Mediacheck

Why So Many Are Turning off TV World

Consider the high price of getting 60 channels of drivel. Consider the fast growing options.

By Shannon Rupp, 3 Jan 2012, TheTyee.ca

Asleep in front of the TV

Maybe it's time to wake up to life after cable.

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The news that TV prices have dropped low enough to force some makers out of the market will come as a surprise to no one who caught the sales flyers.

Economic analysts explain it by pointing to everything from the strong yen frustrating Japanese manufacturers like Sony and Panasonic, to the recession, to increasingly savvy consumers realizing that if they just wait six months the price for the latest gizmo will drop. Throw in the boom in tablets, and the old-fashioned TV has gone from being the electronic fireplace to just another white elephant.

But I suspect there's another reason for the 50 per cent drop in boob-tube prices: television sucks. So why buy a device designed specifically to deliver shows we don't want when there are already 2.8 TVs hanging around the average household?

The day I quit

I stopped watching TV about six years ago, after a stint as a television critic put me off the whole wretched medium. It was all over for me the day a release announcing the latest cycle of Survivor arrived and I burst into tears at the thought of being tortured through another celebration of psychopaths and stupidity.

Not long thereafter I called my TV content provider who, while absurdly overpriced and indifferent to my tastes, had always been reliable. When they asked why I was leaving I drew on the classic break-up speech and assured them it wasn't them, it was me.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended and that's all I want to watch," I confessed. "So, I don't need it anymore."

That led to one of those convoluted conversations that can only happen with cogs in a bureaucratic wheel. The very pleasant woman seemed to think I was punishing them for something and kept asking me to explain myself. I kept repeating that I was canceling my cable because, essentially, there were 60 channels and nothing on. She couldn't wrap her mind around this. (What was she: an America's Next Top Model fan?) Finally she took my point about there being nothing worth my time and exploded in frustration: "But THAT is not our fault!"

I agreed it was clearly my fault for not wanting what they deliver (very effectively). But as I said to my editor when I gave up the TV gig: You can't pay me enough to watch this crap; why would I pay for the privilege?

I had other issues with multi-channel entertainment packages but the clincher was that I'd been watching The Wire on DVD and found that it was by far the best way to see sophisticated shows that are structured like novels, with intricate plots and character development. I didn't want an episode weekly; I wanted to view the series when I had time. And view only about five TV shows a year in full, so I wait for the reviews before I commit.

The way television is delivered didn't reflect how I lived, what I wanted to watch, or what the technology can do for us. Worse, it forces us to fund content we find objectionable. So I was out. And it turns out I'm not alone.

Worsening reception

Broadcasters have seen this coming ever since we figured out how to program our VCRs, sometime in the 1980s, and learned that TV-on-demand is divine. Generally, only children and the infirm park themselves in front of the box and indiscriminately consume whatever the cable gods deem suitable. By 2008, the median age of live-TV watchers in the U.S. was 50, while the median age of Americans was 38. Hit shows like Dancing with the Stars are favoured by people 60ish. I'm guessing they're the ones who never mastered their VCRs, which set them on a death spiral of technophobia that now leaves them to watch whatever accommodates their bedtime. (And let that be a lesson to you about the hazards of not embracing technology.)

The rest of us have been skipping the ads for about 30 years, which has led to astoundingly inept product placement within TV shows, and more tuning-out on series like CBC's current swillfest, Being Erica. There the hilariously bad embedded ads for cars and tea sound just like a 1970s detergent commercial. Incidentally, does anyone really need to ask why no one is watching CBC drama when they deliver writing and acting this amateur? Have they not heard of Mad Men?

Still it came as something of a shock to learn that almost no one I know watched old-fashioned TV that requires you to buy multiple tiers of bad programming in order to get access to the content you really want. They've replaced it with a host of a la carte services at about half the price. Netflix is the big favourite for $8 a month, and it even comes on mobile apps. Although it features older TV series, its selection of documentaries hooked many a reporter. Some friends value HD screens for watching current shows like the Brit costume drama Downton Abbey -- the clothes, jewellery, and Edwardian décor demand a crisp picture, and for $20 Amazon already sells the Season 2 U.K. DVD of the seven episode series that is about to air on PBS. Revenge, a retro evening soap about the rich-and-evil, also has fab sets and clothes, and comes for a mere $35 via iTunes for a HD season's pass of more than 20 hour-long episodes.

