The Movie Blog

15 minutes of ads seem like a lot. The 15 minute delay at my theatres usually include trailers, the AMC theatres here in the suburbs of Los Angeles will run two 30sec Coca-Cola and movietickets.com ads then run about 5 trailers.

Everyone is looking for the next big way to make money right? It’s only fair that 15 minutes before the movie starts we can watch some silly commercials. It’s not really hurting us right? I liked the points you had to make…

That cool that you like trailers John, but they’re still commercials, so as far as I’m concerned, you can bump that 15 minutes up to 25. Still stealing my time.

@Andy Theaters are bumping up ticket prices every year, so I don’t accept that argument about us paying more if there were no commercials, because we’re paying more every year already.

“What you get for your money although you have to watch the commercials? Um, the price you paid… That’s what you get. If you wouldn’t see commercials you would pay another 5 $ more…”

Oh, so the theater you go to DROPPED ticket prices when they started showing commercials? If they didn’t, then your argument is useless.

I worked in a movie theater in the late 80’s when ads started to appear. I remember the first time we showed an ad before a movie…my god, I thought there would be a riot on our hands. And that was just ONE ad.

Any ways I did find this interesting article:

http://www.slate.com/id/2133612/

I don’t want freakin commercails at a movie, at the ballgame or at the hockey rink. i use tivo at home to fast forward whenver possible. The problem at the theater is that I can’t change the channel or shut it off, I am held captive to the mindless Dr. pepper commercial or worse, the local realtor selling me properties. The world is so commercialized with ads everywhere you look, can’t we have a respit in a dark theater? The movie trailers are commercials enough promoting upcoming films. The world has become marketing whores and some of the sheep seem to be throwing their collective hooves in the air and saying there is nothing we can do about it… bologona! Studies saying 2/3 of the people don’t care are fabricated results paid for by theater people who want to justify the intrusion.

I pay for HBO; I get no commercials.
I pay for movies; I expect no commercials.

Commercials before movies are a parasite industry. I don’t buy for one moment that they are needed to keep the ticket price low; that’s a lame excuse.

Too bad there are so many people who don’t mind the commercials; they are used to commercials being everywhere so they find the abuse normal.

Good Article John (espically “Smart Shopping)
I hate this also, when i worked for a cinema as a Student on the major blockbuster films sometime it would be up to 25 mins before the movie would start and in that time you would only see 2 trailers.

This annoys the hell out of me, i have counted as much 14 adverts. I listen to another movie podcast i wont mention there name but they brought this topic up about a yr or so ago they may have had a poll (unsure) about having free movies funded solely by adverts. They suggested having 30mins of nothing but adverts closing the door so noone can enter after the ads start time! I thought this was interesting and thought that this might be worth a try. I dont think it would work for major blockbusters but maybe just maybe it might be a way of getting smaller films see and maybe film in there later weeks in the cinema. But my point is in ST. Albans its £8 a ticket (approx $16) and a large drink and popcorn is another £7 thats Thats £15 and because i have to wait 20 mins for the movie to start drink and pop corn are half gone!!! They ARE charging me to watch Adverts!!! but there is nothing i can do about it!!

5. Jarred
“That cool that you like trailers John, but they’re still commercials”

I for one!! part of going to cinema is to catch the trailers, infact i know noone who doesnt like to catch trailers as it gives they a glimps of whats coming up.

Firstly, I would be interested to know if the people polled were polled SPECIFICALLY about the commercials and SPECIFICALLY NOT about the trailers and if it was a positive vs. negative or multiple choice.

SECONDLY those fucking ass-chugging-monkeynuts have begun to put their advertising on the DVDs that we purchase. SO guess what? We are now PURCHASING their commercials AS WELL as purchasing the movie. I have seen the following:

A Honda Commercial (many DVDs)
A Commercial for Heroes on GlobalTV (On my Knocked up 2 disc)
A Commerical for a Toyota car before the trailers on my 1408 Special Edition, and then THE EXACT SAME FUCKING COMMERCIAL RIGHT AFTER THOSE FUCKING TRAILERS.

So, now what?

very well argued john. Again you have proved you can make a strong case on most subject.

Brian

I don’t mind commercials- as long as they’re entertaining. The Sun Chips commercials running in my local theaters make me sad.

In all, I’ve never been to a theater showing 15 minutes worth of commercials.

