TVSquad

My family often watches TV during the dinner hour. There, I've said it. I'm not proud of that fact, but there you have it. We also force the kids to take 2-hour nature walks with us every weekend, so maybe it all evens out in the end.

Our favorite channel during the dinner hour is TV Land. In our neck of the woods, Hogan's Heroes airs from 6 to 7 p.m., and The Andy Griffith Show from 7 to 8 p.m. We love both these shows, and the episodes always spark laughter and a few discussion topics. Like, how could Colonel Klink be such a dimwit, and why can't more people be like Andy Taylor?

But we might have to start watching the Discovery or History channels or - gasp! - turn the TV off altogether, because the commercials on TV Land are making us gag on our organic mac-and-cheese. I'm talking about the commercials for TV Land's reality shows, High School Reunion and The Cougar.

Is it really a big surprise that television advertising isn't as effective as it used to be? As TV watchers -- okay, we're uber-watchers -- we know that with DVRs and TiVos we're zooming through ads, or we're channel surfing in between segments of our favorite shows, or renting/buying content in formats that allow us to avoid commercials altogether. Now, according to the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research's TV & Technology Survey, we learn that six out of 10 marketers believe that TV advertising has become less effective in the past two years. And it's getting worse.