Even moms who once admitted with a guilty shrug that they plunked their toddlers in front of Treehouse TV told me they were now slapping Dora the Explorer on an iPad. Not only was it television on demand for picky children, it was on-board the stroller.

The last to unplug

Sports fans were the last devotees of entertainment packages, because they have that compulsion to watch things like cricket in real time, all over the Commonwealth. Or so I thought. My friend "Kerry" a hockey slave confesses that last year she gave up her cable package featuring sports channels because her beloved Canucks can be followed online or with a mobile app -- she catches games on her iPad, or in a pinch, her phone. Her home TV is just a screen on which she watches films and TV series on DVD, at her convenience.

Oh, and Kerry won't let me use her real name. Killing her cable is a dirty little secret because she does PR in television and she doesn't want it to get around that even she can't be bothered to watch the drivel they air.

"For me it's all about quality programming, and the availability of the good stuff matching up with the time I have," Kerry says, explaining why she abandoned old TV. "Equally important is skipping those toxic commercials that sell a warped way of life."

Their habits reflect what studies began to show as early as 2008 in the U.S. -- that the well-educated and employed were migrating online and replacing TV with Internet services. Particularly women. Probably because they're time-starved and not looking to fill their off-hours with pap.

Meanwhile, the online choices are multiplying. In the continuing campaign to find a way to coax cash out of YouTube, Google is looking into creating a channel for professional video, which would give artists direct access to audiences, and kill the middleman -- the suits who made the bad creative decisions that drove audiences away from TV in the first place.

Water cooler buzz runs dry

Watching television was almost obligatory at one time because it drove water cooler chat; turning your nose up at the medium made you sound like snob. Now social media deliver chitchat fodder with an endless supply of those dreaded cat videos and all their variations: chattering babies, pepper-spraying cops, and inexplicable YouTube Sensations. Yes, that's a job title now. Once we all knew about the Soup Nazi; now there's no escaping Rebecca Black.

Meanwhile people discuss television series the way they once talked about literature and ask the equivalent of what's on your nightstand? Knowing about a great show your friends aren't watching yet has a kind of social cachet, much the way discovering a great new restaurant did 20 years ago during the rise of foodie-dom.

Generally, I think that's an improvement over feeling forced to watch Friends. But it won't do a thing to move that glut of TV sets. [Tyee]

Vancouver-based Shannon Rupp writes regularly for the Ottawa Citizen and now for The Tyee. Find her previous Tyee columns here.

33 Comments:

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  • woodworker

    20 weeks ago

    Haven't had Live TV in over 30 years

    Occasionally I end up in a hotel somewhere and can't believe how bad TV had become. If I do find a show I want to watch I watch it on DVD at my convenience and a fraction of the cost and no commercials. I can't believe people pay money for TV cable etc and then have to sit through commercials.

  • Countrytype

    20 weeks ago

    Grew up without, don't miss it now.

    I felt odd growing up without more than 1 hour of 'educational' tv, but only because everyone at school talked of nothing else, something that now seems warped and dull.

    For a short while a roommate in college had a satellite subscription and we were glued to the tube involuntarily. Now normal TV doesn't grab me at all all and we certainly don't have any plans to resubscribe...

    Series on DVD are where it's at.

  • Grania

    20 weeks ago

    Turning Off TV

    I do not have cable...do not watch television and have not done so for about 5 years...do have a tv to watch dvd movies and documentaries. The reason is that most tv shows are total crap.

  • miguel

    20 weeks ago

    TV

    There are two parts to a tv broadcast; the content and the filler. The advertising is the content, the program is the filler, and you can see that there is more thought and skill put into the ads than the show in many cases.
    I pulled the plug on tv in 1974, as a teen. I was insulted that someone thought I was so mindless as to find that *$#@ entertaining.

