It also depends on who does the commentary. When Emer McCarthy, Chalres Collins and Chris Altieri handle the broadcasts, they are excellent. They usually suspend the comments during the Liturgy of the Eucharist and resume during Holy Communion. It does help to have commentary for the homily, though, since, in my case, my Italian is limited.

Abbot Coel, you are right in that there are some who are too chatty. As much as I liked Cardinal Foley, he tended to go on a bit much. In fact, it's interesting. When there are clergy doing the commentary, they seem to be the ones who do a lot of the talking, even to the point of interpreting every single thing. The trio that I mentioned in the first paragraph are the best ones.