Thank you all for the great comments on the last post. Really interesting. The "I only watch TV on the internet" people commented first and I was like, man, I'm completely out of it! And then my cable loving brothers and sisters finally showed up and evened it out a little. That made me feel better.
But now I have even more questions!
I'm pretty surprised by the amount of people who go the Hulu/Itunes route. I guess it's more popular than I realized. But here's the main question I have:
What happens when you get ready for work in the morning? You just listen to music? Nothing? What about when you're about to go to sleep? You read? What if there's a big news story (high speed chase)? Politics? MSNBC? CNN? Sports? What if there's someone you love, like a comedian or musician, on Conan? You don't care? You have no soul?!
I don't know, that seems like a lot of TV that goes into the "miscellaneous" category that you miss doing things this way. But again, I probably need the TV on more than most.
The other thing is, you have to be pretty into TV to be motivated enough to seek this stuff out through ways other than cable. And if you are that motivated, you'd think that you'd want cable/satellite there for you.
Apparently, this isn't the case. There seems to be 2 different kinds of serious TV watchers: those who like to see "what's on", and those who only want to watch what they want to watch, when they want to watch it. And that second group has no need for anything else.
That's what we've learned.
Obviously, there's going to be changes in TV. But I feel like there has to be a certain group of people, like me, so entrenched in the "what's on"/flip on the TV when I get up and when I go to sleep" camp, that I can't see TV completely going to the internet for quite some time. It's just too much work, and cable is still a pretty good, though expensive, system.
On the other hand, I may look back on this post in 5 years like Mitt Romney looks back on his health care law. Those of you without cable news have no idea what that reference means.
8 comments:
I'm in your camp. We dvr everything and I don't want to watch a computer screen or message around with the myriad problems that I always have trying to stream something from a computer to the TV.
When I come home from work I turn on the TV and hit the movie channels and pick something already in progress. I like the randomness.
I have several friends that went the media pc route and they watch less TV because of it. They have subscriptions to Hulu and Netflix and that's it.
Hey there! Love your blog.
If a real time news story is truly that big, I'm hearing ALL about it through Facebook, Twitter, and whatever random social media platforms.
If a news story is big but ongoing (such as politician scandal or whatever), The Daily Show and Colbert Report (both of which I LOVE, and both of which I stopped regularly watching when they weren't available for a time on hulu) are plenty enough to keep me informed.
I don't watch sports, but again, any amazing highlights will be replayed and posted about on social media.
I do love Conan, so I was really sad when he moved to TBS and had a show not available on hulu. This is one of the reasons why I love that my roommate somehow coerced me into getting cable. Now I get to DVR Conan.
And why would I have done without Homeland?! A whole year's worth of paying for cable that we really didn't need is totally worth it for that one show.
But even though I have cable, I still don't ever flip it on and just see what's on. I will admit that I'm sure I miss some great old shows that way. (Part of a The Nanny episode got tacked onto the end of a Hot In Cleveland I'd DVRd, and it looked really funny. And I found Doogie Howser through random late night 2am TV watching a couple of years ago before I had DVR.)
I am super passionate about TV and I think I have a great understanding of what's on now, and know a good amount about old shows. I just get my information, then make choices instead of flipping through.
There are SO many shows that I love at this point - the whole Thursday night NBC comedy block (that I cannot believe more people don't watch!), Daily Show, Colbert, Conan, Hot In Cleveland, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Criminal Minds, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Grey's Anatomy, and more that it's hard to just see what's on since I'll never be able to get through what I have in my DVR/hulu queue!
But it was definitely interesting to read another perspective. Maybe I am missing fun had from just flipping channels. I did used to love happening upon a Simpsons episode.
Thanks for the great blog!
What happens when you get ready for work in the morning? You just listen to music? Nothing? What about when you're about to go to sleep? You read? What if there's a big news story (high speed chase)? Politics? MSNBC? CNN? Sports? What if there's someone you love, like a comedian or musician, on Conan? You don't care? You have no soul?!
The answer to all of these questions is: the internet.
I've never watched TV in the morning. I read the internet for a while, then get ready. Sometimes I listen to an audiobook. Big news stories are all on the internet, with a way better ratio of facts to talking heads and "experts." You can find any sporting event online if you try hard enough, but I admit I don't watch sports. Any Conan clip I want to see will be online the next morning.
The other thing is, you have to be pretty into TV to be motivated enough to seek this stuff out through ways other than cable. And if you are that motivated, you'd think that you'd want cable/satellite there for you.
I am pretty into TV, some shows are very important to me. Those are the ones I watch. I'm not into the other 99% percent of what's available, so I don't pay for it.
On the other hand, I may look back on this post in 5 years like Mitt Romney looks back on his health care law. Those of you without cable news have no idea what that reference means.
I know this is just a joke, but really, you do not have to watch TV to keep up on politics.
