Slashdot Mirror
You're Watching Less TV
NickFusion writes "With a plethora of online games, chat, IM, email and, well, Slashdot, who's got time to watch television? Evidently, not men ages 18-34. The NY Times (free reg, etc) takes a look at the issue and comes to conclusions that will shock, I say shock, the average Slashdot reader. Meanwhile, Fox Broadcasting Corp. is calling for a recount. Disclosure: I'm quoted in the NY Times article, and so is one Rob Malda. Mom will be so proud!"
It's cheaper than a TiVo and I get to keep stuff permanently. Also, I can enjoy The Sopranos and (before it was canceled..) Jeremiah without having to cough up $$$ for the expensive channels.
Well, lets see: with my research occupying upwards of 80-90 hours a week working, including some time posting on Slashdot :-), who has time for TV?
Seriously though, I mark my time online historically with the first major news announcement I heard online before I heard it via television. That news item was the Oklahoma city bombing of the Federal Building. Since then I have received most of my news items online rather than through traditional outlets. Even as a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, I get most of my content online.
Additionally, with the increasing productivity of the average American worker just trying to keep their jobs, one might suppose that the Internet provides for a more flexible media resource outlet allowing folks to customize their news searches without having to wait through the tripe and entertainment garbage that Fox News and more recently CNN et. al. have been delivering.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
We still watch good ol' broadcast TV every now and then, and we still have favorite shows, but we really don't watch much TV, simply because TV has been replaced by the Internet for instant-access news, information, and interactive entertainment. Cable just isn't worth it anymore.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
This is a product of the fact that people want to be able to reclaim their time. That is to say, letting a box push information to them at it's own speed is a waste of time and doesn't give them exactly what they want.
TV isn't going anywhere though, as soon as the TV companies get off their collective butts and get more and more on-demand TV then viewers will return to that medium (even if it is through their computer/digital entertainment unit).
The days of people flipping through channels are ending, and the days of people flipping through menus of available media better be coming soon, or else they risk alienating a generation of people who don't have the time/desire to waste their life waiting for a show to start.
I don't know about the other guys in that age range - but who wants to watch all these reality shows? I had hard enough time keeping up with season 10 of a normal show, now theres season 5 of ppl doing weird stuff on tv.
Mod me down im a newf (wiki)
Quoting the penultimate paragraph:
Mr. Spector sees things a little differently. The missing men grew up with a joystick in hand, he said, and computer games have grown up with them.
No comment necessary.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Speaking from the middle of the 18-34 set (I'm 25) I can agree that most of us guys are watching a lot less boob tube. Partially because hardly anything worthwhile comes on (teen dramas and reality shows. And that's IT) the networks, and partially because a lot of us are pulling long hours at our jobs/universities trying to get our respective shit together, and when we get home, it's to watch the news or a freshly Tivo-ed basketball game or episode of the Sopranos. (Or Pr0n. Sweet, delicate pr0n). Then right off to sleep.
When I was in high school, I had much more free time to just veg out in front of the TV AND there seemed to be a better selection of things on (ST:TNG...BUFFY!). Cable networks are where it's at for decent entertainment.
Then of course the problem becomes the exorbitant rates cable companies want ($72.50/month for basic "digital" + HBO where I'm from. Fuck all that). But that's a rant for another time.
El riesgo vive siempre!
Wasn't it a Fox exec who commented that not watching the commercials was theft?
Obviously we must ban video games and the Internet because they are stealing potential revenue from the media companies!
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
...can be found here.
Don't get me wrong, but I fit smack into that bracket and I don't get cable or sat. I just use my broadband connection to download all the shows I need.
Few bittorrent sites, supranova.org, torrentz.com, and an irc.irchighway.net network later and I've dropped completely off their "This group watches TV" radar, when the fact is I have over half a terabyte of TV.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
You'd think TiVo and other PVR's (Replay, Myth, Sage) would lead to increased TV viewing, but I would argue it keeps you from watching that piece of junk between two shows you actually care about. That gets you out of the habit of just mentally grazing TV and into the habit of active viewing
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Honestly as more and more TV shows make the transition to DVD, there's even less reason to watch TV, especially with the arsenal of inane reality-based shows bombarding the airwaves. I can play program director at home and put on the re-runs I want to watch rather than having some person who doesn't know me try to make programming that matches my tastes. TV is going to have to morph into something REALLY compelling for me to turn it on anymore, and once the Simpsons goes off the air, they'll have to work damn hard to get me to use a TV tuner again.
I'm turning 35 in a few months...does that mean I'll have to start watching more TV?
Give people TV programs worth watching if you want them to watch TV.
