In the past, there was plenty of time to take a bathroom break or retrieve a cool drink from the refrigerator during television commercials. As the commercial was not shown for a long time you could not do both the things.
The first TV commercial was shown on 7/1/1941. It was twenty seconds long for Bulova Watch Company. It aired prior to a baseball game between Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Bulova paid nine dollars for this advertisement. This scene was located in New York. WNBT showed this ad and it had a photo of Bulova looking over a map placed on the US. You could hear a voice in the background: "America runs on Bulova time!"
It did not take long for the world of commerce to realize the importance of advertisements. Over time multibillion-dollar businesses have come to create advertisements to keep people in front of the television during breaks.
In the 1960s, when television viewing had grown commonplace and many households owned one television set at a minimum, a one-hour program contained 51 minutes of programming and 9 minutes of commercials. Now, the same one-hour television slot features 42 minutes of programming and 18 minutes of commercials. A 30 minute slot is equally bad, featuring just twenty-two minutes of programming and eight commercial minutes.
Television commercials can range from a simple one like a spokesperson presenting photos of a company product to complicated ones like those involving stunt actors and wild special effects. Everybody has formed their own personal opinion regarding how to make use of commercial broadcast time. Currently, short fifteen second commercials showing four times during a commercial break are recommended as against a full 1-minute just once.