I need to get with the times. It seems like no one watches live television anymore. People use TIVO or DVR, or they just watch DVDs. As a result, it’s getting hard to saturate people’s minds with political advertising. Maybe all that TV money will move to the internet and people can actually make a living writing again. That would be nice. How do you watch television? Do you filter out the advertising? I mainly deal with advertising by going into a stupor for three minutes where my brain doesn’t process anything my eyes are seeing. When someone comments on an advertisement that has just played on the television, I usually have no idea what they are talking about. Maybe that’s why I haven’t felt any compulsion to get TIVO. I would like to lower our bills. All I really want is CSPAN, cable news, PBS, and some sports channels. I can do without everything else, even though I enjoy some of the Showtime and HBO programming.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I don’t watch TV, and the shows that I do watch I stream on my computer (Weeds, Sunny, Community, sometimes Real Time).
If/when I ever live by myself and without roommates, I won’t even want a cable plan.
I watch a lot of tv now, actually. Mostly movies I record from TCM and the ones I enjoy I burn for my own library. I also DVR a lot of shows and watch them generally the next night.
I haven’t watched commercials in a long time; well I did watching the debates until I just paused the TV went out for ice cream and came back a half hour latter so I could fast forward the commercials.
I only watch tv at night, and we have the bare bones cable that you have to call and ask for. However, we have Netflix which I love for both movies and streaming tv shows.
I dread the upoming wave of political ads; some have started already here. I typically leave the room for those. The flat-out lies and hate mongering are not good for my blood pressure.
how does Netflix work? And what does it cost?
There are changes coming to the pricing for Netflix and there’s been an outcry because they’re raising their fees, but we’re keeping it.
We bought a big screen tv two years ago and a Playstation 3 with Netflix accessibility. We chose the monthly payment of ten or eleven bucks which lets us get one DVD mailed to us. We watch it whenever and however often we want, then send it back. Then they send us another one. Since we have a bluray player, we tend to get bluray DVD quality movies.
We also stream movies. I’ll bet I’ve seen more movies with Netflix over the past two years than I have in the previous twenty. It’s just a great way to see movies you probably wouldn’t take a chance on otherwise. You can also stream tv series, recent or classic. We’ve watched Psych and TopGear and Pawn Stars and I’ve been rewatching Thirtysomething lately. ::blushes::
It’s been a great service. Once when we got a defective DVD we emailed them and sent it back; they sent a replacement out immediately.
We love it.
how much content is available?
You pay 11 bucks a month and you get one DVD plus a menu of stuff to stream?
You get one DVD at a time, so if you watch one every couple of days and send it back, you can see a lot of DVDs. Not just one a month.
The movies vary from classics to new releases. You make your own list (queue) of titles and they automatically send you the next movie on your list.
As for the catalogue, there are hundreds of films. You should go to their website and check them out. We’ve watched new stuff and old stuff, like both versions of True Grit, and it was interesting to compare them. my son and I have watched a lot of Mystery Science Theater movies as well as his favorites, Dr Who and the entire series of Battlestar Gallactica.
They group the titles into categories like New Releases, Documentaries, Romantic Comedies, etc, so you can scan through their library. They list the brief description of the movie, the main stars, and the rating. You can rate each movie yourself if you want to.
Trust me, it’s worth every penny!
We just joined in June, only on streaming and love it. We have so much still in line to watch that we haven’t missed the use of DVD hard copies.
The only problem is, the Netflix search is awful, it’s only for titles as far as we can tell. Searching by actor, by genre or anything else is impossible.
Anyhow, our household isn’t the target of live advertising anyway, since we all make up our own minds of who to vote for, or in my case, not to vote for.
I only watch a 2/3 tv series in fall season, that’s it, can’t stand commercials. I don’t have tivo or anything like that.
Netflix is great. I get 3 dvd’s at time in the mail plus watch streaming on my tv. Netflix has a catalog of some 100,000 movies and tv series. Pretty amazing I think plus the range of foreign movies and documentaries is very good. You can keep the dvd’s as long as you want also before you send them back.
For less than 20 dollars a month this is an incredible deal I think-I’ve watched up to 5 movies in one night.
Good chance as someone mentioned to check out movies you may never had a chance to or considered. I love a lot of the british tv shows and all other foreign movies.