And the same will happen when a new medium appears.
Number of entertainment forms increase while number of hours per week stays the same, therefore average number of hours spent on the old medium per person decrease as number of hours spent on the new medium increase said Dr It'sFuckingObvious in a press release today.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Its more cost effective for me to not buy cable; which is about the cost of two uncapped DSL lines both with static IP's in my area. Instead, I buy the occasional DVD when I'm in the mood for a movie.
Another reason is that during the winter when you can actually go outside and not die of heat exhaustion I can sit on my patio with my laptop and wireless and use the net. If I want to watch TV then I'm stuck inside watching it inside.
I think the media companies are going to have to deal with this trend. As much as they would like to turn the Inter-web into a one-way communications medium like TV, its just not going to happen. Thats one of the big draws. I don't have to view your crappy commercials or just be a passive consumer of information.
If nothing else, the blogging fad is a big validator of the fact that people like to speak out in communications as much as absorb (well, most of us).
With the introduction of broadband internet and wireless networks to which you can connect from anywhere, we, as a society, have come to expect on-demand content. Television, with the exception of TiVo, does not fit into this new view of how we like to be entertained.
I have noticed that I have almost stopped watching TV altogether not neseccarily because I don't like what's on, but because I don't feel like planning my day around what I want to watch. Sometimes, when I happen to be doing nothing, I will watch the Daily Show, but even a show as funny as that isn't really worth planning my evening around it.
I love these TV execs who are whining. "The numbers don't add up!" "How could they not be watching are ever-wonderful "Ass Crap Reality Show"? Everyone loves it!"
Give me a break. As a geek who doesn't even own a tv right now I don't miss watching TV at all. When we moved into our house I had to sell my TV (65in Sony HDTV - boo hoo) and the only reason I want a new TV is for three things: DVDs, XBox, PS2, all of which I have hooked up to old 20in computer monitors.
The message is clear, your shows suck, and while watching drama queens fight over getting to stay on the island might interest younger women, it does absolutely nothing for young men.
Casual Games/Downloads
I used to plop down on the sofa at night afraid I'd "miss something", I would watch my favorite shows (simpsons,futurama,poker) and usually flip around while waiting for the next one.
Now that I have a TiVO (with dual tuner of course), I can look through all of the movies that will be on in the next three weeks and see if I want to watch any of them. I can tell if next week's poker game is one I have seen already, etc.
With sufficient planning, I can come home and play UT2004 or with the wife (no really!) all evening, without the nagging voice in the back of my head saying "there is media you want to be absorbing, and you're missing it!"
I suspect TiVO, by giving people the ability to plan and schedule their own viewing lets them cut out the crap they would usually sit through in the middle of the evening.
Mom does not need an endorsement of the fact that you've wasted your life to date on this interweb thingie. All she wants is grandchildren, Timothy. When are you going to deliver on that?
Big stations thought they had it right with reality TV but that certainly drove more women to the small screen but moved men away from it. Now we're playing more video games than ever and hating TV. At least there aren't ads in the middle of my game.
I fondly remember the day I discovered Farscape while in the middle of of season 3. I spent a month watching one or two episodes a day, living and breathing the stuff.
It's a truly heady experience and one I heartily recommend. Being able to pull down the entertainment you want, when you want it is going to change the way things work at a very basic level. Media executives should be scrambling to figure out how to switch to a subscription model before their ad dollars dry up.
I waste a lot of time tinkering with my MythTV box (thank you Isaac and team!).
I spend so much time making my TV and video viewing time more productive that I don't have much time for actually watching TV.
As a side benefit when I do sit down to watch some boob tube it's on my terms (no advertisements) and on my schedule.
Face it, folks. Television is 99% crap.
At least one-third of the daily broadcast schedule is infomercials. Most of the "cable" channels run only popular shows from other networks, or heavily edited movies over and over and over again, basically just to fill time.
Television advertising is grating, patronizing, lowest-denominator sludge which subtly insults as it offers suburban paradise with five-figure price tags to minimum-wage consumers, and interrupts the crappy programming eight times an hour to do so.
Sitcoms aren't funny. Dramas are political speeches. The local news is a carnival barker, and reality programming is nothing but a metaphor of a society fascinated by the misfortune of the powerless.
There hasn't been a meaningful sentence spoken on television in decades.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
What a pathetic group of people
You know, I gotta agree. I'm in that demographic range and I sure don't watch half the TV I used to. I attribute this to two things:
1)Reality TV
2)Scifi cancelled Farscape
"According to the Turtle" www.paperbackreader.com
With T.V. I can have tripe like "Yes Dear" forced upon me or I can view meaningful content on demand via the internet.
