It's pretty amazing how many commercials you can encounter in a given television show.  My family has always avoided watching commercials by hitting the mute button.  It's a nice way to break up that TV coma that you tend to get into - and if you are all watching a show together, it offers a few minutes of conversation time about what's happening in the show.  Another idea is to get everyone up off the couch and do some sort off exercise (squats, jumping jacks, etc.) until the show comes back on.

We also use the Comcast DVR to tape shows and then skip through the commericials altogether.  You'd really be amazed how much time you'll save by watching shows without the commercials.

The sheer volume of commercials became especially apparent this week, while my 4 year old son was home for a day or two with a fever.  I let him watch several consecutive shows on Nick Jr.  - I have to say that I was totall appalled at how many commercials they have on Nick Jr. between shows.  It's like 4-5 minutes of straight commericals! - and he watched them like they were part of the show.  Eh-Eh. 

I've made it a point to explain to both kids (6&4) as early as I can about "what a commercial is", and what the goal os a commercial is - to get you to want to buy stuff!  My 6 year old now views commercials as somewhat annoying interruptions ("Hey - I'm trying to watch my show and now I have to wait for this commercial to be over), and sometimes we've actually played games with her to see if she can guess what the commercial is trying to sell, and how they are making the product look especially good. 

I've really begun to see just how many commercials we sit through by using DVR and/or muting commercials in shows that we are watching live.  Try this - Mute the television the next time a commercial block comes on - you'll start to see how many they run in a row.  It's amazing.