Associated Press – May 9, 2007:
Maybe they’re outside in the garden. They could be playing softball. Or perhaps they’re just plain bored.
In TV’s worst spring in recent memory, an alarming number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.
Everyone has a theory to explain the plummeting ratings: early daylight-saving time, more reruns, bad shows, more shows being recorded or downloaded or streamed.
Scariest of all for the networks, however, is the idea that many people are now making their own television schedules. The industry isn’t fully equipped to keep track of them, and the networks are scrambling to hold on to the nearly $8.8 billion they collected during last spring’s ad-buying season.
“This may be the spring where we see a radical shift in the way the culture thinks of watching TV,” said Sarah Bunting, co-founder of the Web site Television Without Pity.
Television Without Pity
I tried getting from the cable company, which I rent the Digital Service from, to have nothing but specialty channels.
IOW, pay the same monthly 40$ for what I choose – but in that price there’s a 20$ for the “basic” channels, like Fox, NBC, . . . that I never watch.
However the specialty channels are fun, for 1$ per month, get twenty different themes for different moods.
I certainly hope it changes. I don’t watch a lot of TV because the vast majority of the sitcoms/dramas/reality shows seem to try so damn hard at adding twists and turns to the story to keep you interested that they lose sight of the concept of telling a good story.
Sitcoms feel like they’re all the same 30 minute sex joke, “i hate my job” story or the always popular “somebody misunderstood something and held a grudge” story. In a crime drama, I really don’t care that the protagonist’s partner is struggling with alcoholism or that so-and-so is sleeping with somebody in the DA’s office. And reality shows — just, just stop please.
I’ve been noticing my daughters’ , age 12 and 17, tv watching habits for awhile now. As they became more computer literate and discovered interactive things to do on the computers such as WebKins, chat-rooms, IM, email, etc… the tv was watched less and less. Currently, its seems, if it ain’t interactive it ain’t shit. The tv may be on in the background but what they are engaged in is the computer application de jour. The quest of the tv program producers for this interaction has been to involve the audience by such programs as American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Biggest Loser and the like. Unfortunately most of these programs are starting to alienate the viewers by not being ‘fair’ or controlled or have at least the impression of fairness or control. Either way it is up to the producers of programs to find a more satisfying engagement with it’s viewer that is up to the viewers heightened intelligence. .
How many stupid sitcoms or reality TV shows can you take. I maybe watch 2 shows on network TV, the rest are on cable channels such as, Discovery, TLC, ect.
I am tempted to get rid of the TV part of my cable service and just use Internet part to bittorrent my favorite shows. It would save me about $45 a month. I already bittorrent my favorite shows after the fact for repeat viewing.
You mean there are other channels than the Comedy Channel? Well on the border I also get to watch Canadian TV, CBC is cool.
I watched a few shows once on the Discovery Channel, but then, at the most interesting part of the show where some foreign guy was talking and English translation was being shown on the bottom of the screen, some idiot programmer at the Discovery Channel decided to cover that part up with a message that I should look at something online. So I did and and haven’t found good reason to look on their TV channel since.
There was a long period of time in my life, when all I could recieve was over the air TV programming from Puerto Rico. If there is a hell, that would be it.
1. TV shows aren’t any good 2. People would rather watch on their schedule and do so via online, dvds, etc. 3. There’s better things to do
#4 – Not only that… But these updated versions of Star Search don’t actually feature real talent. Just market-safe dreck that appeals to the lowest common denominator.
The keyword is “lowest”.
It’s been a while since The West Wing was on, so I don’t watch TV for entertainment.
I have stopped watching several shows (Prison Break, Jericho, etc) because of the one and three month breaks in new programs, the endless recap shows, etc.
If they would just put on good shows and run the 22-25 episodes, life would be good.
Bring Fear factor back! I want to see more people eat boiled animal penises or suck milk right out of a goat’s titties!
Bring Fear factor back! I want to see more people eat boiled animal penises or suck milk right out of a goat’s titties!
Comment by Angel H. Wong
Sponsored by SONY?
J/P=?
My beefs:
* few episodes and long delays. You can watch 6 or so new episodes of Monk in January and then you’re told to get excited about the rest of the season (or new season) starting in 6+ months.
* Reality TV – I just don’t care.
* Reruns – I’ve stopped watching them. It’s a waste of my time.
* Commercials – I’m not anti-commercial. It becomes a cost-benefit deal. If I’m watching 20min of commercials in an hour-long program it’s just too much time wasted to me. DVRs will get you past that but still, the content is lacking.
