Beatbox Giant Productions

The producers of Kinzai Ninjas, a new animated web series.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

TV Survey

How many of you guys still watch TV in the standard way from the 90s?

Namely you watch a show as it's broadcast on whatever channel you
choose.

The big story in Hollywood the last few years is that young guys just
aren't watching TV anymore
. And then this summer came the decline in
movie theatre attendance
.

Where are we going?

I can only speak for me. Most Television doesn't appeal to me. There is an occasional show that gets me curious enough to want to tune in, but I'm not a cable subscriber and I only kinda get the broadcast channels. I remember in college sitting there bemoaning the fact that we had to pay for 70 channels of crap, when there were only 3 or 4 channels I wanted to watch.

The last few years I would rent or buy DVDs of the shows I'd hear about. The Sopranos, Strangers with Candy, The Ben Stiller Show, etc.

These last few weeks I'd been hearing more and more about torrents and downloading TV shows. And what a revelation. Now I can watch the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, Family Guy, Extras, Lost in crystal clear XVID and MP4.

But the thing is that watching it there doesn't count. If there was an RVB-style of sponsorship for the Daily Show where I could pay $20/year to get a high quality download of the show every day I'd be all over it. But there isn't, the networks would rather rely on the meager fees that they receive from your local cable provider.

The way it works is that the fees you pay to your local provider get divvied up to the various cable channels. The more popular the channel the bigger percentage they can demand from the locals. But you're not paying more than a dollar or two per basic channel.

I'd much rather pay the buck to Comedy Central and just get their programming than pay the $20-50 and get the wall of crap.

And my movie going is comparable. I mostly watch DVDs that I rent. If there's a movie I need to right away I'll go to the theatre, but so many of the movies are just pure crap why even bother?

So I'm asking how many people still watch TV without the aid of TiVo or the net, and how many still go to the theater on a regular basis.

1 Comments:

At 4:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're absolutely right. There's really no point to it all when you have internet and DVD. Everyone has their own schedule, so these operate around you.

I still go to the theaters, but only to a movie that really interest me or if I like the director/writer/actors. Otherwise, I just wait to pick it up on DVD.

I also still watch normal cable TV, mainly because I live in a dorm, and at home my mom doesn't have that stuff. So just have Comedy Central on whenever I am in the room. But I would definetly pay to get the stuff of the Net, that would be pretty cool.

 

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