koan - 11:14 pm on Jan 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

it is a bit crazy. does "the godfather" suddenly become a worse film when it's on the telly, because its got ad breaks?

Yes, it does become a worse film. Imagine there's a TV guide agent that helps you find what you desire. Say you're in the mood to watch a gangster movie and you search for "mafia". Two channels show Godfather. One channel as ads interruption every 5 minutes, the other has ad interruptions every 30 minutes. Knowing this, the intelligent TV program ranks the one with less interruptions first because it knows it will deliver a better film experience. That's his job, and users are more than happy with that line of thinking and continue using that intelligent TV guide over other less sophisticated ones who can just scan titles and movie genres but can't figure out that there are other elements for a quality movie experience.