Cable TV: Do people actually watch this stuff?

[toggleswitch2]

I learned decades ago from my third-grade teacher that television in this country is written on the 8th grade level so the masses can abosorb it.

Probably takes into accout the milions who don't speak English well.

 

[panthera]

The day DVDs became cheap to rent

Was the day I decided to cancel my cable subscription.

If there really is something interesting to watch, I can either YouTube it, rent it or buy it through Amazon...

But glad this topic came up. Need to find the remote control for the TV, haven't used it in over a year...

And, yes, American cable TV is much better than European cable TV. Now that you get BBC in the US and DLF, together with PBS, there's no reason to even bother with the other 400+ channels of junk.

 

[maytagbear]

I stopped watching television

on a regular basis in 2001, and don't miss it much.

There are some current shows I like, but I can wait until they are out on dvd. "Dexter", "Weeds", and "House", to be precise.

I have read that the technology that will enable ala carte cable is a few years away. When that happens, I might consider it.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[ptcruiser51]

Cablevision can suck wind

as far as I'm concerned! They've been deleting channels from our line-up regularly (no decrease in monthly $54 bill) stating that they now need a converter box $12 a month and an I/O channel selector for $5 a month. Per set. In the summer I only need the TV for the news and Mets games, so come August when "Mad Men" returns I'm going to Verizon FiOS. 200 channels for $57 a month and $5.99 for 2nd set converter. No sense calling now because they'll be busy providing hook-ups for the imbeciles who ignored the 5,000,000,000 PSA's concerning the demise of analog broadcasting.

 

[jeffg]

Here in the Bay Area, Comcast is unbelievably greedy. They want you to pay $75/mo. for channels that were included in our former provider's (Charter Cable) basic $55/mo. service, such as the Game Show Network, IFC and about two dozen others.

We also told them to go suck wind. Other than baseball and an occasional travel program (Globe Trekker), the power switch on our remote stays firmly in the OFF position.

 

[whirlcool]

I watch programs like 60 minutes, 20/20, and I used to watch Primetime Live until it turned into a "lets catch the pedophiles" and tabloid style of reporting.
I also watch Motorweek, Top Gear (as long as it doesn't get too silly), This Old House, Bewitched (never liked I Dream Of Genie, too much of a Bewitched knock off), How Things Work, Modern Marvels, sometimes The View (I really like Whoppi) and documentaries.
But what I don't like is when they take an ancient show and give it a new title and rerun it as a "new" show. Documentaries are famous for this. Also you can find that you may have a few channels showing the same thing at the same time.
And of course the BIG complaint I have is that all the channels have synchronized their commercials to play at the same time. I have found that muting the TV when a commercial comes on helps a great deal.
Has anyone noticed lately that the sound on some shows is really soft, you have to really turn up the volume and then when a commercial comes on the sound is back to normal and you get blasted out of your chair? Thats very aggravating to us!

And when are companies going to learn that overwhelming us with commercial after commercial is NOT going to get people to buy your product in this economy. If anything you are going to alienate your potential customers.

 

[jeffg]

Allen, we had the same audio problem with Comcast. If you're using a cable converter box, check its setup menu for an audio "normalization" option. It should smooth out the volume differences between channels.

 

[moonvalleycacti]

I am in this dilemma now.. I just moved to vegas.. I got embarq insted of cox rip off internet and phone... Now what to do about tv.. I watch: HGTV, A&E, ABC, Lifetime and a couple other things... I am going to call cox because im not allowed a satalite dish..If i cant get simple tv for like $30 a month, screw it... At one time i can remember lifetime was on basic.. No more
SO i am quickly deciding that TV may not be in my futrue

 

[danemodsandy]

Chuck:

Just in case you don't know, having a satellite dish or antenna is a Federally guaranteed right, not the landlord's call. I'm posting a link below to the Federal Communications Commission page on the topic. There are some exceptions, and maybe your landlord's property is covered by one of them, but a lot of landlords try to keep tenants from exercising their Federal rights in this area. Here's a link, and remember, this is an official Federal government web page, not Homer Hogwash's Homemade Internetwebs Lookin' Page:

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www.fcc.gov

 

[whirlcool]

That ordnance covers the Dish500 and DirecTV sized dishes. They are the smaller DSS dishes. Everyone has a right to one of those.

You still can't have a 12 foot diameter dish in a lot of places due to deed restrictions or the homeowner association Nazi's.

We use DirecTV and I haven't seen an audio eq button on it, I wish I had!

 

[moonvalleycacti]

Thanks.. I can get cheap tv through dish.. And they have what i want.. FEH to COX

 

[sudsmaster]

I got real tired of paying through the nose for Comcast and getting lousy picture and service. So I cancelled it about five years ago and went to antenna broadcast only. With the advent of digital, I get a plethora of public TV channels, as well as the usual network fare. I would say this was most of what I watched even with cable, other than History Channel, Comedy Channel.

Since cancelling the cable I figure I've saved at least $3000 in cable TV fees. Money I've partially spent on better equipment and the occasional DVD movie or documentary. Money I didn't have to pay to see the same commercials I can get over the air for free...

 

[rp2813]

There have been a number of news stories this past week on the conversion to digital TV broadcasting. One involved an elderly lady who had Geek Squad help her with her converter box. She had been getting only 7 channels of analog and now had access to over 50.

How much you want to bet the 43 new channels she's receiving are all shopping and infomercials? It appears that even over-the-air broadcasting offers no escape from this waste of signal bands.

Ralph