Apple’s iOS 9 (the new iPhone operating system) contains a very special feature that enables third-party app developers to develop Ad Blocking tools. These tools, which have been around for PC-based web browsers for years, are probably better described as “content blocking” because they allow you to block all kinds of noncommercial stuff (also because there is a heated debate as to whether or not ads are “content”). Pundits and students of the commercial advertising business have identified this technological achievement as the beginning of the end of days. Others cite history and say the industry will get past the problem. After all, content blocking is not new; it’s just newly relevant. Right?

There are at least four main types of commercial avoidance: psychological, physical, mechanical and electronic (as outlined in my book Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV, Focal Press, 2008; 2nd Edition, York House Press, 2011).

Psychological Avoidance

On December 7, 1930, W1XAV Boston did a video simulcast of a CBS radio program, The Fox Trappers. It was a concert sponsored by I. J. Fox Furriers, and the broadcast included what some people call the first television commercial. From that point on, all you had to do to avoid a commercial was to ignore it. Let’s call this psychological avoidance.

Physical Avoidance

A popular commercial avoidance technique also goes back as far as the technology itself – walking away. Let’s call this physical avoidance. Now, physical avoidance is fairly well documented by a large portion of the TV viewing public. We’ve all been trained to use the restroom or grab a snack during commercial breaks.

The Toilet Flush Syndrome

Pundits often refer to the undocumented “I Love Lucy Toilet Bowl Syndrome.” This is a charming myth about the dangerous drop in water pressure during the commercial breaks of I Love Lucy back when there were only three networks and any show could enjoy a monstrous rating just by being good. However, just before Super Bowl XXII, Harvey Schultz, commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, issued a “Bowl Warning” (pun intended). He asked New York City Super Bowl viewers (especially beer drinkers) to please stagger their trips to the bathroom during commercials to reduce strain on the city’s water mains. This was a good-natured joke done to get the commissioner’s name in the news, nothing more. Believe it or not, there was a television event that actually had an effect on water pressure levels in NYC: the last episode of M*A*S*H. The two-and-a-half-hour episode aired in 1983 and enjoyed a 60 rating (percentage of TV households) and a 77 share (percentage of houses using television). That makes it one of the biggest television audiences in history and, according to the commissioner’s office, both big water mains were affected during the commercial breaks.