Cable Networks Are Speeding Up Your Shows

You sit down with a big bowl of popcorn, get close to your special someone (or the dog) you fire up the LED smart TV with 5.1 Surround Sound bar and turn on that rerun of "Seinfeld" where they all make the bet. Hilarious!

Only you notice one thing.

The little "Seinfeld" bumper music is faster than you remember. And the scenes are slightly sped up. It can't be on purpose.

It's just your imagination, right?

Nope. It's real and on purpose, CBS News reports.

TBS is one of the cable networks that are "speeding up their content in order to squeeze more commercials inside their ad breaks," The Wall Street Journal reported. "The strategy has been noted on TBS' repeats of 'Seinfeld,' as well as its airing last fall of 'The Wizard of Oz.'"

The Wall Street Journal further reports:

The technique has emerged after a steep ratings decline for many cable networks, thanks to millions of consumers migrating to Internet video services such as Hulu. But the networks' solution to fixing a revenue shortfall could have an unintended consequence: By packing in even more ads, their remaining viewers could get fed up with the clutter and ditch cable in favor of video services that cut out the ads, such as Netflix (NFLX) and Amazon (AMZN) Prime.
"The networks that are using compression technology to speed up their shows include Time Warner's (TWX) TBS, which sped up 'The Wizard of Oz' last November and used the technology on repeats of 'Seinfeld.' Viacom's TV Land has also used the same strategy with 'Friends' repeats."

See this speed-up comparison.

I knew it! The "Friends" theme sounds like it's on drugs!