The streaming content from Netflix is ASTOUNDING! I’ve watched endless high-quality BBC series and really good US series I missed when they were first shown, seen fantastic obscure independent films I never knew existed, and watched old movie favorites to my heart’s content. They even get the brand new movies and TV shows in about 6-9 months.
Yeah, it’s kinda bad not to have BBC America and watch the latest Doctor Who as it comes out. BUT, it’s way more fun to wait and watch them all back-to-back with no waiting a week to find out what happens next.
They have an application that notes which movies you watch and the ratings you give them. From that, they offer up suggestions of what else you might like to watch. (That’s how you find movies you never knew about.) Or you can pick a category, say to yourself, I feel like watching a gritty drama tonight, scroll thru HUNDREDS of choices & pick one.
Since I started getting the service in January I have basically stopped watching TV almost entirely. I’ll turn it on for an Obama speech or the weather when a hurricane is approaching but otherwise I have lost my tolerance for commercial interruptions. No political campaign ads are going to penetrate my selective media consumption!
We cut back our cable TV to stripped down “Basic Broadcast channels”, got the 2-DVD’s at a time deal from Netflix and we’re still 30 bucks ahead in savings!
For Hurricane Irene coverage, I found a Long Island weather site that was also streaming the emergency fire radio traffic from my old home (Nassau) county. Heard the gang from my old village fire dept. on the air responding to calls. Enjoyed having a real-time local view of the situation rather than hear it from some generic weather channel doofus;-)
Netflix works one of two ways.
you can order literal DVD’s from them
or, you can stream it over the internet.
I have both.
I was about to cancel the livestream when I realized how much CHILDREN’S content that netflix has. I use it with my 3 year old niece. if it weren’t for her, I’d probably cancel it. I livestream to the laptop, and it’s just fine.
I love their DVD system.
if you misplace a DVD,you can tell them – they’ll charge you $15 for it, and when you find it, if it’s within a YEAR, they’ll credit that money back to you as soon as they get the DVD back.
My personal situation isn’t a good representative of most people here, I’m guessing, in that I’ve been living outside the US for about 10 years in a non English-speaking country. Naturally enough I’ve long since learned to live without TV pretty much at all.
I follow radio podcasts and I download episodes of various programs here and there if I read about something interesting online, but in general I’m a good 12 hours behind the curve (all the news is being made while I’m asleep) and totally commercial free.
One thing I do miss is college football. I can’t seem to get into a game if it isn’t live, and I can’t be watching games at 3 am, so over the years I’ve completely disengaged from sports.
I figure one of these days when I’ve worn out my dumb phone I’ll get an android device of some sort, and my viewing habits may change. As it is, I can’t even sit at my pc and watch short YouTube videos; if I have the time, I’m reading, not watching.
I don’t often watch ads, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equus.
Eliot Spitzer ran some genuinely good ads in his governor’s race, but the problem with political advertising in this media savvy age is that it’s just lame. It lacks any sort of subversive or compelling hook that good advertisement today offers.
I watch the Daily Show enthusiastically and often parts of the Colbert Show, and I wander in to watch snippets of whatever football or basketball game my husband is watching, but that’s about it. Don’t seem to have time for anything else, including on DVD, after I indulge my internet habit and try to get my day job taken care of.
I like being able to read my news from the internet rather than watching some video version of it.
A conservative friend of mine gets all her news from Drudge. If a news story doesn’t get talked about in the opinion pages I read such as dkos and here and Juan Cole, I tend not to know about it. I seldom bother checking huffpost, even, though I do look in on politico occasionally, mostly to see if there’s a new Wuerker cartoon yet.
Somebody is still watching live TV, so it’s worthwhile to find out who they are. I’m guessing they’re older and they tend to vote Republican.
I confess to being a tv addict.
but, truth is, I rarely, and I do mean rarely, watch anything LIVE.
I usually, if it’s something that I want to watch that night, I will tivo it, and watch it right as it’s ending – so I can ff through the commercials.
the only thing I watch live are rare news events, and speeches by POTUS, if I’m home.
the rest?
the tivo has been the best invention in the last 10 years to me. not having to worry when to record the vcr?
blessing.
but, no, I don’t watch live tv anymore- not even sporting events.