This has been my biggest gripe with movies recently. You brought up all the most perfect reasons for hating this kind of advertising. When I get a product for free, I expect to see advertising, that’s how they can afford to offer their product for free in 99% of cases. However, once I’ve paid you for a service, there is no valid reason for advertising to exist in it.

I also love your analogy of “smart shopping”. Priceless :)

I don’t really mind watching commercials in theaters…It won’t really hurt co’z it will only take a few minutes of my time.

I think we should look at this the same way as advertising online, we get paid for clicking on a site, we get paid to read email, but in a theater, we get nothing. The ticket prices are not adjusted by the infomercials they show at the beginning, prices have gone up for ..well since the beginning of time, and if their making more money now than back in the day, shouldn’t it realistically be lowering prices?

Andy over there said:

Umm.. you aren’t serious, are?
What you get for your money although you have to watch the commercials? Um, the price you paid… That’s what you get. If you wouldn’t see commercials you would pay another 5 $ more…

Answers like “theathers didn’t drop prices after starting to show commercials” are futile arguments because pre-movie commercials existed since from the first late-Nineties theathre crisis. 2+2…

It’s good when you only partly answer questions because you don’t have any more smart answer to give out. And look, you don’t answer to the only question around here that makes sense and opposes your viewpoint! Original way of action, isn’t it?

I obviously thumbed this down at SU.

I actually started a thread in Hometheaterforum in August to see if i could find allies in stopping this seemingly out-of-control plague.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/showthread.php?t=261277

Please go read it.You will see that i have a plan to end this once and for all.
That is,if EVERYONE chips in.By that,i mean the film lovers.The movie fans.
We are quite a bunch aren’t we ?

You will see i provide links to places on the net which started as good ideas but have lost speed due to way too much complaining and not enough action.

It seems to me,my plan is pretty clear,but the people
i spoke with in that thread seemed clueless to what it was.
Try to see what it is,and tell me if you cant see it.

A lot see this as a David and Goliath thing where Goliath is winning.

He’s winning because WE ARE LETTING HIM WIN.

nice article.

when i was little i loved the ads they showed in theaters - they were almost exclusively big-money ads for cigarettes and booze - and the production firms made sure that they would be in top notch quality. heck, most of the time they were cinematically more pleasing than the movie itself. after those ads were over, trailers for new movies would start, getting you warmed up for the reason you went to the theater: seeing a movie. you see: what a nice buildup.

nowadays, “smart marketing” resulted in trailers and cheapo ads being all jumbled up, to make sure no one comes in late to avoid the ads and just go for the trailers. after that the lights come back on, retina and atmosphere damage and all, so they can pull yet another genius marketing ploy: sell you ice cream and candy. i friendlily detest everyone who buys their sweets at that moment, because if it weren’t for them, surely the candyman wouldn’t be there in the first place.

do i sound bitter? i just turned 32, so im allowed to over-romanticize the good old days. (which are happening right now, in case you’re young) i still love going to the movies, but some things are out of control.

With commercials on tv you get a “free” tv show… I don’t think so, those commercials are on top of the $50/month needed for cable.

I don’t care for the ads at all, but since the majority of movie-goers don’t complain about them to anyone except other movie-goers, nothing much is going to change.

The one ad that really makes me want to stand up and yell FCUK YOU! at the screen is the one that tells you not to pirate movies.

Um, WTF? I’m in the theatre! I paid my 10 bucks to get in…I just spent 12 bucks on popcorn, drinks and a chocolate bar, essentially doing everything I did prior to the internet coming into existence, and they have the fcuking gall to fcuking lecture me about piracy!

To paraphrase Eric Cartman: “How would you like to scuk my balls, Mr. Movie Industry?”

I feel much better now. Thanks for letting me get that off of my chest.

I totally agreee with you, John!! Well written!!
I actually guessed that the industri made this
kind of money from the damn annoying ads! I have
shared your opinions on ads for several years now
without knowing that we shared opinions about
the ads. That is up until now.

Here in Australia they have unashamedly jacked the ad time up significantly in the last few years.

It now goes something like:
local businss ads for 5 minutes
some cinema advertising (candy bar etc)
some higher profile ads
a couple of previews
THEN MORE FREAKIN ADS - and ads from free to air televion might i add.!!
then more previews.

