During showings of Groundhog Day on TV, it is common to show the same commercial six times in a row for every ad break, or have every ad break consist of the same six commercials.Even worse, in some markets the double commercial ran four or five times an hour because the company had bought so much airtime. If there's a Canadian over 30 who doesn't have that commercial permanently etched in their mind, congratulations. Because the ad is 15 seconds long it used to be run twice in a row every single freaking time. (The legend goes that the proceeds from the sales of Slim Whitman records were what Ted Turner used to make payroll during the earliest days of CNN! Another tale was that the sales department had a storage closet full of Ginsu knives and the other stuff they hawked during ad breaks some employees proceeded to fill a crate full of this and other Southern stuff, and ship it off to some British engineers who'd helped them install an audio console the FedEx customs people were bemused, and the British guys absolutely loved it, especially the Moon Pies they'd tossed in there.) TBS, when it was originally a superstation beaming around the country from Atlanta, relied on a ton of repeating ads, mostly for Ginsu knives, Slim Whitman records, and other crap.Every station break with room for local spots is usually bought up during this time by candidates, special interest groups and political PACs, who produce one or two ads and then blanket the airwaves with them on every channel. Woe to those watching television during any election season, for they will have this trope forced upon them ten thousandfold, as the FCC requires all broadcast stations they've issued licenses for to air political ads, even attack ads.
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