Ostomy Memories of Ads for Meds

ALL I WATCH ON TV these days is news, but I’m forced to have to stomach the constant commercials. Making a kitchen run, or using the time for a bathroom break, sometimes helps. But it’s impossible not to notice the constant onslaught of ads for medications. It’s everything from erectile dysfunction to memory pills, and every other malady from which humans suffer. The medicalization of our daily experience has expanded substantially, and the current brouhaha over vaccines hasn’t helped. Big Pharma has plenty of money to fund assaulting us with promotions of one drug after another. Do they expect us to then go to our doctors and announce our desire to try these supposed panaceas? [But did you notice all the potential side effects?] Perhaps the next step in the process will be getting states to enact legislation allowing people to write their own prescriptions. After all, if Texas can permit unlicensed and untrained individuals to get guns with which to shoot people, why not let ‘em be their own doctor too? What could go wrong?

Much the same here Henry, and adds can sometimes go on for so long i actually forget what I was watching .....

That's why I don't watch commercial TV anymore, a 30 minute TV show now has 12 minutes of adds, just tonight, I noticed the show 60 Minutes, now goes for 99 minutes because of all the commercials. Glad I have the internet, and commercial free YouTube. 

Hi all not only the onslaught of medical commercials but the medicare ads with has been actor or sports person is annoying to say the least, and to top it off the ads are always louder which interfere,s with my catnaps. 

There's a federal law against running commercials at a volume greater than the accompanying programming.  It's called the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act.  Really.  But the FCC does not monitor programming to check on compliance.  Thus, no surprise that you experience this phenomenon continuing.  But there is a complaint process.  I wouldn't be optimistic, however. 

Here in my part of Australia, it's not medicine adds that we get bombarded by, it's insurance adds. Everything from funeral insurance to pet insurance. And it's the same adds over and over, in every add break. Yes, I have looked into it on the internet, found lots of the same complaints, and the place to complain. Yes, there is a maximum amount of time they can play adds during a TV show, and they are maxed out now.  But nothing will ever be done about it, because of greed and money, because commercial TV stations know they are loosing viewers due to things like Netflix, and all the other internet sites where you can watch whatever you like, without commercials. When I watch a movie on the internet, without adds, the average length of a movie is about 1 hour and 30 minutes, watch the same movie on free to air TV, and it's well over 2 hours long. I can't sit still for long enough to bother watching anything on free TV. Commercial Radio is the same. We have one TV station that is commercial free, ABC TV, funded by the government, and we have commercial free radio stations also, ABC Radio. Henry, sorry if I twisted your post a little, but I'm passionate about my hate for commercial TV, LoL. Free to air TV is dying, and the stations know it. One day there will be no programs to watch, it will all just be adds. Late night TV is a waste of time too, every channel has home shopping on it. Personally, I've given up on watching free TV. Not that I watch a lot of TV anyhow, some in the morning, and some in the evening. And on rainy days, lol.

Hello HenryM.

Thanks for yet another spot-on post in which you and your respondees have made some very pertinent points.

At the risk of sounding like a 'grumpy-old-man', I would add that here in the UK we have a channel run by the BBC that is supposed to be free of advertisements and funded by the viewer (by way of a compulsory licence fee). What has happened over the past ten years or so, is that the BBC have taken to advertising their own programmes and this is taking up more TV time than the ads on the commercial programmmes. I think that eventually this underhanded approach, along with the commerce, may well put off much of the viewing audience and the advertising will no longer be effective.

As for the advertising of medication: It is my firmly held belief that these company's products should be reliably fact-checked and they should be forced to publish ALL the results of their research. As I understand the present process: they do not have to publish non-significant results and/or placebo effects.  Whilst these results are very difficult to come by, there have been the odd 'leak' from within 'big-pharma', where the whistleblowers  have informed the public that the placebo effect has been more effective than the drugs - with far fewer side-effects! Needless to say, that when this happens, there is a frantic hunt to find and sack the whistleblowers, rather than looking to resolve the real problems.

Best wishes

Bill 

Hi what a great post as usual Henry. As Bill rightly said BBC is our supposedly advert free channel. If you decide to watch other channels we tend to get lots of insurance ads, women's sanitary products and please give generously but there's that many asking for donations you would end up having to be on the advert yourself because you gave it all away. XX