I love TNC and his blog, and I particularly love it when he says he junked his tv but blogs endlessly about Mad Men and NFL and even a little about Houswives. You junked your tv but you still watch tv so how does it really matter that the old tv is gone? funny is as funny does.
1.) I don't own a television because I'm prone to watching things that, ultimately, make me feel bad about myself and the country I live. Again, this is particular to me. Watching television over the net allows me to watch only what I'm really willing to pay for. It puts me in a much better mood. That's how it works. The point was never to "stop watching TV," or even "watch less TV." It was too watch TV that really wanted to see, that I couldn't live without. The point was to stop consuming things that made me want to kill myself.
2.) I don't know who knows this and who doesn't, but you can actually get a fair amount of TV--including Mad Men--over the internet. If you're latte-sipping, wine-track, arugla-chomping, fornicating, Manhattan-living elitist like me, you can actually get the NFL too.
3.) I think people see "I don't have a television" and they expect the next few sentences to be a speech about the idiot box, and the requisite evils of broadcasting.
Here's the thing--and this goes for most of what I write. I can only blog about myself, it's the only thing I really know in any detail. Owning a television didn't work for my family. I would never suggest that it's not working for your family. I make no brief against television, nor am I particularly interested in one.
4.) Again, one reason I'm unlikely to lead a brigade against television is because some of my happiest hours are spent prancing around as a red-headed elf. When you're a WoW-geek, it becomes difficult to argue for stigmatization, say, Dollhouse-geeks. I'm not here to balance anyone else's check-book. I can barely balance my own
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I've wondered about this myself, especially how you managed to watch all the NFL without a TV. I recently moved my home office into the garage where I have no TV, which I am used to having on in the background sometimes when I work. So, I had to use my computer as a TV instead. I downloaded the first four seasons of The Wire, and the first few of Dexter, and became an instant convert to "paid television." It's so much better than having to go by what's on cable! Just wish there was more to choose from out there. And, I wish I could watch on my computer whatever is on cable at this moment by pressing a few buttons. I'm sure we'll be there soon.
God I loved Season 2 of The Wire. Best TV I ever watched, that season.
Really, Season 2? I think that's the worst or 2nd worst (to the 5th) season (of the best TV show of all time, so relatively). I much prefer the 4th, would consider it the best season of any TV show ever.
All I can say is that when I finally watched it, I couldn't believe that I had never watched it before. Best television ever, regardless of season.
One of the other advantages of downloading was that I didn't have to wait a week to see what happened next. Watching so many seasons at once made everything so fresh, and more of a whole. I think that's one of the most appealing points of "on demand" or whatever it's called.
Yeah, Season 4. It was heart wrenching sometimes but in a completely enthralling, this is so good, kind of way.
Agree. Season 2 is my fave.
It's sad to see Frank Sobotka mired in the aimless stupidity that is Season 2 of "True Blood." That show had some promise but it's become unbelievably bad.
We have one more layer, in that the two elderly home computers are crummy for watching online and so we wait to watch on my husband's spiffy work laptop. I hope to remedy that this Xmas, and the desire to watch video--whether checking out FlashForward or Single Ladies or a funny Colbert clip--is the only reason for me. (Significant other has various technical reasons.)
I think tv has improved a lot since I gave up a set in the early 90s, but watching on demand via netflix or hulu makes all the difference to me--I'm opposed to having appointment television, and it really wouldn't work with our lives. When we travel it's dismaying how readily my family can fall into watching the lamest imaginable sitcom. And I really notice the huge time glut of commercials; at home you can power through a disc of Lost episodes in 3 hours, and a quick show to unwind after cleaning and before bed is only 22 or 42 minutes, much better than the 2 hour movie option.
I just had this conversation with my parents. I don't have a TV, because I've refused to pay for cable for many years, and when the digital turnover happened, my old TV turned into a doorstop. But I am able to watch most of what I really want to via Hulu & Netflix on my laptop. I have to wait until I visit the 'rents to do any channel surfing, but that usually just makes me realize that I'm not missing out on anything. It isn't self-righteousness, and I don't think that TV is evil (as a matter of fact, I think that in recent years, commercial television has been going through a renaissance); it's just more convenient and less expensive this way. But they still think I'm crazy.