This comes out to about 20 to 30+ mins when it used to be only 15 including previews

MY SOLUTION: Throw back to the good old days and have a something for people to watch before the movie, then hit us with ONE and i mean ONE ad for some major company who will pay through the nose for the spot then previews then the feature. What will people watch before the movie? How about promoting local film in the suburb/state by screening short films of student/independent film makers. Have people submit their work to whatever cinema chain it may be and they get screened for quality and the good ones get a spot before a movie of similar genre. And for kids movies play a roadrunner cartoon like when i was a kid. That sh!t was awesome.

My argument is that this gives us a little extra value (I would certainly get there early to see the short before the movie), it shows the cinema is actively involved in helping the community and it’s a marketing tool to help get the punters in the seats early.

Vacuum filled.

My two cents.

44. Jim - Their job is to maximize their profits, and as long as we keep showing up, nothing will change.

and here lie the problem its catch 22? we have no other choice! either see the movie or dont? and for me the Dont isnt an option.

All of these people saying “Simple! Just show up AFTER all of the ads have ended.” Ummmm… is that listed anywhere that i dont know about? The exact amount and time of the ads? So, what if i show up 10 minutes after 7pm for a 7pm show AND there were only 6 minutes of ads? I just missed the first 4 minutes of the film!

And Paul talka about 50 bux a month for cable… well, you dont HAVE to have cable (for now) and you can usually still get your ‘basic’ network TV shows via the ‘old fashioned’ antenna…

Or, if you cant afford it, simply commit a crime in the U.S. and go to prison… you get three square meals a day and “FREE” cable! (And all of the man on man lovin you can handle…) Hmmmm… Food, Sex, and TV. Why isnt every man in prison?!?!

I enjoy cinema advertising. It’s often more entertaining and creative than television advertising. In fact, I generally make sure I arrive in time to catch the ads before a movie - in the same way that people arrive in time to watch the trailers.

And, when you think about it, trailers are really just ads. Ads for movies. So what’s the big deal? If you don’t want to watch the ads, arrive late or look away.

I think if you are going to force feed commercials during a movie then they better be very entertaining and worth my time.

Vote with your dollar. I went to the theater twice this year. I’ve bought 8 DVDs and rented about 25. Once a month I invite 20 friends over to watch movies on my 60″ screen and 7 speaker setup. We have food, alcohol, and a 5 minute intermission to let everyone go to the bathroom. It’s far far more fun than going to the movies.

I used to go to about 5-10 movies every month (despite the dozens I download), but now between the long commercials, and the endless stream of idiots who like to text or talk on their cell phone during the movie, I watch at most one a month, and the rest I download and watch in the comfort and privacy of my home on my widescreen monitor.

If the MPAA wants my money back, instead of attempting to sue people like me, they’ll get rid of ads, and work on the cell phone problem. Promoting good movies instead of Spiderman 3 would also probably help.

Although you make a point, catching the trailers is the best part of the movie theater experience PLUS you get to know what is coming out.

I posted a reply to your blog post on my blog. Basically I think if the movie industry compensated people for this lost time, the amount would be so small as to be insulting or so large as to bankrupt the movie companies. I then suggest advertising the real time and just increasing the ticket price to make up the lost revenue and I demonstrate that the increase would be in the ballpark of 34 cents per ticket.

I am in the UK. I pay around £6-7 at peak times per ticket. Here the movie advertising is so bad, that if a movie is billed to play at 8pm, it will not actually start until 8.20pm at minimum, sometimes not until a full half hour after.

Great post but needs a call to action. After providing us with this information, what can we do about it?

Provide links or email addresses of people we can contact, create a petition we can sign.

Made this more than just an “all talk” post.

Well, theatres can argue that the comercials you have to see are so that the price you pay is lower than without comercials (off course everyone with eyes on is face knows this is a lie).

I agree whole-heartedly. I’m sure everyone has a story, but one time in particular I went to see an 11:55 of “The Bourne Supremacy,” against my better judgment (I had to be at work at 6 in the morning). Anyways, I raced to the theatre to be on time, got into my seat at 11:54 and resolved to leave as soon as the credits hit because I had been sleep deprived all week… there were commercials and 3 movie trailers. The actual movie didn’t start until 12:33. That was 38 minutes of my time… That’s a true story, and one that I believe supports the authors point.

