Liese, Coupling aired Season 4 ep 4 (The Cirucus of the Epidurals) on sunday.

As for Brit shows, the BBC is commercial free. I don't get time to watch an awful lot of actual TV as it airs, but they generally produce/air either 30 or 60 minute episodes of dramas (or 90-120 minute TV movie type things). When airing foreign product such as US shows (They had the rights to '24' for the first two seasons) The BBC would make the 42-ish minutes up to 45 with trailers for upcoming shows, weather bulletins etc.

Aside from the BBC stations, pretty much everything else is commercial based, so as in the US a 42 minute show such as Angel would run in a one hour slot. (Though SKy which airs Angel over here is (or at least was last time I checked) notoriously bad for butting commercials in the wrong place! (as opposed to the creators intended commercial gaps).

Edited as my referencing 'hour-long' dramas as more accurately 42 minutes (though it seems to be slowly decreasing over time as the commercials cut into the programming) makes me think of the answer to the question of Life, The Universe, and Everything....

Forgot all about Black Adder - that's out on DVD right? I only caught a couple episodes of BA IV, I think it was. The one set in World War I? Laughed my ass off.

Yes, they're available on DVD in North America now. The first season was a bit ropey, but they got better and better with each one.

Most BBC programmes are 50-55 minutes long. They get edited down for North American markets to permit more commercials. It used to be very noticeable how Star Trek would end after 45 minutes when it was shown on BBC2. The 15 minute timeslot did allow some interesting short programmes to be aired though.

The first thing I noticed about US TV was how a commercial was shown before the programme begins, then another after the title sequence. That's not normally done on British commercial TV (or at least it wasn't a few years ago). The frequency of commercial breaks also took time to get used to. As ellemarie noted, we're used to longer chunks of content.

Looking very stylish Liese.

edit differentiate between BBC and commercial TV.

a commercial was shown before the programme begins, then another after the title sequence

Semantically, isn't it after the previous show ends? Top of the hour starts with the show. Most go to ads after the opening credits -- I'm rewatching Another World from 1988, and I keep forgetting to not FF through them, since they're short and there's TV right on the other side.

Then there are shows like Alias which sometimes have more than ten minutes of show before the opening credits.

Do we know the amount of time regularly scheduled for shows over history, to see how much landscape we're losing to advertising now?

Semantically, isn't it after the previous show ends?

Fair point. I posted from the viewpoint of switching on the TV for a certain programme - i.e. I'm here to watch Angel, not the preceding programme. Usually this results in a minute or two of commercials first.

Then there are shows like Alias which sometimes have more than ten minutes of show before the opening credits.

I've noticed that Alias has been cooperating with their advertisers more than many other shows. The deal with the Ford truck was a particularly obnoxious example. Moving the ad breaks around is another symptom of this I guess.

US shows run around 44 minutes for an hour long show and 23 for a half hour.

Signed,
Sees a Lot of Time-Coded Tapes at Work

Whilst I was visiting LA (was that really only three months ago?) and pottering about in the hotal room, I was repeatedly AMAZED at how many commercial breaks there were in "That 70's Show". One time I swear there was commercial, 90 second of show, then back to commercial. Crazy shit.

Do we know the amount of time regularly scheduled for shows over history, to see how much landscape we're losing to advertising now?

How would product placement fit into this? The Avaya phones on Angel, and the Ford truck on Alias for example. *ugh* I guess it works as I have their brands in my head.

Moving the ad breaks around is another symptom of this I guess.

I think the earlier ad breaks are probably sweeter for the sellers. I have no data to back this up, just a suspicion that most TV shows do precisely what the advertisers want.

Do we know the amount of time regularly scheduled for shows over history, to see how much landscape we're losing to advertising now?

I remember reading something at Vidiot.com a while back moaning about how the hourlongs were getting shorter and shorter... whole seconds being lost to commercials!