Yes, there is a banner. I have paid little attention to the ads previously, but after you mentioned this I tried to notice who the ads were for. I have yet to see a Direct TV ad either.
Don't take this the wrong way, but you appear to be the only one having this issue and if there were Direct TV ads (and I am not saying there aren't, just I have not seen any), they are probably bringing Pete a little revenue for the site. I doubt he would drop them for one user's issues if this were the case.
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I clicked on different pages for about 5 minutes to see what ads would show up...
Renaissance Hotels seems to be the most popular, followed by Target and Shewin Williams. I also saw ads for Constant Contact, World Warcraft, Fisher Investment, NY Times, BMW, APU, Pal Pal, Progressive Insurance, Vazoom, Dex and Century Link.
I suppose there could be others as well.