The Twittersphere is yelling it loud: there are too many commercial breaks in the LOST finale. We absolutely support ABC’s need to earn revenue, but it does seem like there are too many, too frequent breaks going on. (UPDATE: EW reports the show had 107 commercials – 45 minutes of air time. Cost to advertisers: $900,000 per 30-second ad.) I gave up about an hour in, and will be watching later today on DVR. Here’s what some of the Twitterers are saying:
@NJSuccessStory: Dear ABC, all this #LOST is totally ruining these awesome commercials.
@coreylj: I think I know why they had to add an extra 30 minutes – to fit in all the commercials! This is insane.
@JarrodLentz: LOST series finale secret! It’s only a half hour long. There are 2 hours of commercials….!
@jasonsalamun: Really, really, really irritated with the amount of commercials during LOST.
@coreywmitchell: way too many commercials in the last hour of LOST
@Darthbx: “Why are you here?”…”Dude, it’d take years & tons of commercials to explain.”
Are people being unfair to ABC? Eric Deggans of the St Petersburg Times (@deggans) tweeted us: “Seems to me they took typical amount of ads and broke them up, so the breaks were shorter. I think that was effective.” Indeed, a glance at iTunes tells us that the length of LOST hasn’t changed from season one until now – each episode has always been in the 43 minutes range. I’ll time the breaks tomorrow, but let’s assume Eric’s right. I still disagree with the choice – we need time to get into a story arc. Even if the breaks are shorter, we’re still getting cut off just as we get into a plot line.
UPDATE:
Deggans writes succinctly:
“They will say it was too schmaltzy. Too predictable. Too overdone. Too filled with commercials. Let me gently suggest, from the vantage point of this blown away fan, a simple retort. No f—ing way.”