Cinema Commercials - Lie back and take it like a man?

I don’t know what it is with things in our world these days, and from those opening words I could go in an endless number of directions which only highlights the number of annoying things we all have to contend with on a daily basis.
Today however, it’s something that has annoyed me for some time but something I’ve forgotten about approximately two hours after the event, for reasons that will become a little more obvious in a moment.

Now then, I highly doubt there is anyone who doesn’t get annoyed at the number of commercials rammed down your throat on a daily basis while trying to watch telly. This has been taken to new levels with the arrival of sponsored programs, and the more sneaky approach I’ve discovered of timing. For example, a program is coming on you get a few adverts but the channel generally gets straight into the program, to get you hooked into the story line, to be then swiftly broken for a ridiculous length of adverts in the middle, knowing your more likely to sit through them because you want to finish the show. This does my head in. However, I take it. I accept the channel I’m watching is only available because of the commercials, OK.

The BBC, the reverse annoyance of these issues, hurray no commercials! But what’s this, a mandatory licence fee. This issue is nothing new but hang on a moment, the nation is being made to go digital, the BBC boast about their new i-player, which anybody can watch on the internet with or without a TV licence, you can actually be branded a criminal for not having one. So when will the nation wake up and revolt against this stupidity. Give people a choice god dam it! The more you actually think about what you get for your money with TV packages etc. it really is about time the BBC was an option not the law.

I haven’t really said anything ground breaking yet, I wanted to just highlight the state of TV in this country to emphasise the utter disgrace of my main rant.
I personally am a bit of a movie buff, as is my wife, we usually watch at least one film a week, more often than not it can be two or three, whether we buy a DVD, book a box office, catch a flick on TV (providing it isn’t one that stops for the news, I honestly don’t have the energy to talk about that one anymore, its fucking stupid, I refuse to watch a movie if the news is scheduled half way through, enough said) or go to the cinema. Now, the cinema is a treat for us, we go maybe once every couple of months purely because it is quite expensive. It’s about £7 per adult and then another £7 for refreshments, it’s easily a good £20 just to go and watch a movie.

Before you think I’m going to over look the refreshments like that your mistaken, I pay £7 for popcorn and a drink because I don’t go to the cinema that often and think what the hell. But if the people at Cineworld think I don’t know I’m being shafted really hard up the arse by paying about 1000% profit on popcorn they are mistaken.


Which leads me nicely onto the main event, I pay the cinema a good £20 for two tickets and an over sized sack of popcorn and barrel of coke (they mock us thinking they give us the impression of generosity with their over sized refreshments, THAT COST NOTHING TO MAKE AND COST A FORTUNE). The only staff the place needs is cleaners, cashiers, popcorn servers and some monkey to hit play for each screen which is a one man job in one control room, all roles minimum wage.

I get to the film on time, I even rush because I think we may be late for the viewing time advertised. And then, I sit, I wait. I’m made to watch 25 minutes of commercials. I need to pause and calm my self because this actually makes me furious. A cinema must be one of the simplest and profitable businesses to run, they get away with profit margins beyond any other with refreshments, and I can deal with that, its £20 for a pleasurable entertainment.
But commercials, you’ve paid your money to watch the movie, the cinema have made there profit twice already on the tickets and refreshments. Commercials….in the cinema…..its wrong, wrong, wrong on every level. By the time you finish the movie you often forget about it, and they catch you out time and time again. I’m so upset about this I’m seriously thinking about taking a cinema to court for false advertising, the movie start times are false information and shouldn’t be aloud. There is no good reason for cinemas to do this, its just greed and the general public shouldn’t have to take it. It may even sound petty to some, but this is the greatest case for point and principle ever and its time to take a stand!