Btw guys – I just realized that Military Channel is what History Channel used to be: all history documentaries all the time, except when they do the boot-camp training videos, or shows about weapons. Nice!

Lived overseas when I was growing up, and I’ve been deployed a bunch of times. We still play the “make up your own words” game. Soap operas in Arabic and Korean can be HILARIOUS!

TV sucks, and I hate most everything on it. I do watch Fringe, and it hasn’t gone too far off the reservation yet.

Not too long ago I acquired a copy of a PBS mini-series called “The LAst Enemy” and it was AWESOME. I generally hate PBS, though.

Long time blog reader, first time commenter. CHeck out Infomania on Current TV and Link TV if you are into ‘alternative media’. Most of Current’s content can be found online on their website or on Hulu.

Really, I don’t watch much on TV these days. Usually I record The Big Bang Theory on a Monday night (but courtesy of Channel Nine, it’s repeats for Easter), occasionally I watch the news and maybe watch some Stargate or Star Trek on the Scifi Channel (which is starting to turn into your American one).

But mostly if anything interests me, I set it up to record to our PVR and watch it when I feel like it.

I do watch reality TV shows sometimes, but usually with someone else (friends, family,…). We watch it as we would watch a bad sci-fi movie, because they’re usually so bad it’s very easy to find flaws and criticize. As some kind of group entertainment it works, but if I’m alone I have better things to do.

I like to annoy people who take it seriously by making prognostics about who will leave or be eliminated based on the time spent on them in the last episode, their crying scene or lack thereof, a big revelations and the message the writer wants to pass (disabled people are better than “normals”, sport champions are no better, etc…).

Still, I think TV channels are stuck in a vicious circle. They want more viewers, and reality TV brings a lot without costing too much. But introducing some of these programs will make their old fanbase move away from them. Since they have to cater to the majority of their audience, now reality TV people, they make more of these programs, pushing away ever further the first time fans.

I have seen several specialized channels get started in France. Guess what : they all died without a few months, years for the best. The programs were good, but producing them costs money and they can’t face the competition of cheap reality TVs channels and their tons of viewers when they look for ads to fund them.

@ cody loyd:

Yep, that is precisely why they show them. Still, it pisses me off that even the niche channels that were created to cater to viewers with specific tastes are now getting on this bandwagon. If some random network shows reality all day – I don’t care. When History and Animal Planet show reality all day, I get annoyed because I expected them to at least try to be true to their name.

@ IceBrain:

Heh, that’s fairly similar to what I had when I was living in Poland 12 yeas ago (give or take):

2 national channels (subsidized by the govt) running re-runs of American movies or TV shows 80% of the time, taking short breaks to air fledgling domestic soap operas, news or some kind of political debate. Oh and commercials – with everybody going “why the fuck are there commercials here when I have to pay mandatory tax for this shit if I have a TV in the house”. The translation was provided by a “lector” who would read over the english sound track.

5-6 privately ran channels running more recent Hollywood movies and American TV shows which had more money for the licensing. They also did more edgy news. They also sometimes dubbed the films and shows.

2-3 local channels that no one actually watched

5-6 British channels including MTV, Cartoon Network, Sky News, Discovery and etc..

A shitload of German-language channels that I couldn’t watch due to the language barrier as well as handful of French and Scandinavian ones that I did not understand either. :P

When I moved to the states and discovered SciFi channel I pretty much had a nerdgasm. Classic SF movies, classic SF shows, MST3k and late night anime. Those were the days…

Now it’s all pretty much gone. The only programming segment I still enjoy is [adult swim].

@ jambarama:

Yeah, I mentioned the TLC fact at work the other day and most of my coworkers were surprised.

Oh, and I don’t actually get why do people feel the need to re-make or re-dub British nature documentaries for the American market. We speak the same fucking language – we just drop the extra letters from words like color and humor. :P

Also, Americanized versions of British shows usually change the formula for worse – eg: British Office > the American Office

Completely agree. My TV isn’t even connected to any broadcast signal – the only inputs are from my Media PC, DVD player and Xbox. Any decent shows I want to see, I get on DVD and watch as and when I choose. Even that is mostly Showtime and HBO stuff. The only possible reason I can see to get broadcast TV these days is live sport. And I don’t watch any sport so it means I don’t watch any TV.

I’ve got another example for you. My little sister didn’t know that TLC used to be “The Learning Channel.” Since it is all trash now, she was pretty surprised to hear TLC viewers used to actually learn things. Even NatGeo is hard to watch; I can only watch so many gross tribal rituals.

I started buying BBC documentaries. I took the plunge on Attenborough’s Life collection – and I haven’t regretted it. No disrespect to Sigourney Weaver, but the US versions of these films just aren’t as good. Oprah is voicing one of them, which is shocking, but you can still buy the British versions.

Well, I’m from Portugal, so instead of shitty channels in English, I get:

* 4 national generalist channels, which basically have gossip, stupid talk-shows and terrible, terrible soaps.
* some specific national channels which are basically lower-cost copies of American channels
* ten or so subtitled American channels (Fox, Hollywood, etc), where the best content is the 11th season of The Simpsons, in its 6th re-run.
* 30 or so non-subtitled, foreign channels (am I supposed to learn German, French or Italian?)

The only decent show is Britcom, in our second public channel, which shows British comedies.

So I basically don’t watch TV anymore, but with the Interwebs, I don’t really miss it. It’s simply a superior system for information consumption.