Television devoted roughly one third of broadcast time to advertising

Evidence

The attention merchant had always tried to reach as broad an audience as possible, bombarding them with as many ads as they’d stand before going into total revolt. Such had been the strategy in television since Pat Weaver first introduced the commercial break: cram fourteen to sixteen minutes of ad time into every hour, along with a further three to seven minutes of other forms of branding, eating up roughly one third of the broadcast; the content was devised essentially to cue up the ads, with a little cliffhanger before each one. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 888

Categorization

• SHARE: Specific enough (14-16 min ads + 3-7 min branding per hour, one third of broadcast) that a media-history friend would love the precise figures.
• XREF: connects to: Television’s persuasive core was the commercial, not its entertainments — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 458; Early broadcasters saw audience size as the key to advertising profit — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 342; Unmeasurability of viewership protected advertising from hard scrutiny. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 632

Broader Connections

• Early broadcasters saw audience size as the key to advertising profit #corroborates (0.82) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 342
• Unmeasurability of viewership protected advertising from hard scrutiny. #complicates (0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 632