  • Skywalker

    20 weeks ago

    I agree.

    If it wasn't for PBS, Knowledge Network and my DVD player, my TV would be a wasted space. It is astounding what producers think the public is stupid enough to watch. Even the CBC is not exempt. We had to create our own obnoxious person celebrity to watch in O'leary, all those U.S. morons like Donald Trump were not enough.

  • Frank

    20 weeks ago

    tv

    Ironically, some of the best shows to ever air are on now. Shannon mentioned the Wire and Downton Abbey but there's lots of others too. The thing is there's far more crap too.

    But who wants to watch commercials and the show at a particular time of the week?

    What we did was cancel everything and go with an indoor antenna that gives us CBC and CTV. For the good shows we simply rent them at the local video store and for the Canucks, if its not Saturday night I watch them online.

    Saves lots of money and we get what we want.

  • headstrong

    20 weeks ago

    Couldn't agree more!

    Altho I still have 3 tiers of very expensive cable channels, most nights I am endlessly searching for something decent to watch. It's very frustrating, and I am seriously thinking of dropping my cable also. Articles like this certainly reinforce that inclination.
    There are still a few channels available over the airwaves at no cost, and do we really need anymore?

  • motorcycleguy

    20 weeks ago

    bunny ears

    Turned in my bunny ears for cable just two years or so ago for cable. The guys at work were amazed at the leap...direct from 8-track to Blu-Ray they said....but, had to get 3 packages to get the one or two channels that I seemed to like. I sure notice the monthly bills....could not agree more with Ms. Rupp...not enought value for the money. In addition, I risk breaking my new TV with the shoes that get thrown at it during evening "news" programs.

  • Waltz

    20 weeks ago

    How come it has take so long?

    Two decades ago I came to the conclusion that the packaging of TV channels did not offer any value for money. I disconnected the TV from cable and since then have used it only for watching videos. I have never regretted the decision for which my grown children are also grateful. Today most kids I know don't watch TV because as they say "it is garbage".

  • Don_EC

    20 weeks ago

    "Specialty Channels"

    I still subscribe to the 'cable' TV experience, albeit to the very basic package, along with sports. If they lived up to the hype during their licensing applications, I could imagine adding some specialty channels. But when they are available as preview items, my sense is that all of them begin to look like every other 'specialty' service. I find it hard to differentiate, for example, between History and the Women's network. And soon all are showing nothing but rerun movies of questionable quality.

    Were it not for the pvr which helps avoid the commercials, I'd be outa here.

  • Sooke

    20 weeks ago

    Roku

    I love my Roku media player, which lets me watch Netflix and hundreds of other channels on my TV. All you need is a fast internet connection, and it has a USB plug, so you can play your own video, pictures and music.

    I haven't cancelled my Shaw digital TV account yet, but if they don't lower their prices, they are going to lose a lot of customers.

    I love the idea that the CRTC can no longer dictate what channels I'm allowed to watch!

  • Granville

    20 weeks ago

    TV isn't even chewing gum for the mind these days

    Even that piece of wisdom has lost its salt. TV is SO bad it is unbelievable. Even the CBC relies on re-runs, for four or five cycles. They would do better to rent a DVD from a video store and run that instead of some of their documentaries.

    The running of Law and Order SVU at 4:00 pm, Pacific time was a bit of a crime in itself. Showing kids a rape-and-murder show before supper is just plain BAD.

    The one show that has stood the test of reruns is the Murdoch Mysteries. I find that show so charming, I have watched it four or five times, but they need to shoot a new series.

    The quality of TV has steadily declined as the technology has improved, in direct relation.

    As for advertising, the day of mass media advertising was over 20 years ago. Most of the ads are misdirected, and most of them are so oblique, you can't even figure out what is being promoted.

    On any given evening, the viewer can see about 20 people being shot at close range or murdered in some gruesome way. It seems to be de rigeur for anyone driving a car in prime time to wreck it.

    The recent news from L.A. re the spate of fires comes as no surprise to anyone who has watched "Burn Notice" because that is all Michael Westin ever does.

