While streaming may be all the rage, there are still millions of people watching live broadcast television every night, which means viewers are still putting up with advertisements--if they're not fast forwarding on a DVR, that is. With ad revenue still in the billions of dollars every year, networks are trying to come up with ways to make those commercial breaks more tolerable. If you're watching Fox, you may see a countdown clock, tell you there's just 60 seconds until your program comes back. And if you're watching, say, 'The Good Place' on NBC, you may notice prime pods--where one company gets an entire 60 second ad break either at the beginning of end of the show. And there's always another approach: create better commercials that make people actually want to watch them.
KCRW
