Would you be sorry to see traditional, scheduled TV go?

[LizKat]

I'm part of the 'latchkey' generation, so the TV being on for background noise in an otherwise empty house is what I grew up with (which is not to say I had absent parents, just we all came home at different times).

I can see your point. But then I'd have to decide WHICH series to stream, LOL!

Interesting about TV as background. As a member of the so called silent generation, I was ten or twelve before a TV set landed in our house, and so for me it was the equivalent of a radio to my grandparents, i.e. enough of a novelty that the whole family gathered around it when it was turned on for some show. We'd watch whatever it was and then turn it off and put back in their places the extra chairs dragged in for the occasion!

My two youngest siblings were born into a house with a TV set from day one, so as adults they have ended up running households that do treat TV like wallpaper, i.e. always on and rarely noticed. I have never become used to their talking to each other and me over some game show or news program. There's no TV in my house now for over a decade, and I pick the time when I'm ready of a morning to expose my nervous system to my online newspaper subscriptions. I read about WWII in the newspapers a day at a time at least a day late, and that was good enough for me then, and I'm still that way I guess.

I sure won't be in some traffic jam trying to escape "the big one" if someone lobs a warhead at us, I'll probably be out in the yard hanging up the wash. I don't get why my friends in the city keep the TV on all the time. They're all wired to the gills whenever Kim and Trump get into their tweetstorms. I figure I only have so many nerve endings left. I want to save them for being shocked by whatever's in the latest spy novel I happen to take from the library.

None of that keeps me from prowling around Netflix and Amazon for movies or TV shows. But I'm not one of their preferred customers, I suspect, as I rarely pursue any of their "recommended for you" offerings. I'll find something and watch it and like it but after that it could be weeks before I think to scout up something else to watch. Guess I'm just more of a print baby from the get go, and have stayed that way. No regrets!

 

[eyoungren]

Interesting about TV as background. As a member of the so called silent generation, I was ten or twelve before a TV set landed in our house, and so for me it was the equivalent of a radio to my grandparents, i.e. enough of a novelty that the whole family gathered around it when it was turned on for some show. We'd watch whatever it was and then turn it off and put back in their places the extra chairs dragged in for the occasion!

My two youngest siblings were born into a house with a TV set from day one, so as adults they have ended up running households that do treat TV like wallpaper, i.e. always on and rarely noticed. I have never become used to their talking to each other and me over some game show or news program. There's no TV in my house now for over a decade, and I pick the time when I'm ready of a morning to expose my nervous system to my online newspaper subscriptions. I read about WWII in the newspapers a day at a time at least a day late, and that was good enough for me then, and I'm still that way I guess.

I sure won't be in some traffic jam trying to escape "the big one" if someone lobs a warhead at us, I'll probably be out in the yard hanging up the wash. I don't get why my friends in the city keep the TV on all the time. They're all wired to the gills whenever Kim and Trump get into their tweetstorms. I figure I only have so many nerve endings left. I want to save them for being shocked by whatever's in the latest spy novel I happen to take from the library.

None of that keeps me from prowling around Netflix and Amazon for movies or TV shows. But I'm not one of their preferred customers, I suspect, as I rarely pursue any of their "recommended for you" offerings. I'll find something and watch it and like it but after that it could be weeks before I think to scout up something else to watch. Guess I'm just more of a print baby from the get go, and have stayed that way. No regrets!

My parents are part of the Silent Generation (dad: 1935, mom: 1941). My dad was 35 when I was born (1970) so I am a Gen X-er raised by the Silent Generation. My dad worked in aerospace and my mom was a teacher.

As a young teen TK (teacher's kid) it meant I was out before my mom (my parents worked hard to put my sister and I in the schools my mom worked for) and my dad's job was 30 minutes away and he left at 5pm, sometimes 6. Home was about 5 minutes by car, 15 minutes by bike, which I had.

I don't recall where my sister was those days, but I always came home to an empty house. The thing about wallpaper TV or background noise it that it fills the silence. Usually I put on the news. As a connection to the outside world it let me know I wasn't alone in a vacuum. Things were happening. Maybe not good things sometimes, but life was happening.

Just my twisted sense of the world I guess.

