Living in the Southeast USA, I'm exposed to many Republicans. Basically my entire family, extended family, and at least half of my friends and co-workers are Republican. I have never heard any of them use the term "ape" to describe a black person. Some are mildly prejudiced, but none are bigots or racists. I've known a few bigots (likely what you think of as racists) in my life and they have invariably been Democrats, probably due to the lingering legacy of the Dixiecrats from decades ago. I'm not saying that all Democrats everywhere are bigots or that all racially motivated bigots are Democrats, because blanket statements like yours are rarely even remotely true.

Basketball is one of the only sports where a foul/penalty can routinely help you.

I actually said that I used to pay that, and would be willing to pay double for that specific service, but that service no longer exists. Take that, throw in the other major European leagues and all of the international competitions and friendlies commercial free, and that would be worth around $100/month to me. I just don't watch anything else "live". And frequently not even football, so I can just skip halftime. Football is set up beautifully for a commercial-free broadcast, but the American sports certainly aren't, unless you don't watch them live, and even then you'd be skipping quite a bit. When I used to watch hand-egg, I'd wait until the game was almost over to start it, then watch a play, hit 30-second skip (which coincided nicely with the beginning of the next play), skip any actual commercials, then repeat. Took about 20 minutes to watch a 3 hour game.

Millions of people pay more than $100 per month to watch all of that crap with commercials .

Fan(atic)s are willing to go to absurd lengths for their personal fix.

Bundling is the cause of cable TV prices increasing. End bundling and pay what you want.

I'm all for ending subsidies to billionaires for arenas, and I will continue to vote against any politician who votes for them.

Who claimed that? They are increasing, as I pointed out, above. Additional commercials during the content is hardly "weaning itself from commercials".

I know plenty of people who claim that ads don't bother them, and the increase in ads on TV seems to indicate that many more aren't bothered by them. I have disposable income and my time is valuable, so I would gladly pay to skip ads. Maybe if you're broke and/or don't care at all about your time, ads aren't so bad.

Why would you be willing to pay that much to watch a bunch of people/animals/real housewives running around talking to/mating with/assaulting each other? How can that be so entertaining you'd pay $100/month? I understand how TV dramas/wildlife programs/"reality" shows can be fun for the actors/animals/just awful human beings, I just don't get people paying money to watch others act in/be oblivious to/shamelessly mug for the camera in them.

To each his own?

I don't think that they could make more money by dropping ads because many many people just aren't bothered by ads, and that drives me almost as crazy as having to sit through ads. And everything in the U.S. has more ads now. As an example, I've been watching football (the real football, not American hand-egg) for about five years, in particular English football. For about three seasons, I paid a subscription fee of $150/year so that I could watch every Premier League game online commercial-free for up to one week after the game aired. This also included many FA Cup matches and some matches from other leagues and even sports like rugby. I would have gladly paid double for this kind of service. So when the EPL was rebid and NBC won the American rights, I was devastated because I knew what was coming, and I wasn't wrong. Now I can watch all matches online (for free if I have NBCSN on cable), but online there is a banner that sits above the viewing area for the game that is constant. And whether or not I watch online, there are ads every 4-5 minutes in the form of a video that plays in the upper left where the score is, and then the static logo of that advertiser displays until the next ad runs. And of course there are always things like "The Ben and Jerry's Stoppage Time." In addition, NBC only has the rights to the Premier League, so I can't watch any other competition on that channel. International football is now spread across at least five networks (NBC, Fox, ESPN, GolTV, BeIn), three of which are not included in basic cable, and all of them maximize ads (but not up to the standards of MLS on Fox, who actually shrinks the game area by about 40% every few minutes to show an ad along the entire right-side and lower-section of the screen - so I just never watch an MLS game on that network). I truly don't get why people pay for this crap. (I don't pay for cable.) I actually have a couple of modified pieces of black felt that I use to cover the top score/ad area and the bottom ticker, both of which are equally annoying. I would gladly pay around $100/month or probably even more if I could watch most matches around the world commercial free online, but I don't see that happening, ever. It seems like we're going towards more ads in the U.S., not fewer.

Exactly. If the government guaranteed all mortgages, house prices would skyrocket, too. College would be much cheaper if we ended the guarantee on student loans. Banks would then likely A) Test you to make sure you are likely to graduate college (much like a credit/employment check), and B) Make sure that you get a degree in a field that will likely pay enough for you to be able to repay the loan (much like asking for collateral).

Thank you for trying to counter a point that I wasn't trying to make, so that I could counter your point. 25M is 4M more than Sunday Night Football, the #1 show in all of prime time, averaged for the season. The game I referenced was in the group stage - not even an elimination game. If the US had reached the World Cup final, the numbers would have been much closer to Super Bowl numbers. And 114M is about a third of the US population, so the US at large doesn't give a shit about that, either.

You are exaggerating by "much". 25 million people in the US watched the USA-Portugal match last summer. No fewer than four sports network families available on cable show soccer matches from around the world (and NBC paid $250 million for the rights to just one foreign league for three seasons). And perhaps you've never heard of the MLS? Two expansion teams this year, and three more confirmed in the next three years, and the franchise fees are approaching $100 million for each. I get that most people still watch the other four team sports more than football, but it's hardly, "a niche sport only played in the suburbs by children".

When I managed a theater (20ish years ago so it may have changed), some of the bigger movies got a 70/90 release. 70% of the box office up to a certain number ($10,000, for example), went to the distributor, and then 90% of anything above $10,000 also went to the distributor. This lasted for 1-4 weeks, depending on how big the release was. After that it dropped every week or two, eventually hitting 35%, where it stayed for the rest of the run. And if the movie did really poorly at 35%, you still owed the distributor a minimum, which I think was $150. Again, this was a while ago, so some of this may have changed, but I doubt that there's been a radical overhaul.

Turner did this solely because it gave the channel its own entry in TV Guide (which people paid for!).

Those of you who fast forward over ads but still watch the TV shows, why do you freeload?

http://marvel.wikia.com/Magnet...

My grandparents bought a GE in 1979 when they moved into a new house. The microwave still runs fine; the grandparents, not so much.