My husband and I are internet only television consumers too. We puzzle over the fact that often when you watch TV online you have to watch the same commercial 7 times. We were just talking about it on Saturday night when we got around to watching the most recent episode of The Office and had to see the same American Express commercial repeatedly. I have to think that these ad spots have to be some of the most desirable and expensive ones out there, even if they are cheaper than cable or network ads. Why would a large company - with a seemingly sophisticated marketing and ad force at its disposal - decide to do that rather than produce a few more commercials? I really don't get it. Anyone have any thoughts?
It seems to me I'm much more likely to watch an ad that only lasts 30 seconds before returning me to the show--given 3 minutes of ads I'm off to do something else for most of them. So I agree it's weird. A few companies--Sprint with some cute takes on doing things faster, Enovo(sp/) with some funny computer ads--have embraced "one product, different takes" but mostly it seems to lag. (And of course I fear they will eventually make online tv 1/3 advertising, so I'll need to start buying programs.)
I find this annoying but any Bravo watcher will tell you they are almost as bad as Hulu for playing the same damn ads over and over especially Bluefly and Glad. They`ve been playing the same commercial with Erica making mac and cheese for what feels like years.
Hulu commercials don't play on one of my machines, fluke of the software configs and all.
They are constantly apologizing to me for it ("Hulu is sorry you can't see this commercial, we're doing our best to fix it blah blah") - but I ain't complaining! :)
Haven't had any luck getting my laptop to work that way yet hehe.
I admire the conjunction of "fornicating" with "arugula-chomping."
When you find yourself involved in adultery and radicchio, then you're outside the mainstream.
I guess that begs the question: Which shows made you want to kill yourself?
Sounds like a good survey.
My answers:
*Almost any sitcom: I'm sure you have a favorite one. Sometimes I do too. But most of them... horrible (for me).
*Almost any news: "News".
*Almost any commercial: Can I just pay more money for no commercials? Hello netflix/season dvds/internet tv!
We got to see regular tv on vacation. To your 3 points:
a) Sit coms seem to beg for horrible writing. My husband was watching one with awful dating jokes with the 7 year old until I insisted they find something, something else. (He sticks with the no tv position because the ease with which he'll watch anything when we travel is off-putting to him.)
b) The vacation was in early July, a week or so after Michael Jackson died, and I swear this was the only story on CNN the entire time. "Michael Jackson: still dead."
c) Season dvds are first choice, followed by online with the 30 second breaks. It's just the sheer amount of time, 1/3 of the entire show--a few times we've watched a familiar movie and grinding to a stop every 5-8 minutes for 3-4 minutes of commercials is so offputting.
Almost the only sitcom we watch any more is iCarly. Because it's actually funny.
Small Wonder
Perfect Strangers
The Golden Girls
Whose Line is it Anyway
and the shows that make me want to destroy the world: "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and "Cribs"
Rock of Love
America's Funniest Home Videos
Two and a Half Men
Deal or No Deal
The New Adventures of Old Christine. I saw a couple of episodes when I was on an overnight flight last year and the forced stupidity of the main character made me want to punch something. I think there was a "joke" about how she didn't know the name of any artist. It's just embarrassing.
I'd really love to get rid of my TV, but my roommate doesn't want to. I wind up watching way too much ESPN for my own good.
Other than that, the only things I watch on TV are sporting events (again, I probably watch more than I should, especially because I'm one of those ridiculous people who will watch any baseball game that's on), and Colbert.
Both of those things can be viewed online. I should start doing so.
What do you guys think of the Levi's Go Forth commercial? I hate commercials, but this one really floored me. It begins with a half-submerged neon sign that says "AMERICA" against a stormy backdrop, with a young girl looking on anxiously. It ends though, with fireworks, a loud gunshot, and kids running with a banner that says "GO FORTH." The recording of Walt Whitman is spooky - like a ghost from the past reminding us in this recessionary era what we are really about (or at least aspire to be). Pretty cool
Yeah, they're spooky. They make me kind of nervous.
I have exactly the same attitude about tv, and the same reasons for not owning one. But, given your recent post about food, I feel like you might also benefit from my meat-reducing trick. Basically, I love meat, and I also kind of think that if I'm honest about my values and the state of the environment/food industry/animal welfare, I should probably be a vegetarian. So, my (admittedly somewhat crazy) rule is that I never eat meat by myself. As I live alone, this means that I need to find a meat eater who wants to eat with me in order for me to eat meat. The point of the rule is basically just to make me only eat meat on purpose, and not use it as filler for a meal. It has worked wonderfully. When I'm in the mood for a burger, I have to find someone to share a meal with, which is nice in itself. Obviously, as you live with a partner and kid, this rule wouldn't work for you. But, I bet you could find one that does, and end up enjoying delicious meat-y meals in the same way you currently enjoy the best that tv has to offer without accidentally letting it break your spirit.