    American TV shows extreme violence as normal behaviour and portrays a country in its death throes. It works for me.

    Personally, I took to downloading old movies from BitComet, using Isohunt as my search engine. I hook my laptop to the PC outlet and we just acquired a cast-off 40" LCD TV. The image quality is just excellent.

    Words alone cannot express my disgust at the TV programming, so I won't try. The only good TV is from the past, so nostalgia seems quite appropriate.

  • bfearn

    20 weeks ago

    Crappy TV.....

    must work for somebody but not me. I think it is a great shame that so much amazing technology should be so perverted.

    We are inundated with ads by the networks who tell us how great they are when that is so obviously untrue. Occasionally they show a good movie and then make it impossible to enjoy with excessive ads. The news is biased and superficial, etc. etc. By subscribing to so much crap you make it possible.

    I gave up on TV years ago and life is better.

  • Loke

    20 weeks ago

    Canada is so far behind....

    This should mention how far behind Canada is in television.
    In the US people are ditching cable like crazy due to free options.
    In most large US cities HD is available over the air for free. 30+ channels available in most cities.
    The largest available in Canada is about 5 (Shaw picks up some of these and sells them to you).
    Canadians are also restricted as most US content is rebroadcast for free on the Internet. Most networks have their top shows available directly. These sites are blocked from Canada.
    A huge number of people download their shows/movies from Torrent sites or Netflix, which caused ISP's to scream and charge premiums. Most of the ISP's are owned by the same companies who sell you TV service and/or own video stores.
    Telus and Shaw are providing TV service delivered over their Internet connection (locked in).
    Their is absolutely no reason cable TV should exist today except that cable companies have a stranglehold.

  • stefcue

    20 weeks ago

    We watch laptop

    I agree with Ms. Rupp and most here. We had cable for a few years but only because it was included with the rent. What mindless s%#t. Now my partner and I joke that, we don't watch TV, we watch laptop!. Although quality is variable, you can still watch just about any episode of a series online at just about anytime. The only reason I'd buy a TV is so that I could watch online content on a bigger screen or DVDs.

  • dfra

    20 weeks ago

    also agree

    Why would I pay to have advertising delivered to my home? Any programs of interest can be accessed by other means, and local or international news is readily available online. The bulk of TV programming is of no interest to me whatsoever.
    After decades of no TV access I hooked up to a satellite TV provider about 15 years ago. What amazed me was the number of explosions [big bang and flames] that seemed to be a part of every movie and most shows...it was like a parody of action films. After a couple of years of bemusement [and steeply rising subscription rates] I cancelled my account, and don't miss it at all. As bfearn said, a shame that technology with such potential should be so poorly utilized.

  • edward01ca

    20 weeks ago

    Agree With Everyone

    I agree with all the comments so far. A few months ago, I put a new video card whic ha an HDMI output in my computer. Went on the net and got a 25' HDMI cord (for a huge amount cheaper than local retail oulets) and ran the cord to my flat screen. I download all the movies an TV series I want and play them through the computer to the TV. Who needs cable?

  • El Orso

    20 weeks ago

    Favourite Channels

    Is this the thread where hipsters go to preach about how they don't own a TV and how terrible it is?

    I have a TV, and I have cable. I watch a lot of Turner Classic Movies and MeTV (which was profiled a few weeks ago in the Tyee). Just because there's nothing good on now doesn't mean there was something good 30 or 40 years ago that's new to you if you haven't seen it yet.

    Still cheaper than DVD/Blu-Ray sets or propietary downloads. I'm not paying for $35 for a season of anything, thank you. Of course, yuppie liberals and their precious little snowflakes just HAVE to be seen with their lastest and greatest iCrap so price is no object to them, no matter how much their personal debit is tanking the economy.

  • DavidG

    20 weeks ago

    Too expensive, with little of value

    I follow about 10 shows over the year (most are the 12-episode variety, so I am only watching three at any given time), and I have to say that I enjoy a good tv series better than most movies. You don't have to wrap it up in 2 hours.

