As Amazon becomes the latest platform to push an ad-supported tier, TV writers greet this retro model with frustration and, in some cases, disdain: “I thought 'Nine Perfect Strangers' with commercials was horrible,” says David E. Kelley of his Hulu show with breaks.
If you learn anything about screenwriting, there are certain patterns and structures you follow (like acts in a play) to accommodate commercials, like to build suspense and keep the viewer interested and not changing the channel.
Streaming never had this, if you look at shows written for these platforms. The writers either ignored or didn’t even know about these conventions.
Now adding commercials later, it is even more annoying to the viewer as the original material was not meant to accommodate them.
Streaming just keeps fucking up. I already canceled my netflix. I’m on basic cable for network tv and I just pirate everything else.
By streamers ignoring all the decades of broadcasting experience, and all established what's fair air-time for both content and commercial. That's the frustration... they're rewriting standards... "my company, my content, my timings, my bottom-line". And doing it poorly. And at top speed.
And with streaming, you're not locked into a 42-47 minute long episode either, so are some episodes going to have more, or is there someone with a stop watch going "this seems like a good place for an ad break"?