I like the Chinese and Italian peasant cooking approach to meat--
One chicken had to feed a lot of people, so it is used as a condiment or ingredient, rather than a main focus of a meal. This way, you can afford to buy more sustainable, free-range, healthier meats, use them more wisely, and still have a bit left in your wallet for the rent. You can make a lot of the classic one-dish meals from red beans and rice to pasta carbonara to stir-fry and stay true to this principle.
TNC- I only ragged on you about not owning a tv because you so clearly do watch and revel in and love a few things but seemed to be claiming a virtue that you'd thrown it out or not replaced it.
Since we got two imacs we stream things through netflix and hulu a lot more than we watch our tv or dvds (and those we watch on imacs) but its all still tv to me.
I still look at the tv listings in the paper to see what I'm not watching on our old tv but we still watch glee, house, grey's anatomy and friday night lights and now flash forward (the three of us agree on these ones) but even those we see on hulu half the time. We just pay the 13 dollars for the basic cable. I don't know if we had it on all summer. My daughter and I discovered 30 rock and Gilmore girls and I discovered Weeds and the Tudors.
I don't know how anyone watches sports and stays married. the price was too large for me back when I watched basketball. Now I settle for the olympics every couple years.
So I guess you are a little bit right: tv is a little bit dead and long live a little bit of tv.
Oh it's fine. People ask all the time. Again, they think I'm making a stand. I just want to be clear that I'm not. As for sports, my whole fam are fans.
I don't know how anyone watches sports and stays married. the price was too large for me back when I watched basketball.
I think this is another reason why football is so popular. If you follow one team in the NFL, you just need to watch a single game a week. You can make a day of it and blow all of Sunday and Monday night, but it's not like baseball or basketball where you can watch nearly every night.
I don't care about anything you wrote in this post except the part about the NFL via the net! DirecTV needs to extend that feature to the rest of America! PERIOD!
I know it might be a little "illegal" or something, but I got rid of cable 6 months ago, and still watch all live sports over the net for free(in fact, I'm watching Fins-Jets right now veetle.com.) Anyway, between veetle, justin.tv, and myp2p.eu (you need to download a few programs for this one, but it's worth it) for sports, and then hulu, megavideo, and torrents for show seasons and movies, I feel like I'm getting more value/programming now (for free {internet fees}) then I was when I was paying for cable. It just kind of sucks to have the flat screen with HD showing not-HD programming; I'm going to hook up the antenna soon though, then I'll get all the networks in HD.
Yes, I think it is illegal, but I have been doing the same thing. Got rid of cable a year ago and couldn't be happier about that decision. Almost anything on the tube can be downloaded via torrent. As for live sports, atdhe.net works well; it acts like an aggregator of streaming sites like justin.tv and ustream.tv. IMO Veetle offers the highest quality video but you're entirely dependent on the volunteers who broadcast the live shows you want to watch. (I guess that is true for justin.tv as well.)
LOL!!! Talk about splitting hairs. You've simply replaced one telecommunications medium with another: the PC. Still, I do think though that you and the other folks who've chosen to watch programming via the Internet instead of a television are actually illustrative of what the future holds in terms of how we will select and watch our programming, using the Internet to purchase only what we want to watch vs the current cable/satellite paradigm where one is forced to purchase packages that include programming that we don't necessarily want. You guys are early adopters of what I believe will be the new paradigm of the future, as a number of folks use the Internet in the exact same manner.
Uhh, yeah. That was the point.
We're illustrative, but we also eliminated channel surfing. This may be a bigger thing for people with kids, but not having them sit there flipping while saying "I'm bored, there's nothing on" is a big plus. If you're watching only the 5 shows/week you're really interested in rather than 4 hours/night of whatever's on, that makes a difference--it's turning tv from the lowest energy default to something you do occasionally and deliberately. Like someone upthread described his new approach to meat eating.
I'm with you, TNC. I haven't watched network/cable in 3 years. As said here, anything you want to see, you can see on the 'puter. What I did do, though, is sign up for Netflix. They stream a ton of movies/tv shows and it's $10/month. I just hook my laptop up to the flat screen. So much better.
What's interesting is that when I started watching Hulu, I had been so conditioned to 10 minute commercial breaks that I was actually annoyed that they were so short.
