By DIMITY KIRKWOOD
I’m about to reveal the most unbelievable thing…. after the break.
Stay with me.
You cannot afford to miss it. You do not want to miss this.
Are you ready?
The big reveal is coming.
Here’s the big reveal.
REALITY TV SHOWS GO ON FOR TOO LONG AND I’VE HAD ENOUGH.
Disappointed with my huge reveal? You should be. It’s a tired and frustrating tactic and I for one have had enough of it.
Last night The Voice Finale went for 2.5 hours. TWO AND A HALF HOURS. The only thing that show had to achieve last night was picking a winner out of five potential acts, a feat that could be done in 5 seconds (trust me, I timed it).
Instead, what we watched was the host, Darren McMullen, spend about 2 hours cutting to commercial breaks and re-hashing what we already knew: there were five contestants, one had to win, they would reveal that at some point in the episode.
The most frustrating thing is that the producers of the show knew they had us. We had already invested hours and hours of precious time in this show and we were pretty sure “The Voice” would be Johnny but we couldn’t know for sure and goddamn it we were going to find out the winner.
But by 10pm my interest, and patience, was waning dramatically.
In desperation I turned to social media to air my grievances at being kept waiting, but I found hundreds had beaten me to it.
This tired and boring tactic is so transparent and obvious, it hurts. Last night, 2.7 million people tuned into watch The Voice. While those 2.7 million people waited, and waited, and waited some more, the producers of the show were seeing dollar signs flash before their eyes. Because, of course, the longer the audience is kept waiting, the more commercials they can squeeze into every last minute, and the more money will be thrown at everyone involved.
Everyone, except the viewer, of course.
I’m not asking for a boycott of these shows. I’m not even asking for many angry letters to be penned to the producers.
What I am asking for, is a little respect. To us, the viewer. We get what you’re doing, but you’re sucking the enjoyment out of the show for us. Please hurry up and get on it with it so we can get our fix and be done with it.
We’re tired and grumpy and we’ve had enough. We didn’t get to bed until 10:45pm last night.
There are a few shows that may be a little more ridiculous than this, we know. Here are just a few of them:
Top Comments
I'm LOVE to tape these shows through my Foxtel box because I hate all the delays and ads that inflate the show. I love the VOICE but over all the personal sob stories, background histories, how their week went - I just want to hear them sign, get judged, move on. That last episode was pretty long, but didn't take me more than 40 minutes once I fast forwarded through all the boring, timewasting stuff. :)
Easy. Anyone ever heard of a PVR? (If you don't have Foxtel gizmo or the like). We used it all the time for MKR. You don't even need to wait until the next day to watch the show (because you know everyone will be talking about it at work the next morning!). Just hit record at the start of the show, then flip over and find something else to watch for about half an hour, 45 minutes, or do the laundry or something useful in this period. THEN, go back and hit play on the PVR... At the start of the show you are in 'catch up' mode, watching the start of the show off the disk while the actual show is still rolling out and being recorded onto the disk. Every time there is an ad break, or a boring bit, you just fast forward through it. If you delay it by the right amount of time, you will find that by the time you get to the end, you have basically caught up and are watching the show in real time or just behind it. But you can skip all the crap, see the best bits, rewind if you missed what someone said, and avoid getting annoyed by the constant promos, repetitions, rehashes, and the dreaded commercial breaks!! Easy. About $250-$300 will get you one of these.