 

[Endorphine88]

I think it's some sort of old-timey comfort that comes from traditional TV just being "there" - on in the background. It was kind of a focal point for my family growing up, even though our lives didn't revolve around it, it was the thing that provided some sort of ambience and coziness.
Granted I could save myself a lot of money if I cancelled cable cause I can't remember the last time I watched something 'Live'. I exclusively consume entertainment through AppleTV cause it's on my own terms and doesn't terrorize me with unwanted commercials. I do miss the good old times of not caring so much about how I watch TV - you just had one remote and you flipped through channels and you could not pause/record/skip. You watched whatever option you landed on. It was simpler.
I think we'll reach a point in our lifetime where we'll have to explain to kids what TV used to be like during our youth and how we didn't have DVRs and stuff. It'll be surreal haha

 

[Mildredop]

We watch a decent amount of original programming, but isn't it all "original"? That includes from services like Netflix and Hulu (Peaky Blinders, House of Cards, Handmaidens Tale, etc.)

I'm not sure about the other two, but Peaky Blinders is BBC, not Netflix or Hulu.

 

[D.T.]

I'm not sure about the other two, but Peaky Blinders is BBC, not Netflix or Hulu.

Yeah, it's a "Netflix Original", but they use that for some shows that are just "exclusive" to Netflix as a distributor (I don't think PB is available on BBCA here in the states), though I wasn't 100% sure if there was any co-production, and there's only a month latency on new seasons/series (that become available in their entirety).

So, OK, Peaky Blinders is original programming from the BBC that in the US I watch on Netflix.

 

[0388631]

We've considered cutting the cord for six years or so, but when we did the math, we'd pay just about the same we do now if we subbed to specific networks via computer. On the other hand, our ISP does offer an IPTV set box with a la carte options. By combining it with our internet, our price drops and the mere mention of cancelling gets us a nice deal for 18-20 months before having to redo it. This is bundled with VOIP but we use a traditional copper line for our phone service. It's way more reliable.

 

[LizKat]

If I still had a TV and were more into watching it, first of all I would definitely not like it if PBS were not available via network. I'd probably watch local (regional) news in the evening; I used to do that when I did have a TV up here. Past that I don't care about television in real time and for my money network TV became too aimed at lowest common denominator decades ago. It can't have got better with the advent of a zillion cable channels. Even if none of them is making any money any more they are competitors for eyeballs on which networks depend for their own existence.

Are we looking at direct-to-internet "television" production in the future? Seems inescapable, but until then I vote to keep the spectrum reserved for network TV as it is. I'd sooner see cable channels croak then what was designed as a public good be taken over for other purposes. I still feel we need to aim for improved network content, not just ditch the baby and its bathtub entirely. How we get there though, I have no clue. The market itself seems resistant. We like digging a bottomless pit in the age of no limits on anything.

Even if I did take up cable service again I'd still keep a copper line for POTS because juice drops interrupt cable fairly often here and the copper line almost always stays up.

As it is I take DSL and use WiFi calling off that for long distance calls since I live in a dead zone and my wired line has no long distance plan any more. Basically all my calls are long distance and I get 30 minutes of "free" long distance a month, so that's reserved for... phoning in power outages.

So far I have no problem streaming TV or movies when I want to do that. Spectrum does offer assorted phone / TV / internet options here, and they are forever pitching bundles and even a la carte items nowadays. But... so far I see no reason to re-cable my house.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Yes, I would hate to see scheduled TV go away completely.

There was a special joy attached to coming in on a Monday morning and discussing with your co-workers a particularly delicious plot twist on the latest episode of The X Files or Twin Peaks. It was enjoyable to banter with others about where we thought the show was going, and then to see the following week whether we were right.

I have to admit having succumbed to the DVR...but even so, I try to watch Gotham ASAP so I can talk about it with my work colleagues a day or two later. More than that, and it becomes this annoying, ridiculous game of, “Well, which episode are you on?” Or, worse, “Which season are you on?”

You can’t enjoy a show as much that way because you’re spending time not discussing the plot, but rather running scenes through your head so you can avoid revealing any spoilers. Screw that.

I did binge-watch Gotham’s first season only because I made the choice to join the show in its second season and wanted to catch up with the first. But I can’t say watching TV that way felt enjoyable. It felt like work. It’s much harder to sit yourself down over a few days to watch 22 straight episodes than it is to carve out one hour of your week to watch it on a regular basis.

