We tend to watch most things in catch up just to avoid the ads. I know it's how some channels are financed but it aggravates me beyond belief.
I go through the tv pages and decide which programmes I actually want to watch (not many nowadays!) and set the sky box to record them. Then when i want to watch them I can whizz through the ads
I also found that a lot of old programmes that you can now watch, get downloaded to the box without any ads at all. RESULT
I managed to watch the whole Sharpe series again without any