Well, the reports are in... for a week, I watched television. And, during the advertisement breaks, I carefully noted how many advertisements I saw, and recorded into which category they fell. The idea is to figure out what sort of consumer I am supposed to be, based on the demographic that is being targeted in these commercials.
Perhaps most surprising to me was the sheer quantity of advertising fed to me. I reckon that I watched for between 10.5 and 11 hours last week (which actually seems kind of low to me, but there you go... since I'm paying $40/month for satellite, this means that I pay around $1/hour that I'm watching). During this time, I recorded seeing
393 adverts. That's about 36/hour. This shouldn't be too surprising. As anyone who spends too much time downloading and watching US TV shows from illegal internet copyright violating web sites will tell you, the typical "hour long" TV show is 41-43 minutes in duration, and the average half hour show takes only 21 minutes. That means that there is 17 minutes of advertising space available, so 36 x 30 second on average commercials comes to about the right amount.
Now the part you have all been waiting for: the breakdown of the figures.
| Quantity of adverts | Advertised Item or Product |
|---|---|
| 95 | Other television programmes |
| 55 | Cars, trucks and SUVs |
| 35 | Fast Food |
| 34 | Electronics, games and websites |
| 31 | Movies and DVDs |
| 24 | Soda, beer and other drinks |
| 23 | Hair and cosmetic products |
| 14 | Medication and drugs |
| 13 | Snacks and snack foods |
| 12 | Financial and money |
| 11 | Telephones and telephony |
| 8 | Clothes and clothing |
| 7 | Travel |
| 6 | Home improvement and decorating |
| 6 | Cable and satellite channels and packages |
| 4 | Self-improvement: exercise and education |
| 15 | Other |
I'll try to analyze what kind of a person I am supposed to be later, but in the meantime, here are some additional counts for advertisements that I saw in the course of a week.
| Quantity of adverts | Advertised Item or Product |
|---|---|
| 0 | Books, newspapers, magazines or anything remotely literary |
| 0 | Theatrical productions, operas, art galleries, museums or anything else "high culture" |
| 0 | Fruit, vegatables, cooking products or healthy eating (except in the context of salads offered at burger restaurants) |
| 0 | Toys, games (except computer games), sports (except televised) |
| 0 | Modes of transport such as bicycles, trains, buses, walking - apart from cars, SUVs and planes |
| 0 | Political adverts, pro- or anti-anything (including drug and alcohol awareness) |
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