Here’s the post I was expecting from Booman today in response to continued liberal whinining. The President is doing what they’ve asked while liberals and congressional Democrats continue to do what they do best. Not a damn thing but whine and feed the media narrative that Democrats are in disarray. Karl Rover is publicly laughing at how easy it is to implode Democrats. This is hell of surprise coming from Ta-Nehisi Coates, but I’ll take it were I can get it: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/liberal-sorcery/245142/
“The other day Tavis Smiley made the point that president’s job plan didn’t go far enough. I’d bet a lot of progressives concur and I think pushing the point is healthy, legitimate, essential and fair. But it’s also healthy, legitimate, essential and fair to then ask, “What would make more progressive legislation possible?” That line of thinking has to confront the kind of statements and action by Democratic Senators who evidently feel little or no pressure from their progressive base.
One of the reasons why I’ve harped on the “flying while brownish” series is because I think liberals are much more comfortable attacking whoever seems to hold the most power, and much less comfortable examining the power of the “weak,” as well as the power that they, themselves, wield. Power confers responsibility. In evading the notion that citizenship in a democracy confers power, you also evade the notion that it confers responsibility. It’s comforting to believe in a narrative of liberal “betrayal,” to argue that the game is rigged in such a way that the Hippie-punchers always win.
It’s also pretty cynical.” — TaNehisi Coates
I had to stop reading TaNehisi Coates. He’s an excellent writer, but I simply couldn’t relate to anything he wrote. Well a few things, but his experiences were and are so different than mine despite neither of us being white, that I just hit a wall with him. He was saying things, important things, but I simply couldn’t understand him and I’m not about to give my information to the Atlantic to comment. Nor would he respond to me personally.
Anyhow, most of the online left seems supportive of the plan. Certainly more than is usually supportive of the president. You can’t say the elected Dems are whining and then use it to tar the progressives. Considering the relationship there, that’s just dishonest. So too, when have the Hippie-Punchers ever NOT won? Is it really cynical if it’s simple fact?
What a load of crap.
Coates, I meant.
Somewhat off topic, but one of the politicians who best understands the limits of political advertising is Rick Perry. This whole article from the Texas Observer is worth reading http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/the-outsider , but here’s the key paragraph about Perry’s campaign strategist, Dave Carney:
“By 2010, Carney’s team had completely transformed its approach. The professors’ experiments had convinced Carney that grassroots organizing was well worth the money. Television ads, the professors found, had short-lived impact. Robocalls had no impact at all. Carney suspected that campaigns used television ads, mailers and robocalls simply out of habit, not because they were particularly effective. So Carney and his team began to craft an enormous grassroots network of Perry supporters.”
Perry has won campaigns against Democrats who outspent him 3-1, and he’s won campaigns because he built a precinct operation that turned out over 1 million new voters. He may have dangerously wacky political ideas, but he’s a formidable opponent.
We’ll see if Perry can do it on a national scale as Obama did.
If there is a show that I want to watch, I’ll generally DVR it and watch it later. Why spend 30 minutes watching 23 minutes of programming?
Sports (my primary TV interest) are another matter. I don’t like watching games I already know the outcome to, so I generally will watch things live. In that case, commercials end up serving as a break to do one or more of the following:
a) read something online
b) get some whiskey
c) use the bathroom
d) check fantasy football scores
Unfortunately the people watching TV, and the political ads, are the ones most likely to believe them.
I have rabbit ears on my big screen TV. No cable, I get the PBS station, a local station and Spanish speaking stations out of Puerto Rico where we can pick up sports games if we are desperate. We turn it on at 7:00pm for the News Hour and turn it off at 8:00pm when its over…that is the extent of our watching except for Antiques Road Show. We watch movies at night and have been getting Netflix since its inception…now we do streaming and as long as your server is functioning Ok it won’t stop too often. Most of our information we seek out on the net.
Like probably most folks on the liberal blogs I’m a big fan of Ancient Aliens on The History Channel — Thursday nights (which means tonight!) — and also of gridiron action, college and pro.
Hit or miss with Larry King’s replacement (the Brit dude). Last night a big hit with guests the Virgin Airlines Brit dude guy, then the delightful Oklahoma native dudette singer lady from Broadway and teevee — Kristen Chenowith is her name I believe. Charming and talented woman — and too bad Piers Morgan only had 12 minutes for her (net from calculating commercials).
Haven’t quite gotten around to getting that tivo device — been more interested in de-cluttering and simplifying my life in recent times. I’m also not interested in yet another charge on my monthly bill — I still pay a ridiculous amount each month for the privilege of “renting” the cable company’s remote device. Unless they’re willing to throw in tivo for no added charge, forget it.