    But we cancelled our cable about 4 years ago. In order to get the 2 or 3 channels, we had to get basic cable, then extended cable, and because we had a hi-def tv, we needed an HDTV package, which meant a special tuner from Shaw, and why not get the PVR at the same time?

    It was over $100 per month, plus $600 up front for the PVR.

    And with all that, I couldn't watch HBO, the network that delivered many of the shows I really wanted to watch.

    So now I just download the shows off the internet. For Canucks games, I will watch on the CBC website, or I'll pay $3 to watch an individual game.

    Most of the content creators aren't losing money, because there is no option to watch the shows in Canada anyway.

    This disruption in the media (television, books, movies, music, magazines, and news papers) is about content delivery, and there are two companies that are poised to take advantage of it - Apple and Amazon. Each has created a platform to deliver that content to consumers. Apple is winning in TV, movies and music. Amazon is winning in books, and in cloud-computing (though not for the consumer). Each is muscling in on the other's territory. It's going to be an interesting decade.

  • Abogado del Diablo

    20 weeks ago

    I like TV

    I'm a good upstanding citizen. I work my 40 hours plus overtime, pay my taxes and never question the underlying intentions of my government. I know their leadership is sounds because they seem to like hockey, soldiers and Tim Horton's just like me. And, when I get home, I just want to relax with some shows that reinforce traditional family values and hockey fight. TV also keeps me abreast of all the products I should spend my disposable income on, in order to ensure the well-being of my family. Without television, how would I know what I don't have? How would I know what to buy in order to ensure happiness in our suburban bungalow with nameless neighbors and manicured lawns? If I don't have TV to tell me what I want and think, how will I know what I want and think?

  • ceadog

    20 weeks ago

    Turn off TV world

    As a 20 year plus TV adict,I am totally frustrated and pis*ed at this so called satellite/station programming on TV to day.
    I have never seen such crap.
    There really is no differentiation between the Satellite provider and individual stations,as one cannot operate without the other.
    I am very close to turning off my TV and cancelling my satellite service altogether.
    Why should anyone pay to be insulted with substandard programming.
    Make no mistake some company will invent or provide an alternate source of TV entertainment to fill the gap to provide vast improvements in TV programming.
    Netflix,answers some of the needs,but more is needed to even begin to satiisfy the TV public out here.
    There is no real excuse for
    -continual re runs(some over 50 years old),
    -substandard programming
    -new program run for only a three month season at best and then reverts back to 85 % re runs again.
    Coupled with one show being shown 7 days per week,up to three times per day,is ridiculous.
    Advertising is the only continuous factor here.
    Coupled with new lousy movies,lousy actors,lousy scripts,and finally inevitable attempts at horror films.
    For all this in three Satellite catagories they charge $120.00/month plus.
    A licence to steal in my mind.
    Satelite/TV providers uses the escapable inevitable excuse that they just provide the satellite service,and have no control over the programming.
    Yet with all the Satellite complaints,you can bet on it that the satellite/TV companies keep the individual stations informed of consumer anger of continual reruns,bad,old,and lousy new cheap budget programming.
    People are not stupid and coupled with the financial poor economy,they will continuwe to cut back and in many cases cancel or look elsewhere for their entertainment.

  • Frank

    20 weeks ago

    El Orso

    Hipsters? The world is in the throes of a new depression, people are losing their homes all over America, inequality is growing, poverty is rampant.

    Yet, on tv we see nothing but cute smiley people joking with each other and showing us cute videos and telling us everything is great.

    Newspapers lost their audience by no longer reflecting people's lives and instead reflecting corporate pablum. Unless tv learns from why newspapers have lost readers they won't understand why they're losing viewers.

  • Langley

    20 weeks ago

    HBO and AMC

    These two networks are the only thing feeding my television addiction with some proper drama. It's a shame that one of them has commercials. What they're both resorting to - and I thought they were so high brow - is previewing the episode right before it starts and then previewing the next episode right after the show ends. Nothing, I mean, nothing irritates me more than this practice. I don't want to see a damn thing in preview format. I love the surprise and watching without foreknowledge. Please stop!

