengage from the TV without having to concentrate over when to hit that pause button.

          Huh, really? Commercials "between scenes"? I guess you've never watched any mystery series or drama or... Well pretty much anything that might ever have suspense built in. Or the news -- " Stay with us... Up next, all those parts of the news you actually want to hear about, but which we delay until later to force you to watch commercials..."

          I mean, seriously do you have a clue how programming is often explicitly designed to end on a disruptive point before a commercial to ensure you're in suspense and

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mark-t ( 151149 )
            Not meaning to sound like I'm trolling. I'm being entirely serious here when I say that I just don't take it as some sort of personal attack upon myself when a show that I might happen to be really getting into is suddenly interrupted by a TV commercial. It's just TV. It's just not THAT important to be something to get upset about.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Zeroko ( 880939 )
            Even worse is when something is available online for free with commercials & they get the timing off...then you see or hear a second or so of whatever was about to happen, then have to wait for the ads to end to see the rest. Sometimes it is hard to remember half a word from 10 minutes ago (especially if you go do something else on the commercial break). (10 minutes because 3 minutes worth of ads expanded by the ads being forced to a higher bitrate than my link can support, even though the show plays ju

        • True.... but the pause button is an active disengagement...

          Oh noes, a passive disengagement from my active disengagement

    • ... so that works out to a grand total of as many as 39 hours of commercial watching in an entire year. That's kinda falling pretty short of their estimate of 6 days. That's not even 2.

      You're watching 0.86 hours per day, on average (6 1-hour shows over 7 days) rather than the population average of 1.67. Basically, half the amount of TV watching per week.

      Then you're only watching 26 weeks per year, so again, half of the population average.

      Thus, overall you're watching about 1/4 as much as the average person. 6.6 days / 4 = 1.65 * 24 = 39.6 hours. Tada! The magic of math.

  • Read a book. Ok, not on the cheap Kindle but, you know what. Just shut up.

  • I don't think I have watched 6 days of of TV in the past 2-3 years combined.

    • No, it is ~25% commercials now.

      Looked at another way, 75 million subscribers * 158.5 hours per subscriber = 12 billion hours or 1.356 million years saved. Divide by the U.S. life expectancy of 78.74 years shows Netflix saved 17,234 lives.

      They should get an award or something.

  • Satan isn't so bad (Score:3)

    by linear a ( 584575 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2016 @11:34PM (#52088919)
    Satan isn't so bad ... compared with cable TV.

  • Not better than not watching TV at all (Score:3)

    by cristiroma ( 606375 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2016 @04:03AM (#52089571)
    Not watching TV at all saves you more than 6 days a month. Close the TV and go outside! Have fun!

  • I think they did the math wrong (Score:3)

    by Rob Lister ( 4174831 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2016 @06:10AM (#52089797)
    I think they did the math wrong.

    Here is how they figured that out: "First, it took Netflix's recent 75 million subscriber mark. Then, it combined that with a quote from CEO Reed Hastings that said subscribers stream 125 million hours every day.

    There is not a 1:1 relationship between subscribers and viewers; husband, wife, 1.25 kids, yada. I suspect--wild ass guess--it is more on the order of ~1:3. So the hours saved per account doesn't change but hours per viewer goes down by ~third. I'm a little surprised it is so few streamed hours per subscriber.

  • My cable bill is $240 a month. I also have Netflix. Programming on cable is also in sharp decline. If cable wishes to survive they need drastic price drops as well as more investment in high-quality programs. Even the big hits like Game Of Thrones seem to have suffered budget cuts and offer too few episodes per year to stay alive. Meanwhile, Deadwood as well as Boardwalk Empire, could have made wonderful long running series. When cable gets a winner they need to make more of it instead of sending it

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      My cable bill is $240 a month.

      Seriously??

      As someone from outside the US I don't really have a handle on how much things cost over there, but really? $240? A MONTH?

      W T F ?

      I hope that means you're paying for the absolute top-rated package available.

      For comparison, here in the UK, Virgin Media charges £75 ($108 USD) a month for their top-spec package, which includes *all* their TV channels, 200mbps broadband and a phone line, plus a free 6-month Netflix subscription thrown in. Or I can pay £45 ($65) for the same thing minus the

      • I know! All Americans seem to have, like, massive cable bills. I get Netflix for £5.99 pcm, my broadband for £49 pcm (including line rental and an actual landline telephone) and whatever Amazon Prime goes for a year these days...£80 a year? Can't remember. I don't get Sky or anything but it's not that expensive. It's weird.
    • If you really want the top end package you should at least call and haggle with them... you could be buying a car with that money...

    • I'll chime in as another "$240?!?" voice here, because whittling that number down a bit can certainly be done. First off, you can purchase your own cable box outright [cableboxandmodem.com]. My cable company charges $20/month for a standard box, and $36/month for a DVR box. these boxes will pay for themselves in less than a year, and by law, your cable company must make a Cablecard available for you. If you're a DIY type like me, you can pick up one of these [ebay.com] and use it with either Windows 7 (it's the only OS that supports all the

  • When I was a kid I was diagnosed with ADHD. This wasn't some huge thing, it seemed like every other kid in my generation had it. For me, the medication works so it's minor inconvenience at best. But I've noticed that in the past few years as I've switched from cable TV to Netflix and Amazon Prime that my ability to concentrate has improved an astounding amount. It's almost like my brain isn't being conditioned to rip my attention away from what it is I'm focusing on and violently change contexts every 30 se

  • That feeling when you anticipate a commercial (Score:3)

    by Sir_Eptishous ( 873977 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2016 @09:52AM (#52090841)
    I will be watching some tv program on NF, one that was designed/edited to be shown with commercials.
    Perhaps something from the History Channel.
    You can tell when the program is going to cut to a commercial, the music queues it up...
    But then...
    No commercial!

    I love it!

    What is interesting is sometimes I get an almost anticipatory anxiety, when I can tell it would normally go to a commercial.
    But then when the ad doesn't show and the program just keeps on going, its almost blissful.

  • When cable was first coming in, late seventies and early eighties... and I am not making this up, I saw the ads... a huge part of their advertising emphasis was "buy cable, and you'll never have to watch commercials again".

    And that was back when there *might* have been 10 min of commercials per hour.....

                      mark "they lie, like a rug"

  • If you use an Android set top box, you spend those 6 days searching for content they don't have, trying to figure out how to make the interface work with a remote, shopping for a new remote after you throw yours against a wall, and researching Netflix alternatives.

  • The cable companies are desperately clinging to content monopolies (ex. ESPN, etc.) to survive. I rarely watch anything live on TV anymore, other than the local news. Even sports, which I at one time swore had to be watched live, is better on the DVR. I watched the Superbowl that way last year. Zipped over all the commercials and that ridiculous time waster of a half time show. Must have cut a good hour out of it.

    When I watch Netflix the thing I notice about having no commercials is not only less time to wa

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • So the amazing thing here is imo this: Cable tv, which is not free, but costs money, gives You 25% commercials????? So.. 25% of your free time, you're watching stuff you don't want? How the hell did they ever sell that? And why do people accept it?
  • It's very strange that people still opt to pay for so much advertising. I am always amazed when I find a TV connected to cable and flip through the channels and channels of ads. Why isn't cable TV free already?

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