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The weak economy is hitting Americans where they spend a lot of their free time: at the TV set. While the economy might be the trigger that drives people over

by Udo 15y ago

The weak economy is hitting Americans where they spend a lot of their free time: at the TV set. While the economy might be the trigger that drives people over the edge to unsubscribe, I actually believe that a large number of them was disenfranchised with TV programming before that. When it comes to entertainment, we have exactly three categories: reality TV, sports events, and series that are designed to be huge blockbusters. Personally, my biggest beef with this is the series part (I don't watch reality TV or sports at all), because we're only ever seeing the most dumbed-down shit that is designed from the ground up for marketability. Only rarely does that procedure produce a great show, and when it does, it's by pure accident. As a result, we get fiction programming where Warehouse 13 is considered "edgy sci-fi TV", when it fact it is neither edgy nor scifi at all.

mw63214 15y ago
I know this is very subjective, but in my opinion, the best sci-fi shows are those that manage to blur the lines between fiction and reality (fringe, alphas, not-so-much-but-sort-of warehouse 13).
onemoreact 15y ago
I could not agree more. I have a FIOS and a huge HDTV, in the living room and I end up watching one TV show reguarlly and a few movies. The last time I spent a significant amount of time in front of the TV was the Olympics whose coverage was so bad I ended up fast forwarding though most of it. The only advantage of cable is they live HDTV programming is less compressed than most streaming options. Yet, for some reason even their Video on Demand option is more compressed than live tv even though they have a full fiber network. As to programming, I used to watch a fair amount of edutainment like NOVA but even that has been dumbed down to meaningless drivel. I can still get into a good nature show in HDTV, but mostly they are just Steve Erwin style psudo reality TV designed to maximize the number of teeth shown per minute. PS: If you have not seen it "How It’s Made" is still fairly interesting.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  As for the Olympics, on my basic cable television service (held due to Comcast pricing issues), the one stream of broadcasting that was not utter crap was one of the secondaries that was on... CNBC or something like that. They showed particularly women's curling in pretty much complete broadcasts, except for commercials. I'm neither a sports fan nor a curling aficionado (or, I wasn't), but I quite enjoyed watching those games and following the Canadian women's team on their way to victory. People are bailing on cable television (and new television in general) because the programming is utter crap. And then the companies sit on the good, if older, stuff and move it ever further up in the premium levels. I'd actually watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation", but it's been moved to price levels I won't pay for. The channel perennially re-running "West Wing" was recently bumped from my service (despite Comcast's supposed agreement to hold the status quo until 2013). Now, "The Next Generation" is on Netflix. So, screw you, cable TV. (Just wish I had a better choice for my Internet connectivity.)
latj 15y ago
Agreed. This is a silly story "bla bla kids living at home". People are just deciding that cable isnt worth the cost anymore.

by Udo 15y ago

mw63214 15y ago

I know this is very subjective, but in my opinion, the best sci-fi shows are those that manage to blur the lines between fiction and reality (fringe, alphas, not-so-much-but-sort-of warehouse 13).

onemoreact 15y ago

I could not agree more. I have a FIOS and a huge HDTV, in the living room and I end up watching one TV show reguarlly and a few movies. The last time I spent a significant amount of time in front of the TV was the Olympics whose coverage was so bad I ended up fast forwarding though most of it. The only advantage of cable is they live HDTV programming is less compressed than most streaming options. Yet, for some reason even their Video on Demand option is more compressed than live tv even though they have a full fiber network. As to programming, I used to watch a fair amount of edutainment like NOVA but even that has been dumbed down to meaningless drivel. I can still get into a good nature show in HDTV, but mostly they are just Steve Erwin style psudo reality TV designed to maximize the number of teeth shown per minute. PS: If you have not seen it "How It’s Made" is still fairly interesting.

pasbesoin 15y ago
As for the Olympics, on my basic cable television service (held due to Comcast pricing issues), the one stream of broadcasting that was not utter crap was one of the secondaries that was on... CNBC or something like that. They showed particularly women's curling in pretty much complete broadcasts, except for commercials. I'm neither a sports fan nor a curling aficionado (or, I wasn't), but I quite enjoyed watching those games and following the Canadian women's team on their way to victory. People are bailing on cable television (and new television in general) because the programming is utter crap. And then the companies sit on the good, if older, stuff and move it ever further up in the premium levels. I'd actually watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation", but it's been moved to price levels I won't pay for. The channel perennially re-running "West Wing" was recently bumped from my service (despite Comcast's supposed agreement to hold the status quo until 2013). Now, "The Next Generation" is on Netflix. So, screw you, cable TV. (Just wish I had a better choice for my Internet connectivity.)

latj 15y ago

Agreed. This is a silly story "bla bla kids living at home". People are just deciding that cable isnt worth the cost anymore.