Commercials

[Terry]

Do any of you ever look at this breakdown? A full third of the race is commercials plus 33 ads while the race is running. It seems to get worse every year.

How about those of you not in the US, do you have this mess too?


Race and Commercial Breakdown of the 2010 Pepsi Max 400: For those of you NASCAR fans that like stats and love to hate commercials, or wonder how often your driver was focused on, here is the breakdown for Sunday's race. Recording the times at the Invocation of the race at 3:00 PM, and stopped at the waving of the checkered flag at 6:23 PM (all times are EST). ESPN was the broadcast team for this event.
Total race brdcst time 152 Total comm. brdcst time 51
Total number of commercials: 114
Total number of companies or entities advertised: 70
Total number of brief promos of products/services during the race broadcast: 33
Start time to record race/commercial periods: 3:00 PM
End time to record race/commercial periods: 6:23 PM
Total minutes: 203
Minutes of race broadcast: 152
Minutes of commercials: 51
Number of missed restarts: 1
Number of 'mystery cautions' (debris not shown): 2
Number of famous singers who did NOT screw up the National Anthem: 1 Kenny Loggins
Number of famous wives who was startled by the pre-race fireworks: 1 Ingrid Gordon
Number of famous movie stars to wave the green flag: 1 Sharon Stone
Number of boos Meg Whitman, Grand Marshall of the race, received upon her introduction: Lots
Number of prayers sent for Shane Hmiel by drivers, NASCAR staff, and fans: Lots and Lots

 

[demorier]

On pay TV hear in OZ I usually record and watch later any motor sport I want to watch on ESPN channel. The number of advert's are just ridiculous, worse than free to air TV.

 

[stansdds]

Interesting stats. It is incredibly annoying to be watching the race, interrupted by commercials, then when the broadcast returns to the race, the crash has already occurred, or green flag pit stops are wrapping up, or some other event has happened. Seems to me that ABC and NBC, as well as their cable/satellite affiliates, are the worst.

 

[PRB]

So, there were 114 commercials between 70 companies. What I would like to know is this: Is that number, 114, a contractual obligation? Is ESPN obligated to show those commercials, that exact number of times, during the broadcast?

I wonder this because how many times have we heard, during a caution, "ok, we'll take this opportunity to show another commercial, so that we can bring you more green flag coverage later." This statement implies that there are exactly 114 commercials they have to show, and when those are done, no more commercials, right? Is this how it works? I would guess unlikely because during those 4-hour rain delays I notice they don't run out of commercials to play...

Oh well, as much as I hate commercials, if they weren't there paying for the broadcast, then we would be. "Free" TV aint free...