> It seems common in the US to have TVs in several rooms and have them run in the background for long stretched of day. This is far less common in the cultures

> It seems common in the US to have TVs in several rooms and have them run in the background for long stretched of day. This is far less common in the cultures I've lived in where sitting down to watch TV alone or together is more of an occasion and modal. From yesterday on Marketplace: Why streaming networks love a good background show https://www.marketplace.org/2023/04/11/why-streaming-networks-love-a-good-background-show/ https://www.marketplace.org/2023/04/11/why-streaming-network... > Tomorrow Warner Bros. Discovery is supposed to reveal it’s new but not really new streaming service. What once was called HBO Max will now just be called Max, according to The New York Times. > Beyond the name change, it could include more light reality TV shows like “Dr. Pimple Popper” and “House Hunters International” —you know, the shows you might put on in the background while you’re doing chores, paying bills or working. > There’s a term for shows like that: ambient streaming. And from a few years ago: “Emily in Paris” and the Rise of Ambient TV- https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/emily-in-paris-and-the-rise-of-ambient-tv https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/emily-in-... > In this and other recent programming, Netflix is pioneering a genre that I’ve come to think of as ambient television. It’s “as ignorable as it is interesting,” as the musician Brian Eno wrote, when he coined the term “ambient music” in the liner notes to his 1978 album “Ambient 1: Music for Airports,” a wash of slow melodic synth compositions. Ambient denotes something that you don’t have to pay attention to in order to enjoy but which is still seductive enough to be compelling if you choose to do so momentarily. Like gentle New Age soundscapes, “Emily in Paris” is soothing, slow, and relatively monotonous, the dramatic moments too predetermined to really be dramatic.