Follow TV Tropes

Following

Repeating Ad / WABC

Go To

WABC, the New York City flagship of the ABC television network, seems to be very fond of this trope in many ways.

  • Back in the late 2000's, Empire Today ads aired every hour from 6AM until the primetime block at 8PM.
    • This faded around 2013-ish for Bob's Furniture and National Floors Direct (which also plays at the end of shows on their morning block), which they love so much that they will sometimes air on network programs such as The Goldbergs and even on holiday specials!
    • In the spring of 2019, Empire Today ads would play at least once on every airing of Live With Kelly and Michael, as well as their local news program, but not as frequently as the two ads that replaced it. It even plays before videos on their website!
  • If you've watched the network's early morning programming at least once, chances are that you will have seen at least two ads for Pull-Ups training pants.
  • The network has a very bad habit of doing this with any children's touring production:
    • The Big Apple Circus is a major example. It even played in between some shows on their Saturday morning block back in the day, usually before The Emperor's New School and Power Rangers.
    • When "Disney on Ice presents Frozen" came to the area the station is located in, WABC kept airing the ad for the show every morning. There were four tour stops in the Tri-State area, so it'd get annoying after a while when you keep seeing this same ad for four weeks, especially since the ads contained the song "Let it Go"!
    • They then obsessed over the ad for Sesame Street Live: Make A New Friend months after this ended, even though the show didn't come anywhere near New York City until three weeks after the ad first played!
  • Speaking of Frozen, the ad for the sing-along edition of Frozen played twice in the same break during a 2014 re-run of the This Is America, Charlie Brown episode "The Mayflower Voyagers". And yes, it also had "Let it Go" in it! This makes some sense, since the network is owned by Disney.
  • During the network's Soap Opera line-up in December of 2014, the ad for Farxiga, a diabetes medicine, played every break.
  • Since August 2015, the network has been playing the My Pillow ad frequently during local programming.
  • On the week the 2015 ABC primetime season premiered, promos for the 11:00 news played during every break. Why? They wanted to teach their viewers how to avoid traffic jams during The Pope's arrival in New York City. What's worse is that banner ads for the news with this headline came on during actual programming, and that this happened two days in a row!
  • Often during the last ad break of the hour, they will play the same three ads twice in a row, which is common after syndicated shows like Wheel of Fortune. For example, on May 9, 2018, the last three ads of the 7:00AM hour of Good Morning America were a Monster Jam ad, a The SpongeBob Musical ad and an ad encouraging viewers to visit Washington, D.C..
  • In February and March of 2019, this Reese's ad played roughly every hour.
  • Beginning in the fall of 2018, ads for cable provider Spectrum would play almost every commercial break during local programs.
  • During the 2008 holiday season, it was quite common to see this commercial for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular during every local ad break. It also played on the local CBS affiliates, WCBS, at the time.
  • During their revived The Wonderful World of Disney block in 2020, which played movies from the Disney Animated Canon, not only did they air Disney+ ads every break, a commercial would play after the movie boasting how it and movies like it could be watched on Disney+.
  • During the summer of 2020, the network constantly played ads for the official proshot of Hamilton that streamed on Disney+.
  • During the Thanksgiving 2020 broadcast of Olaf's Frozen Adventure, an ad for the L.O.L. Surprise! Glamper played twice in the second ad break.

Top