If you've got the cash then technology has made avoiding these unwanted interruptions easier than ever. Pals with MySky, varying Freeview set-ups and TiVo (yes, I know the only two people in the country who have TiVo) blitz through the ad breaks like it ain't no thang.
I watch on envious, though not envious enough to fork out the necessary moolah to upgrade from my barebones Freeview box.
This ease of avoidance has presented advertisers with a problem.
Aside from a few stragglers like myself, a once-captive audience has all but broken the chains and fast-forwarded their way to freedom.
I'm over being shouted at every 15 minutes by Dick, Harvey or Noel when all I'm trying to do is watch an episode of Gotham. How do advertisers now sell to the unsellable?
I don't know and I don't care. I live in print. We got our own problems going on, brother.
Despite appearances, I'm no imbecile. I fully understand the terms and conditions of the devil's pact that's been signed. For content creators, advertising is a necessary evil, like going to the dentist. You don't wanna go, you know it's gonna be painful but you go anyway because if you don't you'll wake up one day with no teeth in your mouth. Ads keep our teeth in our mouth and our food on our plates. Don't worry, I get it.
I still don't have to like it, though. It flummoxes me how people can have a favourite ad. That's like saying you have a favourite seeping, infected pustule.
But apparently people dig them. So this coming Monday night Fair Go will perform its yearly ritual of handing out awards to its advertisers. Sorry. My bad. I meant to say handing out awards to the ads that those who like ads have voted for.
Fair Go of all people! The champion of the little guy, the seeker of justice, the righter of corporate wrongs and, for one night a year, the most sensational sell-out on TV.
To add legitimacy to proceedings hosts Pippa Wetzell and some dude will be joined by a handful of ad execs parading as experts while struggling to keep their smarm under control.
They'll chat about how great ads are, chuckle good-naturedly about how awful others are and never once acknowledge the unspoken truth that even the most highbrow, expensive, painstakingly executed 30-second work of mind-bogglingly ace creative genius has the same endgame as the most irritating and annoying "Buy this now!" shouter.
No doubt, they'll talk a good game. They're salesmen, after all. But don't fall for their baloney that ads are art, deserving of respect not derision, for that's simply not the case.
Let me put it this way: when was the last time you saw someone run full speed through an art gallery?
In between discussing ads, playing ads and awarding ads, Fair Go will also screen ads in its dedicated ad breaks. An act which is the televisual equivalent of kicking you in the nuts and then kicking you in the nuts again after you've crumbled pathetically to the ground.
It also makes life difficult for those viewers with MySky who may struggle to differentiate between what's show and what's not show. If they're not careful they could find themselves accidentally zipping through the whole damn thing. The lucky bastards.