And what to say about a country whose citizens no longer watch teevee live? That used to be the sort of thing that brought people together — all those shared experiences we could talk about together the next day at the water cooler. Now it’s, “I tivo’d that one to watch later”. No wonder this country has gone downhill and the left doesn’t seem to be able to organize.
We don’t have cable; we bought a converter box for when the broadcast signals went to digital last year, but haven’t used it. We do everything through DVD and online. Just about the only time I ever see commercials is also online, and then only if I can’t skip them.
Their political ads on TV are completely wasted on me.
I love Tivo – I never watch anything live. I always fast forward through advertisements and political ads, which is easy to do because you can see what’s on the screen as you fast forward. I actually spend less time watching TV with Tivo than I did before. Why? Because you never end up watching crap because you want to relax in front of the tv and nothing good is on. When you’re in the mood to watch TV, you just sit down and watch your favorite shows.
I got the Tivo Premiere box (which is really inexpensive now) and you can do netflix, amazon, pandora radio, hulu plus, anything you want thru Tivo. (You do have to pay for netflix and hulu plus.)
We have no live TV and haven’t for four years now. The county library, conveniently located 2 blocks from our house, has been a great source of free movie DVDs and they acquire about 10 or 12 new titles every month. Also we have Netflix DVD & streaming which goes to 16 bucks a month with the next bill and are quite happy with it, even with the price hike. I do, however, still read an old-fashioned daily newspaper every day and find satisfaction in lining the cat litter box with any right wing items I encounter therein.
You described my viewing habit almost exactly.
I would only add that I only watch:
— The Yankees, no other baseball
— Football, mostly the Giants, some other pro, college a little less so
— MSNBC
— Military, History Channel, maybe one of the Discovery suite if it has something to do with actual science or engineering
— Old movies that are free
— Speed Channel, if there is actually a race on it
— College Hockey, NHL during playoffs
— Louie
The rest og the family?
Wife watches DVR HGTV and Dog Whisperer shows when she can finally sit down.
Daughter DVRs Jersey Shore and Game Show channels and sleeps in front of it.
Sons record every Daily Show, Simpsons and TopGear (BBC) show and every motorsport event and every Its Always Sunny episode. That’s pretty much what they watch and all on demand.
Everyone but me watches no commercials because they watch nothing live.
I don’t own a television. I don’t miss it at all. Sometimes I worry that my son is going to be some kind of social outcast. Pair that with his mild autism and he’ll really seem like the oddball kid without friends. So far, it hasn’t been an issue, but he’s only seven. I suspect that his dad is going to re-introduce television now that we’ve split, so I might be off the hook.
“Sometimes I worry that my son is going to be some kind of social outcast.” Not necessarily. Our teenagers seem to have survived that experience (along with their parents’ other quirks) just fine. We stayed away from the “TV is evil” rhetoric, let them watch TV at friends’ houses, watched TV with them when visiting relatives, and taught them the basics of being an “educated consumer” of the medium.
During the day, I don’t really watch TV but I have it on, usually on MSNBC or C-Span or whatever. But it’s really just background noise for me. I don’t watch it closely. I’m working on other things, but when something big comes up, I pay attention.
During the early evening hours, my dad watches the local news LIVE and the NBC and CBS Evening news shows (LIVE) and he usually reports what he saw, if anything was of real interest. He hates political ads and complains about them and tells me all about what he liked or hated about them when we have dinner.
During prime time, we each have our own (DirecTV) DVR’s recording things of interest to each of us. But neither of us ever watch that stuff LIVE.
We watch stuff like game shows (LIVE) and whatnot together in the pre-primetime period (7-8 PM) and maybe some of his favorite crime dramas or whatever later. But they’re usually pre-recorded and in the queue for viewing at our convenience. And we ALWAYS skip the commercials on those.
Then there is also video On-Demand, so you can get episodes of your favorite shows without commercials whenever you want. Those are nice too.
The political campaigns have figured it out though. You need to spend your ad dollars on the local evening news. People like to watch that LIVE and can not jump the commercials because it is LIVE. So whenever there is a political campaign going on, nearly ALL commercials during the local evening news are political ads.
DVR and Comcast on demand.
fast forward right by all the commercials.
And I stopped watching news when Obama extended GW’s tax cuts for the rich.