> DVRs solved commercials on cable back in 1999, "unskippable" isn't an issue there.

I had a DirecTV DVR box that had unskippable ads for some content. It would download fresh local ads from the internet into the ad breaks from the pre-recorded satellite content. Blocking the cable box from the internet just ensured it was always the same old ad content or forced the original ad segments but also limited/broke a lot of other features of the cable box.

It only did it on some shows on some networks. Paramount was the most obvious one, a lot of the recordings of their shows had that "feature" enabled.

I've never seen that before, but I've never had satellite. That's terrible.