From an Australian perspective, there has been an increase in ads on television here lately.
I very rarely watch commercial television. I watch the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp), which is ad-free and SBS, which shows all the foreign programs, such as continental movies and the like. SBS has always been ad-free in the past, until just recently. They are now showing ads on SBS.
I restrict myself to only watching television for a couple of hours at night (never during the day) and never as background noise. I'm not fond of noise.
On the rare occasions when I watch commercial television (Law & Order SVU, for instance), I use the mute button on the remote control, so I can't hear the ads.