It sure looks like it and not only because of the inane programs. The commercials are worse.

Most people think there’s a limit on how much time commercials get. There isn’t. Some networks even have a little trick that works like this: Long string of commercials, cue theme music and say program name, another long string of commercials.

In case you’re wondering why there are so many promos for upcoming shows, it’s because the networks are filling unsold time in their scheduled long strings of commercials.

Some commercials are terrific, e.g. Target or The Most Interesting Man in the World for Dos Equis beer, but they’re lost in the swamp of so many odious commercials.

The whole mess is insane because we can avoid it so easily by just clicking to another channel or recording programs with, for instance, Dish’s DVR “Hopper” and making commercials disappear.

You’d think, then, that advertisers would do something to keep viewers watching.

But they don’t. They could create compelling, charming, watchable commercials, but instead most of them pull a concept from the disgusting → drivel continuum. Submitted for your consideration:

Drivel:
• Idiots summon genie-like insurance agent by screeching, in panic, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”
• PeeWee Herman lookalike (more annoying, actually) gets policy holders to sing along “Nationwide is on your side” – lamely.
• Any local car dealer spot.
• Anything that mentions a “man cave”.
• Kids smarter than parents and brilliant wives saddled with brain damaged husbands.
• Snooty international business commercials: “People who know, know BDO”. Please.
• Luxury car commercials: Benz, Beemer, Infiniti, Range Rover, Lexus, – doesn’t matter. They all have just about the same script, the same pompous nonsense.
• Furniture stores with screaming spokespeople.
• Chrysler pretending Detroit is a place to be proud of. It was – 60 years ago.
• Chevrolet pretending to be an all-American icon.

Disgusting:
• Class action lawyers trolling for clients. The mesothelioma campaign is the nadir but the rest are only slightly less disgusting.
• Prescription drug commercials, especially the long read of side effects and double- especially if the side effects include oily discharge.
• Anti-smoking campaigns, like Florida’s, which have gone ghoulish with barf-inducing spots that just gross us all out. Why ruin the evening for 80% of the innocent population on the off chance that a smoker doesn’t know all this anyway? Oh, never mind, here comes the depression commercial.
• And now, ta da, we’re about to get swamped with the most disgusting of all: wall-to-wall political commercials.

Click, click, click.

I wonder if anyone has researched the impact of all this crapola.