See, this is exactly why my S.O. and I have more or less quit going to the movie theater altogether and instead invested the money in building our own. No commercials, more comfortable seats, free snacks, “pause” button if you need to go to the bathroom, no obstreperous drunks almost puking on you after yelling at the screen…the benefits are endless. Plus we get to watch things like “House” and “Rome” on a 62″ DLP screen.

On the downside, piracy pretty much doesn’t work for us anymore, since a compressed DivX file blown up that big doesn’t look too pretty. But we’re more than willing to stick to DVD, especially thanks to 99-cent rentals at Blockbuster. Now if only the darn high-def war would quit already so we could invest in an HD player…

Also, your rant reminded me a bit of this amusing video: http://www.loadingreadyrun.com/videos/view/114/Who+Watches+Movies

72. Alex
Yeah Alex When i was student i worked at a UCI that paid £50k a month rent and for the 3 yrs i worked there they made Profit in just 5 Months I think that that was with LOTR and Harry Potter films.. When is insane really!

Also that Fact They charge £2.50 for a large Coke Which Cost Less that 10p including cup/lid/straw.. Even With This Kind of Profit Margins They are still Struggling… But it Still Doesnt Mean Iwanna Pay to Sit Thro 15 mins of Ads…

Trouble with this logic is that it assumes the movie theaters and the movie studios are one entity. They aren’t, not since the late 1940’s, anyway. The theaters have nothing to do with creating the content they show and have no copyright on it. The studios themselves no longer own theater chains, so they are not the ones making the money off the ads. Sadly, the theater chains show the ads to get revenue, to stay afloat financially. Theaters split about 50% of the box office sales with the studio. The rest of their income comes from popcorn, soda, and yes, ads. Far, far fewer people go to movies now than 50 years ago, because there are more reasons to stay home. Theaters aren’t where the studios make their money now, anyway. The real revenue comes from licensing content and DVD sales, which is why they are freaked about pirating. Read Edward Jay Epstein’s book “The Big Picture” for some insight into how the business really works.

I actually like the 15 minutes of ads at the theater. It lets me know what movies are coming out. I dislike the ads on the TV.

But the one place where I actively despise ads being placed is on the DVD’s that I buy. And I think it’s vile when some companies won’t let you skip straight to the menu.

That is the true waste of time, especially when the ads go out of date. It’s 2007 now, and I bristle when I hear “Coming to theaters in Fall, 2005!”

oh yeah… and to answer your question, why commercials before movies is worse than piracy?

because some people are whiny biches.

The theaters and movie industry can do whatever they want as long as people are willing to put up with it. They could charge you $100 per ticket and force you to wear a purple party hat and say “I’m an idiot” into a special camera before you go in. As long as people are willing, then it’s a viable business model, no matter how it may impact your common sense.

I vote with my dollars and stay home. I can go to the RedBox, and for ONE DOLLAR, I can enjoy a movie with my whole family with no incessantly crying babies, no sitting next to some sweaty fat guy with the amazingly productive cough, no sitting in a squeaky seat where the cushioning has gone flat, no listening to people yakking throughout the movie, and to top it off I don’t have to pay $15 for a soda and a popcorn.

My 65″ hi-def setup has virtually paid for itself, in financial terms as well as my sanity. So I wait a few weeks longer to see something - it’s well worth it. Theaters these days are where teens go for dates because there’s nowhere else. That’s all they’re good for any more. The movie - watching “experience” is a dinosaur long extinct.

In the early ’80s around where I live, movies used to cost about $8. Now they cost up to $12. According to The Inflation Calculator:

“What cost $8 in 1980 would cost $21.42 in 2006.”

Seems to me you’re being compensated.

I don’t remember if it was in Korea or in Japan, but movie goers made a class action suit against theaters for this very reason. They argued breach of contract. The movie ticket constitutes a contract and the time says, for example, 7h00 PM and because of all the ads, the movie starts a good 25 minutes later. I never followed up on it. But the article made me think of this.

Easy solution — I just haven’t gone to watch a movie in ages. I’d rather rent it at a fraction of the price and watch it in the comfort of my own home on a projector, with the sound system of my choice, without idiots on cell phones, without a 10 minute smoke break in the middle (many European theaters do this), I always get the seating I want, and best of all, I can watch it while drinking a beer (an issue in US theaters) and in my underpants…

Good article, but your lawsuit-math is off. When they sue pirates, they sue because the pirate uploaded a movie to an unknown number of people. If you see the huge amounts they sue people for, one could assume they expect you uploaded any single movie or MP3 to at least 100 different people.

