Written by Florence Basile
Growing up, I always knew how to avoid watching ads on cable: just letting them run while going about my business, muting the TV, or (and this is the best option) pausing and then trying to press play right when it started again. The other day I was watching Only Murders in the Building on Hulu, to which I have the lowest subscription possible and therefore commercial breaks are part of the bargain (basically a modern version of cable), and found that someone ratted us out! No longer can I avoid watching commercials by pausing and skipping ahead. Instead, I’m forced to sit through them. But hey, we all know that by this point I’m too hooked to stop watching. I guess I’ll just go with the flow…
Let’s just say that I wanted to watch the newest episode of season 46 of Survivor. Let’s also say that I wanted a blast from the past where my whole family gathers around the TV at 7pm to watch it live on the broadcast network CBS. If my Television Studies Seminar class counts as my family, then I did just that. Even more so, because I watched an approximately 60 minute show in 90 minutes. Thank you commercials!
Consumers are often oblivious to the interaction occurring between their show and the array of “random” commercials. I’ve decided to narrow down what I observed while watching CBS to a 20 minute segment that aired from 7:57pm to 8:17pm. Of that 20 minutes, I watched 11 minutes of Survivor and 9 minutes of commercials. However, this came as no surprise to me. I was an hour into the program and hooked – CBS showrunners simply took advantage of that. Even with the abundance of commercials, 19 to be exact, I had to know what would happen next on Survivor.
From 7:57pm to 8:02pm, I watched 5 minutes of drama unfold. The purple team, winner of that episode’s challenge, discussed who they wanted to vote off of the show – MORIAH or VENUS?! At one point, a banner appeared advertising CBS’s streaming of the CMT Music Awards; there had been an advertisement regarding this in the previous commercial break. It didn’t appear at a random moment in the episode, but when the suspense was at its peak, when CBS knew I was at the edge of my seat.
Then, commercials returned from 8:02pm to 8:06pm. In addition to a Chewy, Progressive, and Twizzler commercial, I was reminded that CBS’s The Amazing Race was coming up next and that CBS had new episodes of Elsbeth being aired the next day. Both CBS trailers were televised last when it was most likely that viewers would be returning to their seats before Survivor began again.
I watched 6 more minutes of Survivor, with tensions rising as it came time for tribal council night, until another commercial break came on. I noticed that the target age group of the advertisements widely ranged just as the show Survivor’s does. Several aired, some for medications and others for dog food or insurance. Halo on Paramount+, a platform I later learned is owned by CBS, was promoted through a trailer. Just as the CMT Music Awards banner was displayed during the show, the Survivor industry advertised their show’s new virtual reality game during the commercials. Towards the end, CBS showed trailers for what they’d be streaming in the future such as Finding MN, Fire Country, a Billy Joel concert, and Elsbeth. This was the second time that Fire Country was being advertised and I noticed that it was a quick snippet compared to the first. In fact, I found that with all the shows CBS needed to promote, the full-length trailers were shown in the first few commercial breaks when everything was still fresh for the viewer (perhaps when they didn’t need a bathroom break quite yet). The following would be shorter, acting as a reminder.
For better or for worse, commercials create a different kind of viewer experience. The experience is not random, of course, but has a thoroughly, curated flow. Even the reality TV-show Survivor is not 100% reality with a selection of shots and angles meticulously put together to evoke certain emotions in the audience. With advertisements placed throughout and within, CBS hopes that a consumer will buy a pack of twizzlers and watch an episode of Elsbeth or Fire Country afterwards. I mean… I’m in!