Time to be grateful I only stomach watching the ABC (no ads) or SBS (only adverts between programs, not during)..

New Scientist announce something that really should have been an April Fool – Philips have a patent on a TV advert enforcer to prevent you changing channels during an advert break on TV.

Philips suggests adding flags to commercial breaks to stop a viewer from changing channels until the adverts are over. The flags could also be recognised by digital video recorders, which would then disable the fast forward control while the ads are playing.

The full patent for an “Apparatus and method for preventing switching from a channel during an advertisement display” is online – via Groklaw.