American West: Forced Viewing Of Advertisements?

Per the other post: I don't fly very often - avoid it as much as I can...


The Story:
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Flew American West PHL/OAK and back late this week.

Everything went really well except for one thing: we're all strapped into our
seats and the "Fasten Seatbelts" light comes on; then those little LCD screens
drop down in front of us, and they start playing advertisements... really,
REALLY *LOUD* advertisements - i.e. with the sound coming out of the overhead
speakers at pilot announcement volume instead of the headset jack .
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To me, it seemed bizar strapped into a chair and force-fed this self-serving
drivel by the people I paid to get me from point A to point B.

Somebody else observed a similarity to what happened to Alex in "A Clockwork
Orange"... Something about behavioral conditioning gone wrong. Guess I've gotta
see the movie to appreciate the analogy fully...


The Question:
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Is this kind of thing inflicted on all airline passengers these days, or did I
just get "lucky" in choosing American West?
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PeteCresswell