Korean TV

I've been watching Korean TV lately, it's a mild distraction.  For the most part I cannot watch many of the channels due to the lack of my Korean, however there are some channels that I am able to watch due to the frequent American films and tv shows.  TV is similar to American TV in that there is an obscene number of commericals, however they are in a rather different pattern.  In America there are frequent breaks and a fair number of adverts.  In Korea however, there are fewer breaks but an obscene number of commericals.  It is easier to avoid them though, because I can generally guess roughly how long they would last.  But something that is a little odd is that the adverts that they show are only of a limmited number.  They will just show the same ones over and over during a single break.  I remember the first time I left the TV on as I did other things, the same one commerical must have run at least 8 times and a few of those times one after another.  That particular break must have been 20 minutes in total.  Painful if one were to sit through many of them.

I have also noticed that when showing American TV shows a channel will show the episodes one after another until the series is complete and then continue again.  This can go on for a few weeks, before they will switch to another show.  This is fairly common place for old shows on cable channels both in the UK and the US, however in Korea they will even do this with new shows which I find rather odd.  Plus they will show no repeats in between in case one missed an episode. One must instead wait for the next cycle to see the episode.

Of cousre I am not forced to only watch Korean TV, I have my computer and therefore have access to the massive databases that the internet holds.  But the few channels I can watch on TV are a worthwhile stand-by, that is once you get past the adverts that quickly become very annoying due to the frequency of their showing.