AMC Network Entertainment review: annoying banner ads. 14

I am a upset with people accepting the excuse "costs go up so commercials are necessary" as much as I am with the commercials on AMC. The fact s that "free TV" made a profit by showing ads, so "pay TV" was sold to the public on the big lie that we would eliminate ads by paying a monthly fee. I worked for Loews Theaters at the time cable arrived in my city, and I recall the "you will never see a commercial" promises. Think about it...almost every home in the country now has cable or satellite, the average bill is probably around $149/month, the cable company illegally exploits utility easements to lay cable for free, yet we are seeing well over 30 minutes of commercials per hour. (Under the old "Television Code" ads were capped at 15 minutes per hour) and that figure does not count the banner ads and watermarks. In the future I will only "subscribe" for news and sports, but I will buy movies at Wal-Mart.
By the way...cable TV is NOT a public utility and you are NOT required to allow them to lay cable in your yard. When these clowns showed up I negotiated a free TV deal in exchange for the granting of an easement.

I thought I was the cynical one and was just feeling like I was an unlikely target. When engrossed in a film, an animated banner ad just wiped away the emotion and depth of immersion. All the channels are doing it. DIY is the profoundly worst! Comedy Central is almost unwatchable, CMT has HUGE ones, NBCSN made the Mecum Auto Auction unwatchable and AMC ruined my attempt to watch The Green Mile with... ANIMATED FIREWORKS - BRIGHT AND BRILLIANT! This is computer 'pop-ups' of the TV world and like having someone walk in front of you repeatedly at a theater. Your huge TV purchase is negated by a third of the screen being used for their agenda!

I think the new Halt and catch fire will be a great show how ever I will not continue to watch it because of all the commercials ever seven to eight minutes there is at three to four minute commercial. Total not good! Sorry for your greed.

On the premier of walking dead February 9th me and a couple of friends timed 26 minutes of commercials and previews of prior episode. We are feeling cheated from such an awesome show. It is understandable that it is the most watched show on the planet and u need to sell commercial space to provide such a great show. On the other hand it is the most watched program and if $ is an issue just charge more per commercial. We as a viewing public want to see more walking dead and less advertising. I intend to start a fan page to protest this if the issue isn't changed by next episode. I have over 300 immediate friends that have already expressed dissatisfaction of the run time directly to me. I'm sure u can find it in your heart to rectify this situation.

I am glad to see that many others are complaining about AMC's amateurish, repetitive programming, peppered with overly excessive and overly lengthy commercials. Years ago, when AMC went from no commercials to its current format, I called to complain. Obviously, AMC is choosing to not listen to its rapidly declining viewer base. Hopefully advertisers will note this and use their funds on alternate venues to reach us. I do not watch AMC, preferring reruns of Andy Griffith, and TV Land channel in general. It is also interesting that in Las Vegas, COX Cable has removed TCM from its Basic Cable Service. Noting the lousy choices on AMC, I firmly believe that this was done by COX Cable to blackmail viewers into buying expensive cable upgrades so that they do not have to watch AMC. COX Cable feels that they are enough of a monopoly that they can do this without antagonizing and losing customers. I wish COX the VERY WORST.

"Generation attention handicapped": It's getting worse and worse. I finally start to understand people moving to log cabins in the remote areas. I can't stand certain developments anymore. This will lead to a generation similar to the perfectly desrcibed one in the movie "Wall-E"

It's hard to watch anything on AMC. A 90 minute movie can take hours to watch because of the commercials. I stop watching AMC years ago because of the commercials. It seems like they play about 8 minutes of a movie then commercials after commercials. They do show good movies but because of the interruptions, I rather not watch AMC.

The only reason I watch AMC is for their shows like The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men. Pretty much everything else they show is not worth watching. All they show is crappy spaghetti westerns. And actually Orlandoroberts, I am pretty sure their ratings have greatly increased because of these amazing shows. Get your facts straight before writing a comment.

You know whats got me angry is that AMC used to be a channel that I could turn to and there was hardly ever a time that I would see the same movie playing over and over. Look at this months lineup... Rifleman.. Quick And The Dead... over and over just about every day this month at least twice a day. Scream1 2 and 3 over and over again... repeated commercial breaks of Walking Dead... although it is a good show.. I would not like to be reminded that it is going to air this week every five minutes. AMC sold out like they wanna be HBO or SHOWTIME. This is supposed to be a movie channel so why arent you playing movies? We are tired of watching the same garbage over and over again! AMC you know what I do when I see the same repeated played out movies everytime I turn it to your channel? I flip it to another. Your losing ratings quick! Your shows like Walking Dead and Breaking Bad and Hell On Wheels will always be watched but is it that hard to hire a D.J. and play some of the great movies that you havent played in years? Your like the Holloween specials... the same every year except in your case every day. Very Pissed off in Long Island New York. Get your ### together SLACKERS!

I totally agree and add that it seems to be getting worse rather than better, insult added to injury. The brain can, in many instances, block out the unmoving text in one corner but now we have BOTH lower corners being used by AMC to distract us. That ought to be about enough times two but, no, now we have the animated adds as well because AMC is well aware that it is not possibe for us to block this out. Once they have a captive audience wathing the current show, they figure it's safe to assume we'll sit through any amount of abuse to make it through the feature we want to see so they keep adding abuse. Our household is watching it less and less and I expect we'll stop watching AMC completely in the very near future if this abuse isn't either stoped or tempered considerably.

UncleRon

I totally agree, but it goes farther. If I knew more about the use of computers or the internet, I would try to organize a protest or boycott against AMC first, since they are one of the worst, then others, systematically forcing them, one by one to quit the practice of using banner ads. Dropping their ratings by reducing their viewership and having it attributable to the protest of banner ad advertising would probably be the only effective way to force them to do something. I consider the ads a "visual" tax worthy of protesting. Considering the fact that boycotts are generally ineffective, the effort to organize a campaign against them would probably require a professional effort. I'll go to the URL in the prior comment to see what they are doing on Facebook.

I'm glad I'm not alone. People should not have to settle for less when subscribing to cable television. I've added a link to this complaint from a facebook page I created called "No more ads during movies on AMC network"

For those interested in attempting to get AMC's attention, copy and paste this link into your browser: http://www.facebook.com/pages/No-more-ads-during-movies-on-AMC-network/100914109973465?ref=ts

I've just decided to stop watching this channel forever. It was bad enough having the watermark that most stations seem to have now, but blocking the whole bottom of the screen with a banner ad (plug for themselves) is too much. Then there are the constant commercial breaks that are easily 50% + of the programming (again mostly plugging themselves).

I guess AMC stands for "Always More Commercials".

Goodbye. I hope you crash & burn soon in your own corporate greed!

Two movies on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and we are BOMBARDED with 1/3 screen ads for Breaking Bad. Is this the only program ON this channel? Does a poignant scene between a husband and his dying wife not warrant a HOLD on the stupid ads? What's wrong with you people? If your viewership is dropping off, I'd be willing to be this is one of the reasons. KNOCK IT OFF!