I found myself the subject of an unplanned experiment. The subject (me) was placed in an environment without regular television programming for three years. I discovered something interesting. When I returned to a place where it was readily available, I found that my desire to watch was gone. I understand that the purpose of any show is to sell advertising so that said station can make money. However, in formats where people have to pay to watch said advertising, I think it is entirely reasonable to expect some reasonable accommodations in the sheer volumes we are subject to. Cable and Satellite are services we have to pay on the front end for use. Some quick research shows that the average person in this country pays around $128 a month for these services, so approx $1538 a year is spent on the service.
We obviously are not watching TV that entire time, we sleep between 6-8 hours a day, work 8, and then have other things to do like commute for 2 hours each way. The average television show length is 22 minutes without commercials for a half-hour show, and 41 minutes for an hour long show. IF you spent two hours every day watching of TV for a year, it costs you $3.04 per hour. You are paying that in addition to the 19 minutes of commercials per hour you have to watch.
Hundreds of channels are out there, and a quick tally shows that many of those are pay-per-view channels which FURTHER piles on the amount you have to pay for the fun of watching commercials. Entertainment packagers are also adding more sports programming due to the use of recording devices to fast forward through the ads. The theory behind this is sports fans watch things live and will not want to miss any action, such as it is. In an average football game, excluding commercials, there is only 13 minutes in the entire game where something is actually happening other than a replay, sideline shot, huddle, milling around, or injured player1. Actual commercial times are something like 60 minutes in the same game.
What an amazing deal for Networks! You are in front of the TV for 4 hours plus including the pregame show, and there is only thirteen minutes of content! 5% of the time do you have to provide ANYTHING of real substance! No wonder so many stations are scrambling to add more football programming.
Things like this are what make me a stranger in a strange land. I DO enjoy some sports programming. However, the giddy joy I feel in the ability to fast forward through all the dross in everything MORE than makes up for seeing something in real time. I do this for UFC fights, record and truly enjoy the fight as I strip away all the crap commentary, pre-fight preening, trash talking, and rehashing of highlight reels. I can get down to that actual 7 minutes where something is actually happening.
I have now been without regular scheduled programming for four years. My conclusion is this: You lose your ability to tune out and wait for things to happen when stop depending on TV to entertain you. After all, our standards must be pretty low if they only have to entertain for 5% of the time.
Excellent piece and very thought provoking… Loved it!
What Aunt Becky said. 🙂