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Why do they repeat stuff so often in American docu series?

posted 4 months ago by Chomsky89 (338)
5 replies | jump to latest

I have been watching a lot of British and American crime docu-series lately. This type of 45-to-60-minute stories that often starts with someone missing. And I noticed a big difference in how they present their stories.

- In both 2 American series I watched they will often tell me the age of the missing/killed person 5-10 times in about 45 minutes. or a Detail like the color of a suspect's car can also be mentioned 5-10 times in an episode.

Is this because many Americans are overworked and a bit more tired in general or something to do with more Ad breaks maybe?

[–] capuchin (2734) 4 months ago

or something to do with more Ad breaks maybe?

Quite possibly. UK broadcast rules stipulate an average of 7 minutes of commercials per hour and a maximum of 12 minutes in any one hour. Whereas in the US, you get -- what? -- forty-seven minutes of commercials to every thirteen minutes of programming. Or something like that.

Consequently, you're probably flicking around the channels more than us trying to avoid a long list of potential but unlikely side effects from pharmaceutical drugs. And they're just getting new viewers up to speed.

[–] Anotherday (7591) 4 months ago

It's the AD breaks.

[–] moviechatterer (13602) 4 months ago

how anyone can stand watching TV with ad breaks in , even UK sized is beyond me.

These days there are many ways to avoid them.

[–] parkerbot (5811) 4 months ago

Laziness in writing and an attempt to pad the length of story maybe?

[–] ColumboKate (5337) 4 months ago

It's one reason I gave up on Netflix. The documentaries are interesting, but a five part series could easily have been 3 parts because they just keep repeating themselves. They think audiences are stupid 🙄