The only way this will work though is if the network can deliver a premium audience for these shows, either in terms of size or demographic, otherwise what advertiser would be willing to pay a premium to have commercials on these shows?

Not all of the commercials that air in an hour are from the network.

There are also commercial breaks for your local station.

Sounds like FOX is cutting back on the length of the network breaks - not the number of breaks.

The local breaks will probably stay the same - local stations won't want to give up the airtime.

I wish they would do like the old days and have 1 sponsor per show. Give them a couple minutes at the beginning and a couple towards the end. 24 did this for their premiere a few times with Ford Trucks and they even had an action short one time. The commercial breaks don't really bother me as I've mastered just when to hit play while ff thru the ads on my Tivo. It's all that crap they throw on the screen now that pisses me off. I wonder if in the future our fav shows will be shown in a little box in the upper right corner and the other 3/4 will have ads running? They may even be nice enough to throw in a free ad ticker at the bottom for us.

This is just the latest way that teleivion shows are competing with networks like HBO and Showtime. Its also a way for these big budgeted series to present themselves more cinematically. Every time there is a commercial break on my favorite shows I never sit and watch the commericals. I go get something to eat/drink, I often mute the television, anything to avoid just sitting watching commericals. So less commericals sounds good to me.

Definitely 18 minutes of commercials on the typical drama, some even more. I watch three hours of TV on Thursdays. I start it 30 minutes in so I can skip through most of the commercials. I am caught up real time at about two hours and 40 minutes. Hate that.

I used to score for FantasyTeeVee, so it was very apparent just how much time is taken on commercials.

As for the idea - I'm not sure what they hope to gain by it. I like that they are thinking quality over quantity, however, so I'm willing to go along for the ride.

A typical 60 minute show has 42 minutes of Content and 18 minutes of commercials.

I think all this means is that these two shows are going to have 5 minutes less commercials than usual. Which is very good, and welcome, but not nearly as revolutionary as the suits are making it appear. If this actually means that the length of these shows will be in the 46-47 minute range, that will be welcome news.

Although I do wonder if these shows last long enough to hit syndication, whether they will be cut down by 5 minutes.

Thanks for jumping in there, Joel. I wondered about that, too. Here's the actual wording from The Hollywood Reporter story by Paul J. Gough and James Hibberd, and looking at it in the light of day, I think the "pods" and "promos" must be two different things:

"Both 'Fringe' and 'Dollhouse' would have network commercial loads of about five minutes per hour, about half the usual. The commercial pods would also be shorter and they would have about half the promo load, as well."

Translation, anyone?

In what universe are you living in? TV shows are 42 or 44 minutes long, that means 15 minutes of commercials. So half of 15 is 5?

The less irritating advertising the better - but I agree with Ryan and Scott - there will be more flash advertising during the show - which is even more irritating so the show will lose viewers and then be canceled in 2 weeks - this is FOX were talking about - if it's not american idol it's not going to last!