For example, I can pay $80/mo. for standard, no movie channel cable from Time Warner and get news fed to me in 30 minute bursts or I can pay $8.95/mo. for internet access and read in-depth studies from sites like foreign affairs. I can be a better parent and read about my gifted son's condition and learn from it on the internet or I can sit on my ass and watch Temptation Island.
T.V. no longer consistently delivers meaningful content (if it ever did). Heck even formerly great channels like TLC have relegated themselves to regurgitating reruns of While You Were Out.
The entire media industry is sooo out of touch with the populace and clearly have no clue how to react and change to an increasingly digital lifestyle so many of us are adopting.
Build your own... I did, and despite the fact that it can cost in excess of $500, it is well worth it. SageTV offers predictive recording, which is quite excellent, and the real bonus is that using DScaler and FFDshow, you can render the analog TV signal at near DVD quality, far more clear than is offered by TiVo.
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
All you need is a package with the various Discovery, History, TLC and sports channels for $20 a month. It would sell like crazy. Beyond these types of tv, men in that age bracket like myself just don't see the appeal. Here's a thought for you tv people that might be reading this. Stop bashing men and stereotyping them and men might might be more inclined to watch. If portraying Blacks, Women, Arabs and so on stereotypically is unnacceptable, why should portraying men that way be acceptable?
Of particular disdain is that in order to have the programming loud enough to hear, the commercials are so loud they hurt your ears. Or you can have the commercials at the right volume and strain to hear the programming, if at all. Pop ups killed themselves when they were abused, and thats what tv does with commercials that are significantly louder than the programming. Whatever happened to sound leveling technology?
I'm 30 and I junked my TV at my last apartment in 1998. I think the weirdest thing is trying to watch tv when I'm visiting other people or sitting in a waiting room. It's the same thing as not eating sugar for months/years then eating something like a cookie and thinking: what the hell is this revolting shit that I used to consume by the bagload?
I don't really understand the emotional backlash from tv-viewers who think the non-tv people have a superiority complex but I suspect it's similar reaction with smokers vs non-smokers, fatties vs exercisers, SUV-drivers vs non-SUV-drivers and all the other great emotion-laden topics of this world that require masses of cognitive dissonance to justify expensive and unhealthy weirdness to calm an overy-anxious soul: excessive spending, tv-watching, eating, smoking, drinking just to calm down and forget about "the crappy universe" that's out to get you.
For the record, I used to be most of these things which probably makes me even more annoying than an ex-smoker. All that stuff you don't have time for (preparing food, exercising outdoors, enjoying nature, sex, talking, reading, thinking) you now have time for.
As for the trollers who say reading Slashdot takes up time... hm. Yes, about 20 minutes to read newspapers and slashdot online and make a comment. Not exactly in the same realm as tv-watching.
Talking to people whose lives revolve around work and tv is like talking to a Pepsi vending machine.
BayWatch knew what men in the 18-34 age group wanted... big breasted women running down the beach in skimpy swimsuits.
Plotlines? Well, if you insist, but they aren't central to the show. Try and limit it to stuff like: "Pam gets injured while undergoing a bikini wax. Other cast members lend support."
Chip H.
...I'd watch more. Family Guy, Firefly, even Seven Days; all shows that I loved watching that got nixed at various points before their time. They kill a good show, and 4 reality shows arise in its place. Its the nastiest hydra the industry has come up with in a long time.
As it is now, I've got FG on dvd, I've recorded every ep of Seven Days, I've seen every ep. of ST:TNG multiple times, and I'll be getting the Firefly dvds as soon as monetary situation allows. So why should I keep watching TV? Enterprise is utter crap. Reality TV is of course abysmal and should just go away entirely. And I've never liked a sitcom really. They all annoy me. The really creative/funny shows are marginalized and replaced to pander to the demographics, and when the demographics dont like whats being pandered to them, the producers just don't understand why...
Its the same reason I don't even bother going to the movie theatre anymore. Went to see LotR, and thats the last movie I see myself paying for in theatres for a long time. Even Pixar's newest offerings will probably be relegated to 'wait for dvd' status. I'd rather spend $15 on a dvd than go see a movie in theatres, as its not much more pricewise and I can then view multiple times. And since 90% of my favorite tv shows are either on DVD now, or coming to DVD soon, why should I keep watching it live with commercials?
Sorry, wandered around a bit there, but just felt like ranting some.
