Skip to main content

Pay TV has Ruined Television


I don't know about in other countries but in Australia I am of the opinion that Pay TV has ruined television. Specifically television programming on free to air TV.

Prior to the wide spread adoptance of Pay TV programming on free to air TV viewing consisted of Breakfast , Daytime, Kids, Prime Time, Late Night then station close.

There was the Friday and Sunday Night Movie as well as Saturday morning cartoons to look forward to every week. Then there was prime time viewing each day where you could generally rely on your top rating sitcoms followed by perhaps one hour episodes of your favorite drama.

News was always at 6pm followed by some current affairs show. Sports were always televised, mostly on the weekend during the day, with those channels not showing sport putting on a couple of afternoon movies.

When a series of anything ended it ended until the new series became available, making way for something else to take its place in the mean time. We also had ratings periods followed by the 'off season' where all the quirky new stuff would get a look in for its chance to transition to a ratings period winner.

Pay TV programming schedules seem to have killed all that. On Pay TV you get episode after episode of a series shown one after the other on the same day. You get programs on demand and whole channels devoted to cartoons, music, drama, movies, documentary, news and sports.

Consequently free to air television appears to have adopted the Pay TV programming model. Now when a series of anything ends they just rerun it straight away. You can see repeats of a series running before or after new episodes of the same series. You can literally watch up to two hours of your favorite half hour sitcom all in a row, each episode a repeat with maybe one being the latest series.

Or, since free to air TV expanded into more channels, TV stations also run repeats of programs on their secondary channels too - all in a row. There is no real Sunday Night Movie anymore. There doesn't seem to be a ratings period or off season. Free to air channels just seem to stick to reruns of series all the time. Or at least when they don't have a new season to show.

Not just reruns of current series either. Now you can watch rerun after rerun of your favorite 1980's or 90's series too - during the daytime or very late at night.

Whatever they did to television it's just so hard to follow programming schedules. There's no specific time to look forward to something new because those slots are nearly always filled with reruns of something you saw as a rerun just last month.

Consequently, although I watch quite a bit of TV in the evening, I've stopped looking too much at program guides to see what I might like to watch. I pretty much watch the best of what I can find on the night. Often it becomes background noise to whatever it is I'm working on on my laptop.

There are the occasional shows that I'll watch out for – but only if they're first run shows. I don't like watching repeats, if I've seen an episode more than twice in the same year. Nothing is that good that I'll watch it over and over. I don't even do that with movies on DVD's that I own.

Television just isn't what it used to be and there's no way I'd pay for television just to get more of the same stupid programming.
TET Life Topics:

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated by an actual human (me, TET) and may not publish right away. I do read all comments and only reject those not directly related to the post or are spam/scams (I'm looking at you Illuminati recruiters... I mean scammers. Stop commenting on my Illuminati post!).

Buy Whimsical Cat Art Prints by TET (Redbubble Store)

Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 3

Enjoy Your Favorite TET Art Up Close, Interactive, and so Relaxing!

Enjoy Your Favorite TET Art Up Close, Interactive, and so Relaxing!
Relax and Challenge Yourself with a Fun, Whimsical Cat Art Jigsaw - 30-1000 pieces. Click Image for More.

Popular posts from this blog

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...
16 comments
Continue Reading »

Kids today are smarter than their parents?

Mother's Bed Art Board Print by TET. Available from RedBubble . How often have you heard it said that kids today are smarter than their parents? I’ve heard it quite frequently in the media – even Dr Phil has said it. I say speak for yourself. It’s not true and don’t let the media fool you. Today’s kids may have access to more information that may give them more choices but in my experience, they only take in what they want to hear and still make stupid, uninformed decisions. Just like we used to at their age. Like any cross section of people there will be exceptions. There are kids that are genuinely smarter, more mature and responsible for their age. However the vast majority know everything they need to know by the time they turn fourteen. They’re ‘adult’ enough to be responsible for all their own decision making so parents should just let them do what they please…right? Just like we thought at fourteen. Don’t be fooled. Just because your son knows how to download MP3’s onto an i...
15 comments
Continue Reading »

What If Being Yourself Isn't Good Enough?

One of my most personal public videos is a collection of outtakes edited together with my narration, read word for word, from my blog post written back on August 5th, 2007 titled Is Being Me Good Enough?  I made the similarly titled video the next day. At the time the video (which you can view below) generated some discussion in the comments and was a real turning point for me personally in how I thought about myself and how I presented on camera. It took a weight off my shoulders. [Note that especially for this article I've re-edited and re-uploaded the video to Youtube because the last sentence on the original version was cut off by Youtube's uploader. The new version is identical other than I've added a title screen at the beginning and cropped the footage for 16:9 ratio - plus added some length to the end to ensure it doesn't get the last line cut again.] I came to be thinking about this video again because of my latest video diaries - which I will...
12 comments
Continue Reading »

The Lego Man - He's got all that!

Who would have thought that owning one of the worlds largest, private Lego collections could take you so far. Tom Lucieer of Angaston, South Australia, not only has met the Queen (of England) but is a frequent guest of her majesty and family when they are in Australia. He's also met Prince Charles, Lady Diana and Camila Parker-Bowles. Not only that, he grew up with TV Vet, Dr Harry, and is a friend of the Irwin family (yes, that's Steve Irwin's family). Tom will happily tell you all this as part of the guided tour of his collection, which, aside from Lego, includes much railway memorabilia and colourful anecdotes about days gone by, his achievements and more. Frequently he will finish each particular monologue with the phrase, "Have you got that?", just to check that he hasn't confused you because, as he points out, his display and the stories behind it are a lot to take in at once. In the photo you can see Tom holding a special award, which I think is for bei...
8 comments
Continue Reading »

The Truth About Modern Art

Paul J. Watson's video, The Truth About Modern Art popped up in my social media stream today. It's basically a rant video denouncing, mainly conceptual art, with a few other similarly criticized art movements/styles/techniques thrown in.
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Is AI Art 'Art'? The Say NO to AI Art Movement, and Why Human Artists Will Adapt

AI Art No T-Shirt by TET Also available on other items . Right now there is a big debate over not just whether AI art is 'art' but whether AI's are actually ripping off the work of actual human artists, without their consent, to create their images - particularly images 'in the style of' specific artists. From my own observations this debate started to get more traction when artist's signatures began appearing in the output of AI Art  image generators. Is It Art? Cool Froyd the Cat Sketch by TET. My style is very much influenced by classic Disney and WB character styles. To get some clarity on how real human artists work (of which I am one)... we, that is all of us... take influences from the art that has come before. i.e. whatever artists we like, have studied, seen etc. we are influenced by. It shows up in our work, intentionally or not. If you really study my own cartoony art style you'll see I'm heavily influenced by early Disney and Warner Bros cart...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »