TiVo Community Forums Archives - Friends 1/8/2003 got chopped off at end

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Friends 1/8/2003 got chopped off at end
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Posted by: timckelley

My TiVo chopped it off during the commercials immediately preceding the credits. They always have a little of the show occur during the credits. Can anybody tell me what happened at credit time?

Posted by: MacThor

I could be mis-remembering, but...

<Central Perk>
Joey alone with coffee & muffin, Ross walks in wearing pink sweater under coat & sits down...

Ross: "Turns out that WAS a woman's sweater."
Joey: "Then why are you still wearing it?"
Ross: "It's so soft."
They both make comments about bad dates...
Joey: "Looks like it's just the two of us"
Ross: "We could do worse"....breaks off piece of Joey's muffin and eats it.
Joey: "JOEY DOESN'T SHARE FOOD!!!!"

Posted by: timckelley

hehehehehehe!

Thanks for that report.

Posted by: Rcrew

Pretty much it, except Ross didn't eat the piece. As Joey shouted at him, he put it back...

NOTE: Favorite line of the episode, when Joey was sitting back, chocolate all over his face, and she comes back to the table, he admits eating it and adds "And I don't feel guilty at all!"

Posted by: DLSith

This episode really reaffirmed how great the writing for Joey has been and that I cannot wait for his own series. I can only pray that it has the same success as Frasier.

I was really ticked about the credit chop as well. Luckily Tivo had not changed channels yet, so it was still in the buffer. But this happening is really making me mad, so far twice this week with SATC and Friends.

Posted by: Maui

I can't believe how bad NBC is. They use all these wierd start times, had friends listed at 32 minutes and still can't seem to give us accurate information.

Posted by: timckelley

I even had Friends padded and it still wasn't enough to catch the credits.

Posted by: bigpuma

I began padding friends a full five minutes after it "ends" due to this. They always throw in a ton of commercials because people know they will show a quick bit at the end. Luckily with Tivo and starting to watch at 8:15 I can skip right to the end bit.

Posted by: Falconeer999

My wife almost had a caniption fit when we the Tivo cutoff before the last blip. We just got the Tivo for Christmas and this was the first new episode of Friends (her favorite show) since then. Luckily for both me and the Tivo I was able to switch over to Live TV and rewind.

I'll have to remember this in the future when recording Friends. I hope ER didn't do the same thing...

Posted by: dtle

quote:
Originally posted by Maui
I can't believe how bad NBC is. They use all these wierd start times, had friends listed at 32 minutes and still can't seem to give us accurate information.

They are doing it to discourage Tivo and VCR users.

And since we don't contribute to the bottom line, they don't care if we stop watching.

Posted by: DLSith

quote:
Originally posted by dtle
They are doing it to discourage Tivo and VCR users.

I really do not see how that is possible considering NBC is one of the few channels (and only major network) that has the thumbs up synced into tv show ads and displays the logo along shows in "now playing"

Posted by: drsql

quote:
Originally posted by Falconeer999
My wife almost had a caniption fit when we the Tivo cutoff before the last blip. We just got the Tivo for Christmas and this was the first new episode of Friends (her favorite show) since then. Luckily for both me and the Tivo I was able to switch over to Live TV and rewind.

Same here, only I was backing up the Tivo with a VCR, since it was my first time. NBC is really annoying in that way eh?

Posted by: smak

This was the worst one yet, it cut off before the show ended, meaning it missed the last bunch of commercials and the last friends bit. That has to be at least 4 minutes.

NBC can't get it right either way, they want to go ahead and give the correct start and end times, even if they are 8:32, or 7:59 or whatever weird times, and then they are off by 4 minutes.

-smak-

Posted by: DougF

quote:
Originally posted by dtle
They are doing it to discourage Tivo and VCR users.

I think some more likely reasons are:

- Advertising revenue. Extending a half hour program by a few minutes leaves more time for commercials.

- Keeping viewers. If the show doesn't end right on the half hour, chances are that people who hang around to watch the end won't start watching another network since they've missed the beginning of whatever is airing. NBC is gambling that they will watch the 8:30(ish) program. This has been a trouble slot for them for years.

Of course, your reason could be partially true. Does anyone know if a Nielsen household records (whether it's VHS, DVD or DVR) a program for later viewing, does it stil count towards the rating? If not, I would imagine the networks would want to encourage "live" viewing by screwing with the start and end times.

Posted by: Bardman

I've always lost the ending little scenario on Friends on NBC with my DTivo. This week wasn't unusual at all.