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
Reading the parent made me wonder if a lot of mod's had the wool pulled over their eyes... Sounds like trolling to me. But, since it's +4 interesting... I'll feed. Who do you think pays for those high quality Soprano's productions? The suckers who don't have broadband + a burner? What happens when they dry up, no one subscribes to HBO, and we all want our entertainment for free? Guess what... no Sopranos. Yes, the entertainment industry needs to grok the net and it's capabilities / appeals. But don't kid yourself - as a pirate, you are violating copyright laws and contributing to the decline of quility programming on TV. Less cash from the customers = less output, plain and simple (Enron economics aside).
If any big media people are out there, take this as indication of a new opportunity for revenue. I too am a 18-34 year old and don't watch TV. I don't have time on weekdays to do that, and given the small amount I would watch, cable just isn't worth it. Furthermore I am not such a fan of most of these shows that I would buy the DVD. Lastly while finding episodes to download can be inconvienient, not to mention illegal, it is the best option right now (but just to clarify, I don't - I have good reason to stay clean right now).
What do I want? I want to drive down to the video store and rent these. I heard "24" was good, I wouldn't mind renting the first season over a couple weekends. I never got to see Dr Who as a kid - I would love to rent those. I have seen a few series in the rentals (like south park) but not that many. Of course blockbuster only has so much floor space, and can only have so many DVD's, so why don't they have one megawarehouse per city that is full of all sorts of hard to find movies and episodes. Advertise it in the normal outlets and work it like inter-library loan.
Of course, another solution would be a legit download service, but since there is no way to inforce the rental concept, it would be purchase only if they were willing to do it at all, and at that price point it wouldn't earn my business. So mega-rentals.
Not that I think this is a bad strategy. I'm ripping and distributing 7th Heaven in an attempt to get it off the air. So far, no luck. No downloads either. I think the ideal TV audience is the techno-illiterate.
The Boob tube indeed.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
It's debatable whether a few people downloading episodes of their favorite TV programs can significantly impact the entertainment industry. If it does so in a negative way, so what? The overall market is driven by what consumers want. If people don't think television shows are good enough to pay for or to wade through a bunch of ads then there's no real loss to begin with. Maybe more people will go outside for a change if the current industry folds. Or, god willing, we'll start seeing some really innovative stuff from other people...
In any case, it's just irresponsible to call something like this "thieving." We have different laws for theft and copyright infringment for a good reason - they're different actions with different consequences. Our ideas and intuitions about whether it is right to take an object away from someone else don't directly apply to making a copy of something. If you don't think infringing copyright is a good idea, that's fine, but I strongly urge you to not to resort to appeals to emotion by calling it "thieving." It just makes you look like you have an agenda.
In TV economics, you are not the customer, you are the product. Corporate advertisers are the customers, and they pay big bucks for your eyeballs.
Makes me feel dirty every time I think about it. I stopped watching shortly after this was pointed out to me.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Any time I turn on the TV, I love to see the brilliant women triumphing over idiotic men who couldn't possibly understand the nuances of daily life half as well as a woman. Those stupid husbands. All they do is burn food on the grill and screw up the DirectTV satellite. Of course, I feel like I need to watch more of this sort of thing to figure out how women and kids got so smart.
And thank GOD for gay men who are perceptive enough to tell us what to wear. Men's fashion has been in such a rut before these shows came along, Since Mr. Rodgers died, I didn't know WHAT sweater vest was in. Now, thanks to the "fab five," a hapless modern bozo like me can wear clothes that will look hopelessly outdated next year, just like the smart, professional women do.
But for the really hetero alpha males, we have shows about "Beer" and "Women with Tits." These cater to my testosterone tendencies without insulting my intelligence or sense of chivalry at all. It's enough of an outlet for me that I don't feel like I have to run through Circuit City anymore with drool trailing behind me, even though my wife will let me do that on occasion.
I hope they make more shows with the twenty-something male in mind. I'd like to see more obnoxious behaviour, especially related to beer and sports, which pretty much are the only things to occupy my consciousness, being a man and all. And plenty of sex, but please, only sex with strippers and ditzy sluts with huge boobs. Real women are intimidating to me.
Keep it up, guys! You'll never lose me as a viewer.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Then again I wonder if they are producing this crap for girls KNOWING guys are watching less.
:) However, you do notice some other disturbing things. Pay attention during the "Power Block" on Spike. Of course, you see commercials for car products, tools, and whatever, but notice the way the commercials are pitched. Lots of special effects, shouting, and flashing lights. The same type of visual stimulation you'd use to capture a child's attention, or people with short attention spans and stunted maturity. Even more disturbingly, you see an unusually high concentration of commercials for credit counseling. Apparently, SpikeTV thinks its viewers are young, poor, hyperactive males with little earning power. In order to afford the expensive "car-toys" on their shows and commercials, they offer them credit and bankruptcy help. Hmm. And we wonder why the country's average personal debt load is so frighteningly high. They are pushing a culture of borrowing and short term vision for immediate gratification.
