Is tv really worth having anymore?

[JB400]

Reading comments on the Dirty Jobs thread and in a few other threads.  Outside of watching the news, old movie, classic cartoons, or entertaining the wife and kids, is tv really worth having anymore?  There just seems to be so much crap on tv.  And too many commercials.  I doubt that I watch 14 hours of tv a week.

[twodko]

We're about the same here. We order movies we want to see through BlockBuster online. The Mrs and I have a Wednesday matinee "date" every week also........$7 for seniors. At night we'll surf the listings and DVR programs we'd like to watch later beyond that we'd rather read. Also AXS TV (formerly HDnet) shows several live concerts weekly which we record. These are awesome...everything from Forienger to CSN to Alainis Morissette to Foo Fighters all in HD and excellent sound mixes.
General commercial TV is brain rot.

[PA Dodger]

I remember life before cable TV. We had about 10 channels of whatever local TV gave us. It took 30 seconds to see there was nothing on. Now you have 350 channels of "variety" if you can call it that. Even the good original shows get too scripted after a while. Then they get copycatted to death. Every car/bike resto show starts out with "We just got this project and we have to have it to SEMA tomorrow". Shows like Ax Men and similar would be better if half the men didn't have PMS. I work in a decent size machine shop and we have near zero drama. Apparently thats not very common.
The saving grace for TV has to be Discovery shows like Planet Earth or History Channel's Men that Built America.  There are a number of decent shows on TV but as a whole it probably wouldn't make up 10% of what's actually available on TV.

[Old Moparz]

The only thing worth watching on the TV is the penguin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwTqC2T6q4E

[John_Kunkel]

I have two DVR's and recorded 16 hours of TV on Tuesday night alone. Nowadays it seems to be de rigueur to declare one's independence from the "vast wasteland" but it's obviously an important part of my life.

[bull]

The only time we've had cable it was basic cable for about 6 months and I thought it was a waste of time and money. First of all, you feel obligated to sit on your butt and watch TV as much as possible to justify the cost. Second, the amount of advertising now is staggering. Actual content is nil compared to ads and useless programming such as infommercials and cut-rate productions. There are few channels/shows worth watching and even the quality networks (like History) are probably at least 50% fluff. I'm not going to pay $100+ a month for that, even with their phony promo prices.

I've gone the other route with Netflix, Redbox and Cinema Now. My two favorite shows currently are Grimm and The Walking Dead and I either watch Grimm when it's on, or later on NBC.com, and Walking Dead I buy per episode on Cinema Now or Amazon. Between Cinema Now, Redbox and Netflix I spend $20-$25 a month.

[F8-4life]

I dont have cable and sometimes miss it. Now I have the standard 4 or 5 channels. metv has all the classics and I do find myself watching cool stuff I'd never see if I still had cable. You'd think cable would have the potential to be great with all the channels, but of course in this imperfect world cable just means more bs. I think people could talk and relate to one another better if we were all still watching  the same old shows like back in the day.

[W4ATL]

I dropped cable/satellite many years ago when I realized I don't watch $50 worth of TV in one month. I put up an outdoor antenna and get a lot of HDTV channels off the air for free. You'll be surprised how many channels you can get if you live near a large city. I bought a DVR similar to the Channel Master CM 7400 to record shows off the air for watching later.

I recently built up a computer that has a HDMI output to my big screen and a HDTV receiver card inside it to record TV shows. Windows Media Center is pretty nice. I can also use the computer to watch shows on Amazon, Netflix and ESPN3 with a Web browser via streaming.

If there is a sports program I want to watch on ESPN I just go to the sports bar. I'm still ahead of the game $$ wise with the money I save on cable throughout the year.

I would suggest trying to not watch cable channels for one month. If you find you don't miss it then drop it. I bet you will end up doing other things and not miss it.

[b5blue]

I agree, 100.00 for a good old fashion TV ant. from radio shack (including poles) tapped into old cable wires and I get 34 channels of FREE TV.  I like PBS shows and also get free DVDs from the library here in town.