As such, it’s no more than fair to say that, because you watched that illegal advertisement, you might have influenced a 100 different people.

So at $20 per hour, 24 hours, a 100 people plus yourself, it’s a grand total of $48,480.00 they owe you.

Commercials should start before the Show time, its only fair. WHat are we waiting for in that time? The people who are always late for everything? No, thanks.
On the other hand.. I think studios are making way too much money out of AMerican Theaters anyway. In my country we pay $3.50 (yes, dollars are our currency) and $1.75 on Wednesdays for a movie ticket
I think you have bigger things to complain about

24 hours of wasted. stop going to the damn movies so often. use that time to be more productive in society. stop whining, you couldve done something more productive in the time it took you to write this blog, which I would estimate is as much time as it takes to watch an Ad before a movie.

Great article… i totally and completely agree with you and i think it is the sort of deal people should be burning down theaters for…

It is the people who show this much concern over the little things that will keep the world a fair place…

This is an exceptionally lame argument. Essentially, you’re saying that poor customer service is an excuse for theft. It’s like arguing that because a doctor keeps you waiting an extra half hour, you should feel justified in walking out with his stethoscope and scale. It’s patently silly, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that made your parents tell you that two wrongs don’t make a right.

The solution is to complain to the theater manager, tell him you won’t come back, and then don’t. Making you sit through commercials is not a theft of your time, particularly if you know in advance that your $8 ticket includes 15 minutes of commercials (which you obviously do). It’s just poor service. The proper response to poor service is a failure to continue custom.

Don’t be a jerk. Just stop patronizing the vendor.

Brilliant and so true. i agree with you completely. Great post. They ARE stealing our time. It’s BS!!!!

1) nobody whom has posted here really has any actual idea of who gets the money and how that money is determined from the advertisements. How do I know this? Because I am the person who actually calculates that data for the companies that run the advertisements in theatres. I also know the execs at AMC who run this stuff for their circuit too.

2) you know there are going to be commercials. If you don’t like them, find a theatre that doesn’t show them. I don’t like them, but I sit through them without complaint

3) if you want assigned seating, you are asking to pay a higher ticket price to cover the costs of setting that up and enforcing it. But, you will actually be paying around DOUBLE the actual cost in your ticket prices, because the ticket revenue is split between exhibitor and distributor.
It is cheaper for you to sit through the ads than to have the exhibitor make up for the lost revenue from the ads by raising ticket prices. If you don’t like the $8-12 ticket prices now, just wait until they are $15-20 to cover the assigned seats.

4) requiring the ads to be strictly before the movie will also raise ticket prices. The exhibitors get paid for the ads based upon how many patrons actually SEE the ad. If there are fewer people in the theater when the ads are shown, if for some reason it was required that they are only shown before, then I would take that into consideration when telling the companies how many people viewed the ads. Then, the exhibitors make less money from the ads, and to compensate, raise ticket prices.

Lawsuit? against who? let’s be serious… why don’t you sue rockstar games for putting cingular, pepsi, and other billboards in their videogames? what needs to be done is a demand for lower prices, a shun to the industry. Look at the music industry… In Rainbows?!?! … Piracy is power.

When one of these time stealing commercials comes on I boo very loudly so that the entire theater can hear me. I then throw in a couple comments like “I didn’t pay for this” or “show the movie” or “take that Nissan/Coke/ Evil Corporation”. Funny comments are the best…

The response from other people in the theater is always great! They will very quickly join in with booing, laughing and smart ass comments of their own. Try it some time. It’s fun. Plus if we can start a trend then the advertisers will get the message fast!

no, John, earlier, you were incorrectly correlating the increase of advertisements with the rise in movie ticket prices, which is absolute crap. The only way advertisements in movies have anything to do with ticket prices is keeping them down, because without the advertisements, the exhibitors have to make up the money somewhere else, and if they do it in the ticket price, then it goes up even more since the don’t keep 100% of the ticket price.

Contrary, movie piracy causes fewer people to see the movie in the theater. The exact effect of how many people that this dropoff causes is unknown, but it is a much greater factor of ticket price increases (as is inflation) than advertisements in the movies are, which was my point.