    As for regular network TV I watch reruns of Seinfeld and The Office, that's about it. Back when Intelligence was cancelled by the CBC I knew that was about it for truly smart and unique television programming. Republic of Doyle? Ugh...

  • Jeffrey J.

    20 weeks ago

    TV: The Road to Nowhere

    TV has been dying a long, slow, painful death for some decades now. It probably didn't need to be this way, but if you read Ben Bagdikian's New Media Monopoly (various editions), it becomes clear it was self-inflicted by the huge, incompetent oligarchies that are fixated on controlling what we watch.

    After reading a personal testimony in Adbusters Magazine in 2001, my wife asked that we cancel our cable. We did, and life has been remarkable ever since. We both returned to reading books within a few weeks. Have never stopped. And we found fantastic news sources like...the Tyee...

    And yes, we also rent DVDs, (like the Wire) and joined Zip.ca and Ironweed Films (you get an amazing documentary DVD each month (to keep!) for $10 a month).

    Most importantly, our psyches were spared having to witness the carnage and bloodbath of the US/Canadian invasion of Afghanistan and the US invasion of Iraq.

    My advice to anyone thinking of leaving cable TV: DO IT NOW. You won't be disappointed.

    Great article by a great journalist.

  • snert

    20 weeks ago

    Methinks

    that Shaw, Telus and Rogers are in for a rude awakening.

    I would cancel my TV package in a heartbeat if I could get all the PBS shows on-line. Show's like Nova are blocked unless you want to sign up for a subscription to a VPN tunnelling package that circumvents the area specific streaming.

    FWIW I view my last cable bill increase as having gone directly towards Jim Shaw's $25,500,000 payout. That shouldn't be allowed. If he wishes to get equity out of the company he should bloody well sell some of his shares.

    I don't know why but the word leech just keeps popping to mind.

  • Shannon Rupp

    20 weeks ago

    Radio chat on NW today

    Thanks to all of you for discussing all the creative ways you're finding to get the sort of programming you want.

    I'm going to be chatting about it at about 2:40 p.m. today with Mike Smith on CKNW's Simi Sara show.

    @Frank I'm with you about some of the best TV ever produced being aired currently, and I just blogged three of my faves over at my own site shannonrupp.com - I'd love it if you'd all tell me what you're watching. I think we need to be tipping each other to what is worthwhile.

    @bunny ears - I share your urge to fling shoes at TV "news" and I laughed. You gave me a term for the worst-of-the-worst on TV: it's a shoe-flinger.

  • Chris Keam

    20 weeks ago

    TV = Twain

    In that rumours of its demise continue to be greatly exaggerated. It's a medium born of technological disruption and one that has shown itself to be remarkably resilient at accommodating new delivery methods and changing viewing habits. The TV industry doesn't care where you watch or what device you use. It can adapt.

    The vertically integrated business model, where broadcasters not only control what shows they produce and air, but increasingly own the delivery system (cable, Internet, mobile) and in Canada, supply the executives who run its regulatory body (CRTC) is one that most industries would love to have. Further, broadcasting schools continue to pump out bright-eyed grads willing to work for peanuts, keeping labour costs low, and best of all, expanding middle classes in developing nations are buying tvs and mobile phones, providing a ready and willing audience for massive back catalogues of content that are pure profit waiting to happen. All this is reflected in the industry's revenues which remain quite healthy, with an overall increase of 9.2% from 2009 to 2010 in Canada (despite some downward trends in various segments)

    www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/111101/t111101a1-eng.htm

    More shows, more screens, more channels, more viewers. Don't stick a fork in TV yet, cuz it ain't done.

  • dave49

    20 weeks ago

    Have not had cable or watched TV for years

    Like many people, when children came into the picture, we had little time for broadcast TV and stopped our cable. Virtually all the families we know with young children did the same. Kids would see programming on VHS or DVD, borrowed from VPL or friends, or rented. We got a few local channels with a set of 'rabbit ears".