* Same old story. These shows fall into ruts. The only crime Monk can solve is murder. Everyone is dropping around him, it seems. (I’m picking on Monk here but you could apply the logic to most shows). Stupid sitcoms with their endless zingers (what set Andy Griffith apart, for contrast, was that the characters were funny – they weren’t just rattling off zingers all the time). I think quality writing is dead (both TV and Movies).
Anyway, I recently dumped my cable box because I kept thinking, “I’m paying ~$100/month (subscription, fees for boxes, DVRs, HD content, taxes, etc.) and I’m watching about 2 shows a week. That’s pretty expensive per episode.
It’s so dumb because I’m not anti-TV (there are some that think TV is beneath them) and I’m not anti-cable (there are others who think all cable companies everywhere are evil) – I’m just not seeing anything interesting or that I haven’t seen countless times before (different actors – same story).
tv sucks
TV sucks!
I actually read a book last week…
Guess what no freaking commercials at all!!!!
I may do it again this week with a different book!!!!!
wow!
Oh,… I almost forgot…
The very few shows I do watch are on the Apple iTunes store for 1.99
and I buy them, and watch them on my Apple TV…
ha ha ha ha ha ha!
I agree with Brad Bishop’s take on this, but my wife and I discovered these things back in 2002 when we got rid of cable TV forever. Two of my neighbors recently got rid of cable TV. I hope its a trend that continues to grow. People are just not happy with the content and/or they just blindly pay $100/mo for the convenience of having entertainment available 24 hours/day even though they don’t have time to watch it.
We were watching a TLC program at a hotel visit recently. After viewing 15 minutes of commercials in a 30 minute program I turned to my wife and she smiled. We are both glad we haven’t missed anything over these past 5 years and we gained $6000 we would have paid for cable.
I watch Lost, Jericho, The Unit, and (don’t tell the guys) Desperate Housewives. Also (until it disappeared) Studio 60. I watch all of them online at my time choice and I am more than happy to sit through the few commercials in exchange for the free programming and convenience of being able to watch it online.
Nothing on NBC.com interests me now.
It seems that the networks got intoxicated with the low-cost reality TV craze and largely abandoned good writing, plot lines, and cinematography. Hell the guy who created Lost got fired because it was so expensive. Then it became a huge hit show and is really a gem for ABC.
These things run in cycles. It’s all about the quality of content. And it is a gamble for the networks to figure out what we will watch. There are good years and bad years. Just like Saturday Night Live. People say “the concept is old-school and dead” when they slump. But then a better crop of actors and writers comes in and they are back.
As far as the delays or split-seasons, I deal with it. Hell, it’s free so what right do I have to complain about their timetable.
I’m not much of a T.V. watcher. It was doled out to me as a kid, in small doses, so I just never got the habit I guess. But, there are shows on now and then that pique my interest, mostly on the specialty channels.
What a lot of my friends say bugs them about t.v. now is the 3 or 4 episode thing, then a month or 2 break before getting anouther few episodes. They tell me that it just disrupts the flow of a decent show so much that many times they don’t bother going back to the show when it finally decides to favor them with new episodes.
I discovered this myself this season when I discovered Jericho. A friend told me about it, because everyone knows I love sci/fi or horror and this would be right up my alley. I watched it, it’s ok….not as good as I had hoped, but not as bad as I feared…..lol…..but the episode thing is making me crazy….just as I get comfy watching it, it’s gone again….then when it picks back up, it takes 5 minutes of quick recaps to remind you where they are in the story…..if I ever get something else to do from 8 to 9 p.m. on weds. nights, they will lose me….lol
As to why we aren’t watching – we’re online – anything you want to watch is available online anyway – the TV channels are even getting in the game and putting stuff online (with annoying country restrictions – I gotta get a proxy extension for Firefox). I don’t have to watch on the network’s schedule, and I’m already paying for high-speed anyway.
Let’s face it, the people who run the networks aren’t interested in making television interesting at all; they just cater to the lowest common denominator and hope for the best so that they have some figures to sell to thier advertisers. The mere concept of taking a risk to produce a show scares these guys because god forbid it might cut into thier profits just a bit.
SO, they make these hour long shows with thirty minutes of actual content and fill up on the most painfully inane advertising that some is willing to pony up millions of dollars for. They spend as little as possible on a show (reality TV and the occasional game show pretty much cover this) and fill the rest up with tits and explosions in the hopes that they’ll draw in a Nielsen family viewer for just a few seconds.
Nobody even tries to run anything remotely entertaining for anybody with a working brainstem – and they certainly don’t want the viewers informed by any substantial look at the news.
Four hundred channels, and nothing is on. Nothing will ever be on.