Plus, as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to savor the joy of anticipation, of waiting to see what happens next, as opposed to having it handed to me all at once.

 

[shinji]

I much prefer on-demand to traditional scheduled programming.

The only show we still watch at the network-appointed time is Homeland because it's so gripping, and we don't want to wait any more than necessary to find out what happened. If they'd give access to all the episodes upfront, we would just binge watch like a Netflix/Prime series.

Really, outside of live TV, I don't see the point. Scheduled programming is sort of a relic in the making.

 

[AmazingRobie]

Or if you don't like radio...

It's not just the content so much as the signals. Same as billboards and advertisements. You can ignore all of them, but they're still there. Taking up space. No one gives their permission for these things, they're thrust upon you and told, if you don't like it, don't pay attention to it, yet there it is...still taking up the space which is rightfully yours to be clear, peaceful, uncluttered and free to let your mind be in a resting state, but you can't because someone else forces you to comply. Wake up. It's wrong on a very basic level.

 

[ejb190]

When I think of scheduled programming, sports and the news are the two things left. As far as TV series go, they are things for spare time. I refuse to have my life dictated to me by a TV schedule.

Sports I don't care about (Except curling. Curling is just awesome!).

And the news, well I live in a rather rural area. We don't get much media coverage from the markets surrounding us, unless it's something bad. Besides, I hate TV news. A twenty minute interview gets cut to a 5 second sound bite that tells you nothing. So I listen to a lot of radio (especially NPR) and still get the local papers.

So we were keeping cable for basically nothing. So we dropped it. The only thing I miss is the public access channel that covered local school events and government meetings. But the papers cover those pretty well.

 

[JackieInCo]

I tried cutting the cord and even did so for about 3 years or so and have gone back to Comcast. I absolutely hated Netflix and rarely used it during the past two years when I had two free years for buying Samsung phones. I wanted Netflix for the movies and many times I wold begin watching a movie only to turn it off ten minutes later because the acting was so bad or the movie wasn't what I was hoping. Many times, I tried 5-6 movies one after the other before finally giving up and exiting out of Netflix and not turning it on for months. My two free years is just about over and I haven't turned it on since before Christmas.

I have also recently discovered on demand and just about any movie I have searched for on Xifinity has been on demand for free. I'm not sure that I can go back and try cutting Comcast out of my life other then just for internet. I like the choices that I have now. It's been about two weeks now since I added all the Comcast channels instead of just my local ones and I've been very happy.

Before getting the full Comcast lineup, I tried YouTube TV but there's still limited choices and was very happy with DirecTV Now but cancelled after the free week because I wanted a DVR so I can record what I want and zip past the commercials.

I'm so happy with my service now that I went out and bought new TVs for the three major rooms in my house and two 4K ATVs. I'm getting a third ATV very soon.

 

[SactoGuy18]

What's interesting is that one cable company--Comcast--will make the transition away from channel-based television. How? By rolling out DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit speed Internet, which will allow people to run multiple streams of videos at 1080i/720p resolution with effectively no stuttering. And Comcast will get there long before the gigabit solutions fro AT&T/Verizon (5G cellular) and SpaceX (low-altitude satellite) become widely available.

 

[jeyf]

internet providers like comcast have medium cost internet but really make a killing providing package deals.

comCast has had un reliable service in my area.
I had a contract and just at the end of the contract they announced a price increase. Kinda a bad marketing move for them. I switched.

 

[samiwas]

I am a fan of scheduled TV. I don't always want to have to think about what I am going to watch. I just scroll through the TV guide and see if something sounds interesting. But, I'm more looking for one-off type things like DIY/HGTV shows, investigative shows, or network comedies.

I do use Hulu frequently (and sometimes Netflix or Amazon) to either catch up on shows I've missed, or to put something on at bedtime.

But yeah...I still dig the scheduled TV broadcast.

 

[rafark]

My second thing is that since I was a teen, the TV has always been on as background noise .

This. I miss cable tv so much, my house feels very lonely without that bg noise. I specially like it on holidays because of all the holiday/season-specific movies, shows and, yes, ads.

And I'm 22.

 

[Plutonius]

With the rise and rise of things like Netflix and Amazon, viewers are steadily abandoning traditional TV in favour of streaming services.