[Bob T]

Never liked it much anyhow and would only watch about 3-4 hours a week average, just mainly the news, or occasionally a nature/planet/world history doco

I dont miss it at all and absolutely detest the dumbing down of modern programming resulting in the current rash of "reality" based garbage be it music based/chop shop/neighbours at war/cooking gordon F ramsay/house room remodel/under cover boss crap or any other "comedy' horseshit with a ''canned laughter'' over dub.
My 8 1/2 year old daughter asked me "Why do they have a laugh track on the tv show". I had to answer " Well, the producer or writer put it in there because thats the only way the audience ( viewer) knows when to think a particular joke was funny" . What a sad indictment that is  

And the amount of ads in a commercial half hour is insane

Never had pay for view/satellite and never will, plenty more important things to spend dough on, books for instance, we brought a keyboard for daughter and would much rather see her at that than wasting time in front of the idiot box . Just think paying for it is a complete waste of money.
My wife on the other hand grew up in a house where it was on the all the time and will watch anything from in the morning till late at night, just disapointing really, always been that way.
I'd rather play guitar or work on my car or go for a bike ride or workout or a cruise or  anything. Or even on here, at least it is informative and real.
I also hate it when you go to peoples places and the tv's on and they dont converse much, just talk between ad's, cant stand it, just want to leave, mainly at the in laws tho...not at the car buddies houses.

When I was a kid we only had a b/w and there was only 2 channels anyway   but to see it on colour I had to run across the paddock to my Grandmothers house.

Off rant now.

[Chargen69]

"Burn Notice" makes having cable worth it

[Chryco Psycho]

When was it worth having
I have not had cable since the late 90s & have barely watched TV my whole life

[Alaskan_TA]

24 years so far, no cable.

I do have a TV for watching a DVD now & then.

[Fred]

24 years so far, no cable.

I do have a TV for watching a DVD now & then.

Apart from watching the news, that's all they're good for. (watching dvd's)

[TheGhost]

Haven't had cable for 3 years now.  Don't miss it.

[PocketThunder]

"Burn Notice" makes having cable worth it

[Dino]

Hmmm, maybe I should ditch satellite...although without broadband internet I'd really be in the dark!

[Fred]

Hmmm, maybe I should ditch satellite...although without broadband internet I'd really be in the dark!

Ok well, you can't go there.  Besides, anything has got to be better than dial up.

[Dino]

Hmmm, maybe I should ditch satellite...although without broadband internet I'd really be in the dark!

Ok well, you can't go there.  Besides, anything has got to be better than dial up.

Sorry, I meant satellite TV.  If I had broadband then at least I could get shows online. 

As frustrating as all this is though, no cable or dsl is the only downside of living in rural areas.  I'll never live in a city again.

[Fred]

Hmmm, maybe I should ditch satellite...although without broadband internet I'd really be in the dark!

Ok well, you can't go there.  Besides, anything has got to be better than dial up.

Sorry, I meant satellite TV.  If I had broadband then at least I could get shows online. 

As frustrating as all this is though, no cable or dsl is the only downside of living in rural areas.  I'll never live in a city again.

Same here, could never go back to city life.

My neighbours always telling me he can't get over how quick braodband (cable) is in the suburbs compared to up here where we live but that could never entice me to move.

[JB400]

Run a cable from his house to yours.  He'll never kow

[Fred]

Run a cable from his house to yours.  He'll never kow

He's my neighbour so he has the same problems I have. It's only when he's down in the suburbs at his sister's place that he gets to see how much quicker it is. I don't think they make a cable long enough for me to do that. Besides I'd need to employ a linesman to maintain it and I'd rather use that money to keep the Charger supplied with fuel. 

[JB400]

I agree, charger is more fun than tv

[Fred]

Actually, I think I got my threads mxied up. I'm talking about the internet for my pc.

[JB400]

We do have that problem of multiple threads having the same subject