Commercials
John R York
June 18, 2026The Ubiquity of Commercials
Have you noticed the prevalence of commercials in your life? Even if you've stopped watching television, refuse to look at social media, and throw away all the junk mail, sight unseen, you cannot escape the onslaught of advertising. Businesses, politicians, healthcare organizations, and even churches find clever ways to promote their wares.
I recently received an invitation to a free dinner at one of the nicer restaurants in our community. I wasn't really surprised to discover that dinner came with a presentation exploring the many options for making funeral arrangements.
If you still watch television despite the blatant onslaught of commercials, you may have noticed that they've come up with not-so-subtle schemes to keep you watching. The nightly news, for example, begins with approximately 10 to 12 minutes of uninterrupted news stories before cutting to a series of commercials. When they return to the news, you only get about 3 or 4 minutes of news until the next set of longer commercials air. The commercials get longer and the news stories get shorter. The last news item is only about 30 seconds.
The commercials are often obnoxiously louder, repetitive, and mostly boring. I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but I mean - it gets old. And now, if you just mention something you are considering to your spouse or a friend, the next thing you know you're getting ads for that very thing in your email, Facebook, and everywhere. It's scary.
By The Way
Oh, by the way. Now that I have your attention, I want to tell you about the new audiobook version of my award-winning novel, Retribution. Yes, this is the moment you've all been waiting for. Don't be the last on your block to order this dark romantic thriller from Audible.com or Amazon. Hear professional narrator, Dickson Ella, bring this exciting story to life. Act now!
But wait, there's more. If you order today, I can almost guarantee that you'll have my undying gratitude.
Go to my website for more information. Oh - wait. If you're reading this, you already are on my website. Just click here for more information.
But Seriously
Let's consider the alternative to no advertising. How would we know things even exist? How would we know where to get them? We used to be able to go to specific stores and look through all their products to determine if they had what we wanted. Between the grocery store, the hardware store, and Sears and Robuck, a person could find just about everything there was.
It's not so easy now. Sears and Robuck is gone. The malls are closing. There are so many new things that we never even knew we needed, but you have to go online to find them. Some stuff is hard to find if you don't know what it's called or how to search for it.
And what about those medicine commercials? Use to be that Vicks, Anacin, Geritol, and Midol pretty much took care of our typical ailments. These days we are inundated with pharmaceutical ads that come across like medical school seminars (or really bad musicals). There must be huge numbers of people who have diseases that we can't even pronounce, like paraneoplastic pemphigus and cardiomyopathy transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis. "Ask your doctor..."
It's no wonder that the purveyors of goods came up with all the helpful ways to let us know about all the stuff we should buy. It's a little like driving your car with your wife sitting in the passenger seat. She helps you know when you should slow down or when to stop, where to turn, which lane to be in, or that you're following another car too closely. Advertisers are just helping us figure out what to buy and where to buy it.
It must be important and necessary. US advertising in 2025 reached over $420 billion. I guess we should appreciate all they're doing for us.
And by the way, don't forget - the audiobook version of my award-winning novel, Retribution, narrated by Dickson Ella, will be available soon. I'll remind you several more times over the next few weeks.