Bring sanity back to the holiday season: An easy way to stop the commercials

This time of year can be crazy for parents. Aside from all the cooking and entertaining and shopping, there's the non-stop barrage of commercials on television (yes, we all watch TV don't judge!). How many loud cries of Can I get that? should one mother have to take!

Did you know there is a way around it? I recently learned that if you have a DVR through either Comcast, Cox, or CableVision, you can record all the best loved shows, and then program a thirty-second skip into your remote to help you avoid those very enticing 30 second spots for overpriced plastic junk.

So how do you do it? It's unbelievably easy.

 

1. Pick a seldom used button on your remote (I'd go with the "A" yellow triangle button.)

2. Find the "set up" button. Press and hold the set up button until the cable button blinks twice.

3. Using the number keypad, type in 994. The cable button will blink twice again.

4. Press the setup button again (do not hold).

5. Type 00173 on the number keypad.

6. Press the button you've chosen to be your 30 second skip button.

Done.

Seriously, it's that easy. Now you can happily skip through the commercials.

Heaven.

If you don't have Comcast, Cox or CableVision? The Dish network remotes come with the 30 second SLIP which is actually a super fast-forward and works pretty well. Sadly, Time Warner appears to be the only company that doesn't permit a thirty-second skip. No doubt their advertisers are delighted about that. -Cecily

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