That good storytelling should have emerged as a priority is perhaps the most dramatic statement one could make about what was happening to television, although its appearance attests a potential that the medium always possessed. That expression of this potential was first undertaken by shows that had eliminated commercials gives some indication of what the attention merchants have to answer for. That it took so long made one wonder why we had put up with anything else for so many years.

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 1113