"Apparatus and method for preventing switching from a channel during an advertisement display"

right...they "never had the intention to force viewers to watch ads against their will"...they only had the intention to stop channel changing. You can always go the bathroom during commercials.

As you may have noticed, 'most' stations already time and plan commercials to run simultaneously, so that switching channels usually gets you only somone else's commercial. The Discovery Channel also own several others, and they usually run commercials within seconds of each other.

Local news programs start at 1 minute BEFORE the hour at 5 & 6 PM...and 1-2 minutes AFTER the hour at 10 & 11 PM to maximize the perceived tendency to stay with one station once they see its program start.

Even the program schedule is manipulated ...some nights the Discovery owned stations show multiple 'educational' programs like archeology, but on other nights it's all scary "end of the world" and "natural disaster" stuff....and still other nights you find mostly crime and prison fare....with commercials tailored to match.

...and have you ever wondered why so many sports events can manage to interrupt play at exactly the 'usual' commercial times? No wonder they don't like to show Soccer over here!