Why in the USA do we have the worst TV in the World?

In the US, we have the best writers, producers, editors, directors, actors/actresses, camera-persons, anchorpersons, sound engineers, makeup artists, models, wardrobe designers, researchers, set designers, graphics producers, stunt persons, gaffers, reporters, composers & musicians, visual effects creators, emission infrastructure, etc.
…so why is our mainstream TV so bad? Main answer is: Commercials.

For those that have never been outside the US, they are probably bemused by the headline claim being made here - those persons have grown up thinking it’s the norm, that’s understandable. Many of us in the US claim ‘well if we didn’t have commercials, then the channels couldn’t exist’.
But for those of us who have traveled and experienced foreign lands (any of the other approximately 200 countries out there, who pretty much watch the same shows), it’s probably not a surprise that, only in the US do we have;

• 30% commercials time, i.e. 18 minutes per hour, more than any other country.
• Channels which cannot fill their commercial spaces, which instead show commercials for their TV shows, often even about the very show you are actually trying to watch.
• Shows that have a commercial just after the title sequence and then before the end credits, i.e. the show is double-ended by commercials that are effectively outside the content.
• Commercials for ‘medical drugs’, typically repetitive boring transmissions stating how good a certain product is, followed by several minutes of warnings about nasty side effects. Most other countries don’t allow medical commercials – they let the doctors decide what’s best.
• Sports that are built around commercials. As just one example, our great game of Football (our US version) has typically 11 minutes of play in a 3-4 hour game, the rest being mostly commercials. The mere suggestion of breaking into soccer or rugby matches with commercials in other parts of the world would be deemed laughable - the sports bodies would simply never allow it – and there would be riots in the streets if they did.
• Shows where the stations know watchers might switch channels during a break, so have a review/repeat of what has happened before the commercial breaks at every restart – which then builds up as the show progresses - we have TV shows of 15 minutes original content (if that), which actually last an hour. In other countries, that repeat content is cut out.
• Musical ‘competition’ shows where the decisions by ‘judges’ are painfully dragged out by filler content, senseless ‘rules’ and long pauses so as to encourage us to watch just one more commercial break before getting the result they are slowly moving towards.
• Synchronization of commercial breaks so that if you change channels, you invariable find only commercials on the other channels anyway.

What should be realized is that we are being served up a pathetic mind-numbing excuse for entertainment that no other county would put up with. Of course, many of us get our entertainment online, download videos from various services, use digital recorders to filter out commercials or pay for extra TV packages without commercials, but we shouldn’t have to. Older people claim youngsters spend too much time on their devices – but they didn’t do anything to stop our TV from declining so badly.

But why so many commercials? Commercial space must surely be a supply & demand thing – if there were less time allocated to them, the channels could increase the prices, instead of the opposite which is currently the case, and apparently getting worse. I guess the TV content ‘authorities’ have never been abroad neither. We hear that TV and advertising firms are all very clever and know what they are doing – I have my doubts. Or perhaps they have arranged the revenue situation optimally, and nobody complains, so why would they think differently. But what do I know?

What can we do to improve matters? Probably not much. I can only recommend avoiding products that are advertised repeatedly, buying alternatives on purpose – do your own research – and especially avoid buying products which have the very worst commercials, like insurance (as example) from certain companies that have terrible infuriating low-cost commercials that are repeated over and over again, often in the same break, thinking we will succumb to them eventually. We do have a choice when it comes to spending our money. Hurt them where they will feel it most – in sales – pass the word on!