    I have never seen one episode of Survivor: the whole concept was unappealing. Reality TV took off because it was a cheap way to get bums in seats. I remember a few years ago seeing a series of news stories dealing with the annual Nielsen ratings for the big US TV networks. Viewership was dropping significantly and consistently year over year. While TV networks would not have admitted it, they were already starting a desperate fight for survival.

    The whole world of media, music and publishing will change radically in the next five years. Newspapers took the big hit first as free on-line classifieds eroded one of their traditional cash cows, classified ads. Now, few people want to pay for a physical copy of the paper and no one wants to pay for the Internet version.

    I suspect Canada Post and shipping companies will do well, or at least better than exopected, as most of the media retailing of the future will happen on the Internet.

  • wanderingraven

    20 weeks ago

    TV better across the pond IMO

    I live in Canada part of the year and the UK part of the year.

    I don't have the patience to watch TV in Canada, the commercials drive me crazy, and there is rarely much that interests me.

    In the UK however I find there is too much I'm interested in on some nights, it's hard to turn it off. Perhaps it's the lack of advertising on key channels.

  • mikev

    19 weeks ago

    tv != simple broadcast receiver

    I finally cancelled my cablevision subscription this past summer. I have Netflix (I think this tipped the scales), and I have a small pile of DVDs (and still some VHS tapes), less and less often I rent a DVD.

    I get DVDs mostly 2nd hand and sometimes out of bargain bins. I don't really feel that a switch from receiving broadcast signals to pressing and shipping individual DVDs to individual homes is a step forward. Although it's nice to have a bit of a bookshelf on display, physical media really is dying and for good reasons. I have a few dozen movies as video files on my computer. I sleep just fine after committing copyright infringement, but I really like to find truly free art:

    http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Films

    Anyway, the point is that I don't own a TV for receiving broadcast signals. I own a TV for the home theatre. Some channels come in over the air. My DVD and VHS players are attached (Blu-ray maybe some day but I kind of doubt it, maybe if I find one for peanuts 2nd hand, don't really feel all that motivated). My video game console is attached. I can hook up my camcorder to watch home movies. Most importantly my computer is attached. Cablevision was really just one of the options for things to see on TV, and as is becoming painfully obvious to more and more people very far from the most satisfying.

    I don't own a TV to "watch television", not even partially anymore. I own a TV to have a nice big screen to watch all kinds of video on. I think broadcast television could die a well deserved long slow painful death and video screen hardware sales would continue just fine, most homes would still want one.

  • anthonyshrubb

    19 weeks ago

    Tv airwaves to igorance and sloth stupidy and thoughtlessness

    Pseudo science showes,psuedo history showes,fake news and business showes where they all lie so much they don't know the truth and don't even blush when they do.It's very easy to leave them behind. CBC is scared shitless of the Harper Gov't i suppose with good reason.Satellite TV is just terrible poor service and indifferent service and poor reception a rain storm knocks out ours just a rain storm not one of those high wind horizonal directional rain storms that seem to becoming normal around here SW Ontario.

  • Werthit

    19 weeks ago

    Herding Viewers Through the Gates

    The slow, incremental demise of quality broadcast TV has meant many viewers have turned to the 'net. In my opinion, this is what is supposed to happen. Going online means more data mining with much of our browsing and viewing statistics being surveyed, logged and sold to third parties. That's where the big money is.

    In our house, we still have an older TV and we see no reason to upgrade to a newer one yet - especially one of those new 'smart' ones that can target ads to us via geolocation. When we want to watch more movies and TV shows, we get them from the public library.

    With the economy the way it is right now, consumers will hold on to their gadgets longer. That could be a reason why businesses aren't selling as many TVs. Viewers still get most of their information, though, from local broadcast TV.

  • iRMacMan

    19 weeks ago

    The Nothingness On TV

    Back in the 1980's Bruce Springsteen released a song called "57 Channels And Nothin' On". If he'd released it today he'd have to name it something like "Hundreds Of Channels And Nothin' On". However, that wouldn't scan nearly so well...

    All networks are guilty, though I think Rupert Murdoch's FOX has to be the pack leader. I'd suggest we commemorate Rupert's handiwork by giving this media degeneration a name: Why don't we call it the FOXIFICATION of television?