In a move designed to attract more real-time viewers, ABC has decided to are no commercials where they would normally first appear during several of its season opening shows this fall. This decision allowed the affected shows to run for about 3 more minutes than usual.

Fox was the first to do this last year during two of its shows, charging up to 40% more for the remaining ad time during the shows because viewers would presumably be more engaged with the fewer commercial breaks.

Obviously ABC is hoping to attract more long-term viewers to its shows, and perhaps to attract viewers from the internet, where there is less ad revenue to go around. (Hulu, for example, only airs one commercial per break.)

But isn't it kind of a slippery slope to entice viewers to watch more advertising down the road by showing them less now? If advertising is to continue, I'm not sure applying one of the most basic online advertising strategies — "show less ads" — is going to solve anyone's revenue problems when it comes to television advertising.