P.S. I'm gonna be hating when Time Warner starts charging for streaming...and they WILL do it. Too much money to be made not to.
Same deal here. Netflix DVDs/watch instantly, Hulu, and network sites.
I'm waiting for the ooma number port to complete, and then I am also cutting the cable. For me it was basic economics. We have a 2.5 year old, so pretty much the only thing we watch is the Wonder Pets (sigh). For what we are paying in cable per month, I could buy every Wonder Pets DVD in two months. Add to that the fact that Netflix streams entire seasons of some of the shows I like to watch (Lost, Dexter, Leverage) and it really becomes stupid. $150/month for cable, phone & 10MB internet, or $80/month for a 20MB down/2MB up internet only.
The elf part was a little TMI, don'tcha think? : D
Only if you've never been an elf. There are more of us then you think.
I've got a TV, but it isn't hooked up to anything (cable, antenna) that would let it get reception. It's a DVD playing maching with a decent-sized screen. I really like season disks from Netflix, and I'm particularly fond of watching them at weird hours when nothing good is on otherwise. Who has time to watch shows in prime time?
Same principle, I guess, but those of us who remember vinyl records and actual needles kind of like to handle the media we use. I haven't worked up to downloading yet.
The time issue is my number one reason for moving to the internet. My life is too busy to be at home during primetime. I have things to do and places to be.
This is not just to Pirate, but a Tivo does everything mentioned above and also prevents time dependent viewing.
After having a DVR for a couple of months you no longer channel surf. You just watch your shows when you want, or if your anxious about a really good show you wait 20 mins and skip all the commercials. After I bought a Tivo the quantity of my TV viewing went way down, but the quality of what I watched went up.
Its interesting how two different technologies lead to almost the exact same life style change.
I gave up television for Lent in the spring of 2001, a temporary, six-week thing. Liked it so much, I disconnected the cable and never looked back. Living alone, I turned on the TV for the noise, felt obligated or compelled to watch, then felt bad things I could have done instead. I have a TV / DVD set-up for movies. Only in the last couple of months begun watching selected shows online. When I watch TV while traveling, it does not make me question my decision.
Three things about not watching TV:
1) I can't engage in conversations with people about television shows. I'm surprised how often someone wants to talk about a television show! I usually say "No, I didn't see it. Tell me about it" which sounds awful but leads to a conversation not about a television show.
2) I am less susceptible to advertising. Without voices telling me to buy this, ask my doctor whether something is right for me, or wouldn't you just love this fast food right now, I have better control over what I buy. This has extended to internet and print ads. I'm sure they hate me.
3) I miss some really good stuff, well-written dramas, documentaries, news stories. Internet TV was much, much less available eight years ago. Things I want to see I can usually find online.
In the last year, I'm aware that I've traded two mediums for online -- print news and television. I feel better informed, better entertained, and in better control of my own time.
On (1) that used to be a bigger thing--it really was like talking about the neighbors. With delayed viewing there's now the whole "when can we talk about a television show that aired 3 days ago?" issue that we keep seeing with MadMen or BSG.
I don't have a tv either, and get this every time I mention a show. Sigh.
This thread has convinced me to get off my arse and finally connect that antenna & cancel cable TV. might get a TiVo too if i can afford.
This is why I won't get cable. There's things I would like to watch on cable. I get them on-line or on Netflix a few months later. If I had cable, I would watch way, way, way too much TV because there would always be something on. For me, not having cable is like not buying a bag of chips at the store. It's not that I'm too good for it. It's that I'm too weak to have it in my house.
I'm not trolling here (really!) but I seldom see anyone remark on just how bad the acting on TV is. Everyone goes on about The Wire etc.... and I have seen parts of these programs as my wife watches the dvds etc... Everything is so over the top and goofy. i topped watching TV a long time ago because (gasp) I actually always prefer to read, walk the dog, run, visit friends etc.... OK, so you do that too, ok I got that but I clearly have a lot more time on my hands and, like "jpeckjr"
I feel less influenced by all the bs (advertising, talking heads etc...) than most people(not smarter necessarily, just less influenced). It does make people think you are out of touch when you can't talk about this tv show or that talk show/news item, but then again I often come away with a deeper perspective on a given subject because I read about it in a book than listening to a blowhard give a 45 second soundbite. TV is too expensive a medium to take seriously anything you hear. They just don't have the time or interest to do the job justice. All the reason I need to dump TV.