Who Wants to See a Movie Heavily Edited w/Commercial Interruptions? Everyone!

Here is the list for the top 10 cable programs of last week:

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark (USA)
2. NBA Playoffs – Hornets/Spurs (ESPN)
3. NBA Playoffs – Cavaliers/Celtics (TNT)
4. Monday Night RAW (USA)
5. Monday Night RAW (USA)
6. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (USA)
7. NBA Playoffs – Jazz/Lakers (TNT)
8. NBA Playoffs – Hornets/Spurs (ESPN)
9. SpongeBob SquarePants (Nickelodeon)
10. NBA Playoffs – Jazz/Lakers (ESPN)

If this is the first time you are looking at this list let me first let you know that, believe it or not, wrestling (“Monday Night RAW”) and SpongeBob are almost always in the top 10, so that’s not interesting, just vaguely sad.

What I find completely weird is that the first two Indiana Jones movies did so well.  Sure, Indiana Jones 4 is due out shortly and there have been a lot of ads for it but why would so many people want to watch a movie they’ve almost certainly seen before but this time with endless commercials and all the “good stuff” taken out?

This is the strange power of TV and passive viewing.  It’s the one thing the internet just doesn’t offer.  You can’t channel surf the web like you can with cable.  With the internet all of your viewing is choice-based and lots of times that’s dandy. But sometimes we don’t want to make a firm decision.  We want to flip around until something hold our interest.

I would venture that many of the viewers of the Indiana Jones movies on USA last week stumbled upon it and didn’t turn on the TV with the intent of watching that movie.  It was just on.  And sometimes that’s enough.

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