I do think that NBC is screwing with us on this, as they definitely acknowledge Tivo in that it used to be a fixture in Rachel & Monica's apartment and even one episode Rachel said "I got Tivo!!"

Posted by: Maui

quote:
Originally posted by Frozen Solid
I think some more likely reasons are:

- Advertising revenue. Extending a half hour program by a few minutes leaves more time for commercials.

- Keeping viewers. If the show doesn't end right on the half hour, chances are that people who hang around to watch the end won't start watching another network since they've missed the beginning of whatever is airing. NBC is gambling that they will watch the 8:30(ish) program. This has been a trouble slot for them for years.

Of course, your reason could be partially true. Does anyone know if a Nielsen household records (whether it's VHS, DVD or DVR) a program for later viewing, does it stil count towards the rating? If not, I would imagine the networks would want to encourage "live" viewing by screwing with the start and end times.

Oh I have no doubt it all has to do with advertising revenue but what I am complaining about is the fact that they go ahead and lest Friends as being on from 7:00 to 7:32 so they are already adjusting the start and end times. Fine, that is all well and good but if you are going to adjust the start and end times at least get them correct.

If I was an advertiser paying big bucks to advertise on Friends only to find that large portions of the public miss my commercial because the viewers VCR/DVR shut off at 8:32 like NBC told them to but before my commercial aired I would be pissed.

Posted by: Rcrew

quote:
Originally posted by Maui
If I was an advertiser paying big bucks to advertise on Friends only to find that large portions of the public miss my commercial because the viewers VCR/DVR shut off at 8:32 like NBC told them to but before my commercial aired I would be pissed.

I don't get that... if you were a large advertiser, and NBC used a time shift that cut off commercials to people that FF and skip commercials by using VCRs/PVRs, why would you even care?

Posted by: smak

I think advertisors/networks are blind to VCR and PVR users.

Rcrew is right. VCR users are just as likely to FF through commercials as Tivo users are.

Advertisors are playing to people watching shows live.

This has to do with having more advertising minutes in the more popular shows, and nothing to do with PVR's.

Networks pay the studios a certain amount of money per episode to the studios.

Friends & ER are the highest priced shows for NBC to air.

I mean, the 6 friends show up and that's 6 million a week gone!

Thus, they are grabbing extra commercial minutes wherever and whenever they can.

The last episode of Friends hasn't even been shot yet, but it's probably going to be one of the top 5 non-superbowls in terms of 30 second commercial price in history.

I'm guessing it's going to be 2 hours, maybe with an extra hour retrospective or something to fill that whole night.

-smak-

Posted by: ScottE22

I don't get NBC. Their BS guide date screwed me up on Friday night as well by failing to record Joan of Arcadia from 8:00 to 9:00 because Ed started at 8:59.

See my post in the Joan of Arcadia 1/9 thread for the whole drama. If you're a Joan fan, WARNING, that thread contains untagged spoilers...

(I'm still not 100% sure of the etiquette for linking to a thread for another show that may have spoilers, hence the disclaimer.)

Posted by: LlamaLarry

Hmm, I had forgotten that I missed the ending, but appreciate the synopsis. :) It happens so much on NBC that I usually expect to catch the ending on whatever show happens to tape next but this week I definitely skipped The Apprentice.

Posted by: jeff125va

I think they adjust the times to BENEFIT pvr users. Unless you're actually reporting Nielsen ratings, you don't count even if you're watching it live. They extend the times only so they can charge for more commercials that are on DURING Friends or the other higher rated shows.

I was annoyed to miss this though. I normally don't worry about it because I catch it during Scrubs, but even with the 2-minute pad I added manually, I missed the whole ending part.

Posted by: TivoGeezer

quote:
Originally posted by Frozen Solid
<snip>Does anyone know if a Nielsen household records (whether it's VHS, DVD or DVR) a program for later viewing, does it stil count towards the rating? If not, I would imagine the networks would want to encourage "live" viewing by screwing with the start and end times.

My son and his wife just got hooked up as a "Nielsen household" and he said they hooked up a lot of their entertainment equipment, including their VCR, DVD player, and game consoles (they don't have Tivo so not sure how that would work in). So apparently they collect a lot of info on how you spend your entertainment hours besides what TV channels you watch (live).

Posted by: Rcrew

quote:
Originally posted by smak
...I mean, the 6 friends show up and that's 6 million a week gone!...

Bingo! There's the heart of the issue. If they weren't paid so much for doing the show, there wouldn't be such a large need for advertising revenue...

... or is this one of those which came first, the chicken or the egg questions?