You've unknowingly hit on a very fascinating sub-world of advertising, the "target demographic." If you want to know who the networks think are watching, then pay attention to the commercials. This is actually one of my morbid curiosities. I sometimes get a kick out of flipping to some outrageous, twisted show, just to see the commercials and see who the network thinks is watching. Sometimes its funny, sometimes its scary.
For example. What kind of commercials do you see during "The Apprentice?" I would think that a show like that would appeal to men, so I would expect to see manly commercials. Yet if you notice, you'll see that there are a surprisingly high number of commercials for feminine hygiene products, cleaning products (whose commercials always feature women, exclusively, by the way - so much for equal contributions in the home and eliminating stereotypes, eh? Where are the men in those commercials? At work? Is that what we're supposed to conclude?), and vaccuum cleaners.
Now flip over to SpikeTV. I guarantee you'll never see a maxipad commercial there.
Finally, one last, even more revealing example. I was home sick from work the other day, and had the TV on. To entertain my little voyeuristic interest, I had it on FOX for a while. Examining FOX's target demographic is among the most easiest, funniest, and scariest, all rolled into one. You can immediately tell that FOX caters to the heavily conservative, religious audience, with low income and a very gossipy nature. The shows they run during the daytime are trashy talk shows and court "reality" shows with lots of yelling. The commercials are even more revealing. Lawyers come on once or twice every commercial break asking if you've been injured. Apparently, if you've been hurt, even through your own stupid fault, they'll find someone else to blame (and, of course, to sue).
Scads of credit counseling/consolidation commercials. Lots of ads pitching trade school or diploma programs. Apparently, the demographic that is home during the weekdays, watching FOX is poor, uneducated, conservative, voyueristic, and looking to get rich quick.
I don't do it often, but when I do watch TV, I enjoy trying to read between the lines and see what networks and advertisers really think of their viewers. It can be quite enlightening.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
The NYT article states that
TV networks are expensive, actors, satellites, cameras, etc all paid for by advertising, having to buy a TV to watch it all, etc, yet it's all free to me the consumer.
Porn sites are much cheaper to run and seriously less to produce content. I doubt any porn star gets a Million a pop.
OK, so we know where the guys are, it's cheaper to operate, plus you can even determine if they saw and/or clicked on your ad.
QED
Advertisers should pay porn sites and they should all be free. Free porn brought to you by Doritos, Mountain Dew, and the new Mitsubishi.
Why would people be less interested in television when there's so many good things on?
* Real World - network executives get young kids to the point of alcohol poisoning and videotape them for your amusement
* Fear Factor - out-of-work hollywood actors line up to eat bugs for your amusement
* Tough Crowd - Colin Quinn and his buddies validate your racist tendencies
* The Apprentice - A dozen yuppies compete to get close enough to see if Donald Trump's hair is actually a new, sentient life form.
* American Chopper - All of America tunes in each week to see if this will be the show where Paul Jr. hits Paul Sr. over the head with a tire iron.
* Rush Limbaugh - Only in America can the Vice Presient of the United States be seen calling in to an Oxycotin addict's tv/radio show.
* Seinfeld - A "show about nothing"; of course it will be a huge hit. Each week we anxiously look forward to an entirely new paradigm shift in obsessive-compulsive behavior.
* The Osbournes - Watch burned out rocker being slowly driven crazy by his own family.
* X-Play - This is a show that's all about Morgan Web's sweater pies, but I think there's a side theme of gaming, but I'm not sure.
* Almost everything on WB - Lame urban sitcoms that have revitalized the laugh track industry.
* Survivor - Amuse yourself by watching Mark Burnett dangle rice and toilet paper over the heads of starving, back-stabbing media-whores on a deserted island.
* Law and Order: SVU - It's like Dateline NBC with worse acting.
* Will and Grace - Yet another show about 30-something beautiful single people. I just can't get enough of homo/hetero-erotic lust triangles. Rumor has it, Mr. Roeper will return during sweeps week.
* CSI: Miami - Someone died; someone's hiding something; someone's an arrogant/evasive prick; someone's hair is in the wrong place. Not since CSI: Topeka, CSI: Fargo and CSI: Van Nuys has CBS come up with an intriguing, compelling and creative series.
* American Idol - Innovative show involving no-talent hacks (who have slept with the right people) criticizing no-talent hacks.
I'd write more but it's time for the Jimmy Kimmel show.. gotta go.