Hey Irwin -
As a fellow TV-lover/cable TV buyer, I felt compelled to respond. We have pretty much all the premium cable channels and we also stream Netflix on TV. What I love about cable/the DVR is that I can watch about any show I love on USA/Showtime/AMC/HBO etc. immediately and without commercials. The premium channels also have many of their complete series on demand, so recently I was able to watch the entire first season of Game of Thrones in a few days (I told you, total TV lover). Game of Thrones is not on Netflix (don't know about Hulu, haven't used that in a while). It was a chance finding since I was bored and perusing premium on demand. However, I was able to watch the series in its entirety with no commercials. This is one example of why I love cable. I also love being able to go through the guide and DVR new release movies that are not on Netflix yet. I also love falling asleep watching TV, and this is where the randomness aspect does come into play. I just found Underworld - on of my favorite vampire movies - on a premium channel recently, and I fell asleep watching it. I also love Jeopardy - don't know if it's on Hulu, again, but I love DVRing it and watching it with no commercials while I eat breakfast. I love the option of Netflix when I don't have much in the DVR, when summer is here (!) and tons of my favorite shows are over for a time, but I never want to miss Homeland (as another commenter pointed out) or Spartacus or a slew of other shows as they come out. I also don't want to give up falling asleep to The Golden Girls.
I'm a strange hybrid. I pay for all premium
Cable and spend more time watching tv than I do working. However the tv I watch is all from TiVo seasons passes or my Netflix instant queue or my apple tv/iTunes. Live I watch only patriots games and tennis.
As for random tv moments I limit those to whatever is on hgtv about once a week in Saturday mornings. Like my version of cartoons. Every night I fall asleep to football. Almost always nfl live from my TiVo now playing list, but once a week or so the dual tuners have a conflict. Like wit Jane by design or some teenage witch show and so I have to watch live nfl network. That usually makes me really happy except when they are replaying old games from another era. That sucks. I will pay for cable because I want "them" to keep making shows. Plus USA network has all kinds of cant miss pod crap like suits and necessary roughness and common law. Who doesn't love a buddy cop show? I would never have found those on Hulu, but they are so captivating that even fast forwarding trough their teasers is enough for me to add them to my seasons pass list
What happens when you get ready for work in the morning? - Internet, listen to music, hang out and talk
What about when you're about to go to sleep? Read, Internet, hang out and talk
What if there's a big news story (high speed chase)? Facebook, local news on the internet
Politics? MSNBC, CNN, NPR all have websites. NPR stations stream all day.
I don't watch sports but if there is a huge event like the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards (neither of those stream) we go to a friends house.
What if there's someone you love, like a comedian or musician, on Conan? I watch it the next day. There are always clips on the internet somewhere.
Whenever I go to a relative's house and CNN or MSNBC is on it feels like an assault and gives me a headache. I get plenty of political info on the internet. CNN always streams the State of the Union, debates and White House speeches.
I am interested in TV but I don't have time to re-watch things I've seen a million times. I follow what's new like I follow everything else in culture that's new - internet and magazine articles. Sure, I miss out on some things, I don't watch Conan anymore and I rarely see movie previews unless I'm at the movies but these things are minor in comparison to saving over 1200 a year and having more time to pursue other interests.
I love love love TV ... in any form I can get it. I have cable/DVR, which I watch primarily when I am home. But when I'm on the road, at work (haha), etc I watch online. However, I would never give up my cable and DVR. I DVR my must-watch shows (Revenge, Scandal, The Daily Show, etc), and I do the "let's see what's on" thing when I don't feel like watching one of my shows. There is always an episode of Full House, Friends or Seinfeld you can find. And if you're lucky (and its early enough in the morning), you can even find a Saved By The Bell.
I have a Rolu Box. It has a live stream of CNN International. No idiotic Democratic leanings, no greedy Republican leanings. I also read/listen to a lot of Alternative media in the morning.
Hulu has most of everything on the networks except CBS. And as an aspiring TV writer...CBS sucks. Unless they want to give me a job.
Netflix takes care of a lot of my random television watching.
As far as things on cable; I purchase them through the Amazon App for the Roku. Right now that consists of The Killing and Mad Men. But also includes AHS, Top Chef and a few other things.
If there's a big new cable drama being hyped up I'll plunk down the $1.99 and see what the fuss is about.
When I write, I put on Pandora or Slacker. If I want to watch viral videos there's a couple Apps for that. Sans the snarky comedian who may or may not be gay.
Finally I have the digital antenna, if there's something I absolutely have to watch live. But in the year I've had both the antenna and the Roku Box I've used it less than twenty times.
As I didn't respond to your first post I ditched cable because my roommate and I lost a roommate and the cable with internet was going to be about $150.00 a month. Now With Hulu, Netflix and Shows I buy on Amazon, out total bill comes to about fifty a month, split in two.
Also, I've doubled my screenwriting output since getting rid of cable and my roommate has spearheaded her dog walking business.
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