WhyWatchTV

Oh, and you're unnecessarily rude about this country's TV. It's not as good as it was but as long as we have things like State of Play it's worth owning a TV.

Ditto on the not owning a TV.  But I understood both the TravelingSalesmanProblem? and PascalsTriangle? at the age of seven, solely due to those shows.  Bring them back, or make new ones.  Heck, just video some other universities lectures!  --Vitenka

Um, perhaps it was just a bad patch - but there seems to be very little content on the terrestial channels now.  I'll try not to be snobbish about it, but do we really need another gardening show, another 'redecorate someones house' show, or a show named "Wife Swap"?  I think not.  The little good that we have is, I admit, very very good.  Whilst the good science shows are a good thing, and making them interesting is good too, I don't see the value in stopping broadcast of a lot of the old stuff.  --Vitenka

(In response to the comment concerning "unneccessary rudeness" above).  I dunno.  You're making a subjective extrapolation there that assumes I find that there's something worth watching on TV.  I don't necessarily contend that point.  There probably are things worth watching.  While I'm unable to comment on State of Play, not having a TV to watch it on, there are a couple of things I do miss - The Simpsons, say, or more bizarrely the WeatherForecast - however I rarely miss it to the point of thinking I need a TV.  The occasional film is all I miss, really.  And then I can always get a DVD drive for my computer.  But the big question is how much are you willing to pay to watch them?  The point is I do not find anything on TV that to my mind would justify the outlay for a TV and license.  Instead I read newspapers, books and other such things when I get the opportunity, and listen to the radio - admittedly commonly BBC radio - occasionally.  This more than makes up for losing what I find to be a depressingly small subset of "interesting" TV.  --Jumlian

That's interesting. How do people normally come across things they want to watch, and why does TiVo? stop that? MoonShadow, for instance, always used to find out about stuff he wanted to watch from TV listings in the papers; for that matter, he used to record a lot of it to tape and watch it some time his parents weren't using the TV; he doesn't see why TiVo? should affect people with that sort of usage pattern at all, so clearly there must be some other - perhaps more popular - usage pattern. What is it? --MoonShadow

Wow.  I never heard of anyone who actually managed to do that.  The more common, though dumber, pattern is: 1. Turn on TV.  2. Watch TV.  Possibly there is some intent in 1 to watch something specific, but you see what's on before and after it, and what's on other channels during advert breaks (or boring bits)  TiVo? cuts out all of that, though it does give you a 'guess what I might like' auto-dj option.  --Vitenka

Mph. So I guess TiVo? owners don't do the "I have some spare time and I'm bored, so I'll turn on the TV and sit there watching whatever's on" thing because they've always got *something* recorded that they *know* they want to watch. Out of interest, anyone know how much effect dropping adverts is having on TV station revenue? - or has it not propagated yet? --MoonShadow

No idea - but it is plainly going to drop to zero, and quickly.  In the US they are likely to compensate by moving to product placement within shows.  Here, that is illegal.  And window-in-window etc. can all be cut out by spam filters the same way adverts can.  --Vitenka

Ah, comments threads on Slashdot. The voice of the masses there.

When there are events of national importance on (eg wars) I find I keep the TV on all the time, turned to a news channel, with the sound off until I see a headline I want to hear the story for. --DR

My parents do that. I find the high-pitched noise TVs make when they're on annoying - I'd rather have the volume up or the TV off. I tend to hog ananova and the BBC news ticker :) - MoonShadow

We at Oblivion don't have one - by mutual agreement. We put the one the landlady supplied in storage, and just don't watch it. I do occasionally have the desire to veg out, but find that anime on tap more than sublimates that. Edith reads bbc.co.uk obsessively, and I'm prone to reading newspapers cover to cover whenever I run across them, so we're not too out of touch. We have Sky Digital at home, and I just don't feel the urge to watch it when I'm there. -- TI