Watching live TV is becoming the bane of my life.

As a Sky+ user, most programmes I want to watch are recorded, and viewed at a later date. When they’re not recorded, i.e. they happen to be on when I’m sat in front of the TV doing some important contemplation, then I watch them live. This means I cannot fast forward through the adverts.  This makes me sad and contemplate dark things.

As a result of these recent live TV experiences, I have come to realise that all television adverts are synchronised. When a break in your programme appears, it does not matter which channel you click to, you will be forced to watch more adverts. They are conspiring against Us, the People. This is an example of exploiting oligopolistic power at it’s very worst. Why industry regulators waste time on price fixing and consumer rights I’ll never know, this is a much more pressing matter.

However, someone is clearly missing a trick. If you were the boss of a television channel you could take the decision to put your adverts on first, slightly earlier than the other channels.  Then, when all the other channels head for their advertising break, their viewers would flick to your channel and watch whatever it is you’re showing. Simply because it isn’t an advert. It could literally be anything, we would watch, I assure you. The programme concerned would then get higher viewer ratings, and you could therefore charge more money for the earlier adverts (that noone will watch as they’ll still be watching the first part of the programme on the other channel), and you become rich beyond your wildest dreams.

The only people who lose out are the advertisers, and I really think we’ve all seen enough of Phil Tufnell selling debt consolidation loans.

I am genuinely surprised noone has thought of this yet.

In other news, I am heading off to Heathrow later on to catch a flight to Edinburgh. Assuming I actually get to board my flight oop north, I intend to spend the weekend drinking copious amounts of booze, laughing a lot, seeing a few shows (including this very funny man), and then finally return home Sunday evening a gibbering hung-over wreck. If you see me comment on here after about 2pm, you will know that my plan has failed, the terrorists have won, and I will be absolutely fucking furious…

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