The likes of Netflix have enormous budgets and can create truly high-end stuff. And there's no ads. And you can watch it whenever you like. And wherever you like.

So would you care if the traditional stations with their scheduled programming disappeared?

I don't have Amazon Prime and I unsubscribed to Netflix. I subscribe to Sling so I have a streaming service but it shows traditional TV .

In answer to your question, why would people want less choices ?

Do people say I have T-Mobile so I hope Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint go away ?
[doublepost=1523796561][/doublepost]

What's interesting is that one cable company--Comcast--will make the transition away from channel-based television. How? By rolling out DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit speed Internet, which will allow people to run multiple streams of videos at 1080i/720p resolution with effectively no stuttering. And Comcast will get there long before the gigabit solutions fro AT&T/Verizon (5G cellular) and SpaceX (low-altitude satellite) become widely available.

The problem is high speed internet with data caps.

 

[jeyf]

data cap for comCast is 1Tera Byte

there will be a lot of factors in the way before you hit any comCast data cap.

 

[Huntn]

With the rise and rise of things like Netflix and Amazon, viewers are steadily abandoning traditional TV in favour of streaming services.

The likes of Netflix have enormous budgets and can create truly high-end stuff. And there's no ads. And you can watch it whenever you like. And wherever you like.

So would you care if the traditional stations with their scheduled programming disappeared?

On Network TV, I only watch the news regularly and right now one show, Modern Family that I record. Sometimes I join my wife to watch Football and Baseball, but really I'm over that. So it really makes little difference to me.

I cut the cord once, have a thread here on how to do it, and/but if not for the demands of my spouse, who found inconsistent coverage of football, baseball unacceptable, we'd still have it cut.

Netflix and other streaming outlets- no commercials is HUGE. Having 25% of your 1 hr show filled with commercials is unacceptable for me. Network TV that can be recorded and commercials skipped, is doable, but it's something I work around, not embrace, the commercials that is. And the censorship rules definitely put network TV behind the eight ball. There will always be a desire for current events type of news programs, but even that could be live streamed over internet so...

 

[eyoungren]

This. I miss cable tv so much, my house feels very lonely without that bg noise. I specially like it on holidays because of all the holiday/season-specific movies, shows and, yes, ads.

And I'm 22.

It lets you know you aren't alone - and that life is indeed happening around you.

Even if it's something we aren't directly engaged in.

 

[senseless]

Netflix and other streaming outlets- no commercials is HUGE. Having 25% of your 1 hr show filled with commercials is unacceptable for me. Network TV that can be recorded and commercials skipped, is doable, but it's something I work around, not embrace, the commercials that is. And the censorship rules definitely put network TV behind the eight ball. There will always be a desire for current events type of news programs, but even that could be live streamed over internet so...

It didn't used to be this way. If you find old programs on Youtube, you'll notice they're about 25 minutes long. That's just 5 minutes for commercials in a half hour. Cable programming is the worst culprit and you have to pay for that.

 

[dogslobber]

Got rid of cable more than 10 years ago and now use a mixture of Netflix, OTA, and downloading/streaming for programming. The only scheduled thing we watch is OTA local news but we go this way as we simply refuse to watch any type of programming with ads (except local news). Ads steal minutes from my life.
[doublepost=1523834626][/doublepost]

It didn't used to be this way. If you find old programs on Youtube, you'll notice they're about 25 minutes long. That's just 5 minutes for commercials in a half hour. Cable programming is the worst culprit and you have to pay for that.

It's funny. An episode of Big Bang Theory without ads is down to around 17 mins now. That's 13 mins of ads.

 

[senseless]

Got rid of cable more than 10 years ago and now use a mixture of Netflix, OTA, and downloading/streaming for programming. The only scheduled thing we watch is OTA local news but we go this way as we simply refuse to watch any type of programming with ads (except local news). Ads steal minutes from my life.
[doublepost=1523834626][/doublepost]
It's funny. An episode of Big Bang Theory without ads is down to around 17 mins now. That's 13 mins of ads.

Terrible. They wonder why people aren't tuning in.

 

[samiwas]

Terrible. They wonder why people aren't tuning in.

Kind of reminds me of this graphic...

And they wonder why piracy has grown. If you commit more than 1/3 of network time to commercials that paying customers must watch, you're going to lose them to other methods.

 

[max2]

No I would not.