Do you MUTE commercials?

[lucille]

I have come to loathe TV commercials, well most of them. I drive my hubby crazy by grabbing the remote every time commercials come on. The commercials that really annoy me are the Eharmony ones with the noisy piano music and the schmaltzy couples, the free credit report ones and we have one horribly produced commercial for some passion play production out in the black hills. The latter one is noisy and it has the voice over cranked to the point it is distorting and there are pops and cracks in the sound. They have been playing it 5 times per hour through our cable company.

There is sort of a trick to how they make TV commercials so loud. They crank the level of every sound and increase the highs and lows as far as possible. So they not only sound louder they attack your hearing with the extremes in the sounds. What I think is rather ironic is they do this to get your attention but at least for me it has caused me to tune out almost all commercials thus losing their effect.

[SrKen]

A Canadian national television broadcaster on checking out loud commercials later explained that "the sound was not louder but it was enhanced to sound louder."

???

[gt0163c]

I don't mute commercials.
Because I rarely watch "live" television, I rarely watch commercials at all.
I see commercials on the tvs at the gym but I listen to my own music rather than that television audio, so I don't hear the commercials.
When I watch television shows it's almost always something that I've taped or I watch them on the internet. If it's something that I've taped (yes, I still use a VCR), I fastfoward through the commercials. If I'm watching on the internet, I either sit through the commercials or click over to another window to do something else. If the commercial is really loud, I will sometimes turn the volume on my speakers down. But, since most of the commercials are only 15-30 seconds, I don't always bother with that.

[spencer]

I always mute commercials.

[Gootsy]

Mute is almost a reflex for me when they pop up. That or the jump button, which brings me to the previous channel so I can watch something else for a few min (typically food channel or news/business channel).

So I put frequently.

[SrKen]

My 1st try at a poll should should end today. It's not very comprehensive but interesting just the same. Thanks for participating.

[Megan]

Add me to the list of people who DVR and then fast forward through commercials. On the off chance I'm watching something live, I just ignore the commercials or more often than not, pause the whole thing and then fastforward through the commercials a few minutes later.

[pidgeon92]

All praise the mighty Tivo! I haven't voluntarily watched a commercial in years (except for the cute one with Maria Sharapova and the dog).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=W9rKMTJt6X0

[Gypsypunk]

no, most of the time, it's what interests me to view television

[AFHWW]

I record everything just so I don't have to watch commercials or bother with them. I can't remember the last time I actually watched something at the time it aired. I dislike the commercials that much.