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is television uninteresting ?

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is television uninteresting ?

Postby Spazmogen on Mon Jan 29, 2007 12:10 am

Am I the only one who has reduced (or stopped) watching tv lately?

I gave up on it after the very 1st Survivor. It was unique at the time, now its all the same format. What's that, 7 or 8 years ago the 1st Survivor was on?
Nearly all reality tv shows are the same...add some controversy or infighting and people will watch in droves.

I'm 39 years old, other than the 6pm news a few nights a week and the weather network, I don't watch tv shows anymore. I'm not into sports. I rent about 1 DVD a month on average. I do spend a great deal of time online of late.

I have a 12 year old 27" Hitachi tv that will probably die in the next 2 years, and I have no intention of buying a big screen or HDTV at all. My stereo was bought in 1984 and it finally died last year. I'd have a hard time parting with $2K to get a HDTV & surround sound system just to watch some home decorating show with my wife or worse: Dr. Phil. And then pay about $90/month to get cable tv with HDTV channels.

Am I the only one who feels this way: tv is a waste of time? Do I need a laugh track to determine if something is actually funny ?

Shows I've actually never seen an entire episode of:
Signfelt, Desperate Housewives, Raymond, 90520 (or what ever it was called), The OC and the list goes on and on...yet I don't feel socially deprived because of this.

It seems like tv is moving towards series' again. 24, Lost etc. All of which I've never seen. Nor have any intent to see.

They sound like action based Soap Operas to hook males into watching with their wives/gf.
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Postby Wesociety on Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:42 am

I'm not a big TV fan lately either, but there are a few shows that still catch my interest (The Daily Show, Family Guy, etc). With all the sh17 and junk on TV appearing in between the stuff that might actually interest you, a DVR could be a very valuable tool.
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Postby JamieW on Mon Jan 29, 2007 11:52 am

DVR/Tivos changed TV and the way people watch them. Subsequently, it changed the way people make shows. There is now a move to make shows that will generate water cooler conversation and various unavoidable buzzes hoping that two things will happen:

1. You will watch the show when it is on so that you can participate in the next day discussions about the show.
2. You will watch the show when it is on so it doesn't get ruined for you the next day.

They do this with series shows, last-5-minute-plot-hooks, and various other tools. The point of all of which are "watch this show now so that we can tell our advertisers XX% of our viewers watch the show when it is on instead of recording and fast forwarding through commercials" and thus generate advertisement revenue.
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Postby dolphinius_rex on Mon Jan 29, 2007 12:17 pm

I pretty much watch 2 TV shows now. Heroes and Stargate Atlantis. I enjoy House and Stargate SG1, but almost never watch them anymore. Although I will probably finish watching Stargate SG1 once the final season has ended (I've seen season 1-8, so I may as well watch season 9 and 10).
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Postby Ian on Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:49 pm

Aside from Fox, I don't watch many shows on the major networks. The sitcoms aren't funny and the dramas and cop shows are boring. I mean, how many damn CSI's do we need?
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Postby ruderacer on Mon Jan 29, 2007 3:07 pm

I too have cut down on watching TV. Though, I watch Law&Order (original) on TNT, motorcycle racing on Speed Channel, and Forensic Files on Court Tv. Also, the Discovery channel has interesting stuff.
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Postby LoneWolf on Mon Jan 29, 2007 4:06 pm

I hate reality TV. Tons of infighting, blatant product placement (guarantees revenue in addition to the commercial breaks). It makes me think of the ancient Roman concept of "bread and circuses", only networks have found they don't need to offer the bread, the circus will do just fine.

My wife (and plenty of others I know) eat these shows up. With a few notable exceptions, I can't even stand to be in the same room when they're turned on.

Like many others, I have a DVR (my beloved ReplayTV 45xx) and it allows me to watch the few shows I watch when I wish to, and to get rid of the annoying ads. If networks want me to watch ads, maybe they (and those in the business of providing them) should make them less annoying, or provide a product I find useful. I go to my doctor for medical advice, not the television. If I want a mortgage or a loan, I'll find a reliable bank. If I need a lawyer, I'm certainly not going to trust one from TV advertising. So, 95% of the schlocky annoying ads on TV mean I block all of it, missing the 5% that's currently done well.

Once the weather turns warm and the snow disappears, I'll be glad to spend much of that free time outside; I find that a lot more valuable than the TV.
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Too much advertising

Postby 2Dogs on Wed Jan 31, 2007 2:10 pm

We gave up on TV a couple of years ago. We'd had satellite, specifically in order to be able to receive BBC America - but I was disgusted by the amount of advertising.

My (now 11 yr old) daughter adapted to the TV free regime overnight, and is quite happy posting to her favourite forums on her notebook with a wifi BB connection.

The average TV show seems to have about 30% commercial breaks. In order to confound timeshift ad-skippers, they use techniques that make you think you're back to the show in the middle of the break.

What killed it for me was when the commercial breaks were done, you'd get additional animated crap and scrolling banners during the show itself, as well as the ever present Station logo.

I now only watch motorcycle, bicycle and F1 racing timeshifted from Speed and Versus, recorded at the in-laws', skipping thru the commercials.

To RudeRacer, I would suggest if he ever gets the chance to watch motorcycle racing on Eurosport, it may be a complete revelation! (although they don't cover AMA stuff) They feature not only the full race, but also practice and qualifying, paddock interviews, with far less commercial breaks.

I too like "Family Guy", but having watched snippets on TV I'll just borrow the series on DVD from my local library - and watch it for free, without commercials. We did Netflix for about 18 months, but when I analysed our rentals, I discovered that we could have borrowed over 40% of them from our library! That was quite a revelation, since I'd considered our choices of British and foreign language stuff to be fairly eclectic. Perhaps we're lucky to have a DVD buyer with similar tastes working at the library! We've dumped Netflix - although they have a good selection, I was fed up with them throttling our movies - the turnaround was averaging 6 or 7 days.

We just look in on local TV for the weather forecast sometimes. If I was to believe local TV news coverage, the only thing that goes on around here is crime.
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Postby algrinch on Fri Feb 02, 2007 1:13 am

I only watch TV with my girlfriend.

I lost the ability to watch TV alone a couple of years ago. I won't even turn it on when I am alone in the room.

Here is what happens:

I turn the TV on and start advancing through the channels. I find something that interests me. I watch for about 10 minutes and then a commercial comes on. During the commercial I forget what I am watching and think that it must not be that great if I can't even remember what I am watching so I start advancing channels again until I find something else that is interesting.

Result: Two hours of my life gone and all I have watched are a bunch of 10 minutes segments from a dozen different shows.
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