Since they are a form of noise pollution, it is only reasonable to tax commercials unless advertisers stop cranking up the volume or begin to focus on quality and variety. And I mean television, here. Radio is as dependent or more on ad revenue than print media.
Maybe I sound like an old, embittered man for complaining about noise pollution, but the truth stands: television programming is pretty bad at times, but commercials are always worse by at least a factor of two. And they are loud, so they pollute with noise the very homes we live in. And people without televisions feel smug about it.
Television advertisements should be taxed because they are at least as bad for your health as cigarettes. Ads convince people to eat at greasy franchise restaurants, buy insidious deep-fried snack foods, participate in 'Cash 4 Gold' schemes, and pay to watch crappy movies in theaters. All of this drives the economy, sure, but also makes each and every person a compulsive and hollow shell. The bottom line has always been worth the common man, of course, but cannot the sham democratic system throw at least one bone to the very small percentage of people who watch TV and dislike being condescended to between their 22 minutes of show?
Smokers, used to the glares of passerby, now have to deal with being unable to smoke in places of business. Now this is somewhat of a twist unlogical, but why should normal people have to deal with business being brought into their place of living? And this analogy holds, because as smokers are addicted to tobacco (or the quest to look cool), so are TV addicts to their shows and dramas and sporting events and news. There are enough opportunities for untaxed product placements in television programming, so it's not like either taxing or abolishing televised commercials will really change everything.
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