Annoyances And Interruptions

"is an interesting story right there. That's the second out. If you're just joining us, here's how that first out happened. You see a great pitch by... and that's the third out. We'll show you how that happened, when we come back."

While it didn't quite happen that way, it felt like it at times. During the first game of a doubleheader on Tuesday, WGN repeatedly came back from commercial after the first pitch had been thrown in the half inning. One time, WGN didn't come back from commercial until after the first out of the half inning!

I realize that this was an unscheduled game, but this isn't an isolated incident. The problem isn't even isolated to WGN. Comcast Sports Net and the U are both guilty of this practice in recent years. It has gotten worse this season, for some reason.

Are the television stations that desperate for commercial money that they have to disrupt the sporting event that they are airing? Half of the commercials that cut into the beginning of a half inning are bumper commercials for other programming on the channel.

I'm against those annoying pop up ads that run on almost every station now, but I think that would be a better alternative to let me know that Reaper is a brand new episode, rather than to cut off a live sporting event. I can sort of see why it would happen on WGN or the U, since they are local channels that can be viewed on any television set. Comcast Sports Net is a different story. I have to pay for that by having some sort of cable or satellite service. They should not feel obligated to screw over the customer.

If these stations feel that they need to sell more commercial time, then they should hand over the programming rights to a station that will show the entire game. I'm sick and tired of feeling that the commercials are more important than the sporting event being shown. Maybe by losing the rights to show the sporting events, the stations will lose enough money to respect the game. I'm sure that there are plenty of local channels that would jump at the chance to broadcast these games and do it right.