At no time in my life has the time printed in the paper or the time on the marquis meant that was when the movie was supposed to start. Never! It’s the time the lights go down. Followed by previews, followed by the movie.

Now, do movie previews bother you? Or just traditional commercials?

@Jon

You said:
“If there are fewer people in the theater when the ads are shown, if for some reason it was required that they are only shown before, then I would take that into consideration when telling the companies how many people viewed the ads.”

A couple of questions on this…

1) Are you somehow able to track “conversion” - that is, what percentage of people who view these ads actually turn around and buy something being advertised?

2) Has it ever been tested to see if a smaller number of people viewing the same ad before the movie results in fewer sales (or whatever the goal of the ad is)?

Personally, these ads aggravate the hell out of me and I’m more likely to NOT buy something that’s advertised because it leaves such a bad taste in my mouth.

The ads that run before the official start time of the movies are a different story, however. These don’t bother me at all since it’s not abusing my time and I have actually gone out and bought several CD’s after hearing music being advertised.

Nat- good questions-I’ll answer the best I can
(and note, I also don’t like the commercials…but I can’t avoid the part of my job that says i have to do this work)
1) Are you somehow able to track “conversion” - that is, what percentage of people who view these ads actually turn around and buy something being advertised?
No, we are not. But, we don’t get paid to do that, nor do the companies that plan the advertising necessarily care about that as much. I will add more to this with the response to question 2

2)2) Has it ever been tested to see if a smaller number of people viewing the same ad before the movie results in fewer sales (or whatever the goal of the ad is)?

I am not sure if it has been tested or not. Part of what I do is figure out how many people are seeing the ads, and that is all these companies pay for. I also do a lot of other things with box offices too (they are irrelevant to this topic though).

One thing about how these people make money, is, that the costs for the ads are based upon how many people were there for it, which right now, is mainly based on patron counts. But, it takes around a month after the time periods for the companies that run the advertisements to find out the patron counts from me (two companies essentially cover every exhibitor). Essentially, they set up a price tier that says if x amount of people see the ad, it costs y, and if z amount see the ad, it costs YY, and so forth

Now, back to that conversion- I don’t get the data for how many people buy the product, so I can’t calculate it. I only have the patron info, box office info, and market research. It is also hard to track that because many of these products have extensive advertising outside of the theatres (coke and pepsi).

I sort of rambled here. If you need anything cleared up more, I will be happy to answer until I stop checking later today

@John:

Yes, ticket sales were record highs last year, but, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN HIGHER WITHOUT THE PIRACY

Specious argument with no factual backup. You can’t prove that people who pirate movies are doing so in lieu of seeing them in the theater. They could be doing it in lieu of renting them. Or they could simply be doing it because they can, even if they never intended to visit a theater to see the movie. Maybe some people even see the movie in the theater, like it enough to want a copy, and so pirate it instead of paying for a DVD.

You offer no evidence that a movie downloaded directly correlates to a theater ticket not sold.

Previews are not the same as a commercial for Nissan or some other product! I have no problems with previews or even a brief commercial advertising the popcorn at the theater snack counter. However, these Nissan commercials need to stop! See my previous post #109 for the ultimate solution…

This was a good read. I think my overall problem with the theater industry is not only the commercials played before the film, but also the outrageous costs involved with the entire theater going experience. The film makers want you to feel bad for screwing them out of their money…but they don’t care the theaters are screwing us.

$10 for a ticket? $10 for popcorn and a coke? C’mon! That money isn’t paying for the movie…it’s paying for the giant flat screen televisions in the theater lobby that’s running *gasp*, more commercials!

What’s more, I hate hate HATE having to watch anti-piracy commercials before the actual movie. If I’m sitting there, in the theater, I’ve obviously PAID to get there and am NOT pirating movies…and yet I still have to watch Bruce Willis or whom ever else tell me I’m going to hell if I download his movie. I’m in the theater paying for it already!! Give me a break!

I remember when cable TV first hit…it was “commercial free” because we had to pay for the service, unlike broadcast TV. As a business owner, I can’t get on the do-not-call list, so I get lots of telemarketers. I look at them as shoplifters, as my time is worth money and they think they can just take my time for free and stick it in their pocket. Yes, time is worth mone