Poll | 08/30/2009 11:00 pm

Do you watch 'live' television anymore?

Read more about: Culture, DVR, Entertainment, Leisure, Television

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YES! I also have not watched regular television with all the comercials in a long time. When I do see them, they are jarring! IT makes me want to turn the box off, and I usually do. When my friends or family members say "I’m immune to commercials" I have to wonder how true it is…

By Raugiel Reddel on 08/31/2009 6:09 pm

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We get broadcast TV but never watch it, but don’t do cable or tevo. Instead, we hit sites like Hulu, rent DVDs and get recomendations from friends. If we like it enough, we buy it.

By Raugiel Reddel on 08/31/2009 6:07 pm

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Of late, I have only watched PBS programs and the local news.

By Chris Broersma on 08/31/2009 9:48 pm

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I watch very little tv anymore and when I do it’s usually PBS, CBC, sports, or the one or two primetime shows I can stand. I don’t record anything. All the screaming heads during the election pretty much turned away my attention.

By Karen R on 08/31/2009 11:09 pm

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Now that Boston Legal and The L Word have ended, the only time my TV is ever on is during Nip/Tuck season. Otherwise, I’m so friggin’ sick of being told what to think, do, and buy. I just want the PEACE AND QUIET to think for MYSELF. Even the fictional stuff is so unoriginal/predictable now.

And don’t get me started on all the trashy "reality" TV that has infiltrated EVERY network!

By Kryssi K on 09/01/2009 3:40 am

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I agree with most of the comments. Most television programs are unwatchable. I pick and choose but find most of the time I’ll just turn it off and read. Now that’s a novel thought (pardon the pun).

By Yasmin Muhammad on 09/01/2009 8:32 am

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Oh, please. I am a middle-aged, college-educated, relatively high-IQ retired professional. I have the tv on 99% of the time I am at home and awake. The joke around here is that I wouldn’t know what time it was if the tv were not on. I DVR anything I don’t want to miss. If I’m insulted by what is on, well, I’ll get over it. Maybe I’m making up for having been the last child in my circle of friends to get a television set, back in the 50’s. If so, I have done a great job of compensating. Call me bourgeois or whatever, but I love TV and the company it provides.

By MARY MARXER on 09/01/2009 11:06 am

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Amen Mary! Thank you sister! MOST people I know watch TV and several record it. I work in the TV business and have to say-REALLY? to people that claim they never watch TV. The ratings numbers would suggest otherwise. If you don’t like what is on-fine-don’t watch. But if you enjoy it-why not? I am sorry about the commercials-but how do you expect the TV station or the network to make money? If you have a better idea for revenue-I am sure they have already thought of it. Sorry about the rant-I get a bit confused by the love/hate relationship people seem to have with network television.

By Samantha Hale on 09/01/2009 4:57 pm

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I watch baseball, love the Mets, even when they lose. I also look for Seinfeld reruns, also watch the shopping channels. I hate the news these days.

By Rho on 09/01/2009 1:43 pm

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I don’t understand people who don’t/won’t watch the news. I need to know what’s going on—I check out all of it: CNN, PBS, MSNBC, FOX even, to see what’s up with their take on things. BBC news to get the view from the other side of the pond…

Being a visual person, I’m still fascinated by the fact that I’ve got moving pictures in my own living room. I’m with Mary on this—we were also among the last to get TV in the Fifties. Silly, maybe, but I love TV. I’ve spent most of my adult life working at home, and it’s great company. I won’t watch the trashy "reality" junk, but then I am addicted to "Project Runway"—I love it because it’s great to see people actually creating something. I love Cold Case, Law and Order reruns, Mad Men of course…Masterpiece Theatre…I DVR programs if I’m not going to be home. I lamented the (fabulous and appropriate) end of Six Feet Under, one of the most complex and compelling series ever.

By Carrie On on 09/01/2009 2:07 pm

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At night I deliver newspapers - 6 different titles during the week, fewer on the weekend. There’s time enough waiting around for all to arrive at the station to at least skim them. During the three or so hours it takes to deliver them I typically listen to my local public radio station, which carries the BBC World News at night. Between that and my internet time I almost no interest in US cable or network tv news. One major annoyance I have, aside from what others have mentioned, is that some stories that don’t merit it get run into the ground while other stories that are slow developing and would take more work don’t get covered at all. What’s the tv news cycle they talk about now? 24 - 48 hours or some such BS?

By Karen R on 09/01/2009 11:34 pm

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But, I get bored, or fed up with the minutia on the "news," and shouting out their scripts, so I flip channels, and flip again, and then wait for PBS, and/or BBC, or read it.

I have to admit that I enjoyed the season that Men In Trees came out, with other new shows, but they went over the proverbial bridges to nowhere in no time. If the summers were not so bleak, and full of really rotten programming, I think television would improve it’s viewship. I refuse to try to "catch-up" with something that’s been ‘dead’ or rehased for months, it’s too much emotional work, IMHO - for myself. Crime and violence has got to stop, too.

There is a tragic lack of esthetic distance on TV now, and not worth hoping for an improvement. I will not watch the so-called reality shows. It’s like peering into others lives, voyeuristic, at best. I know a producer of one, and the "truth" about them, which fit with my original impressions.

Life’s nice without TV. Nicer in fact.

By C jay on 09/05/2009 5:58 pm

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I watch way too much TV & love to channel hop. I would like to comment more, but I can’t type and use the remote. hee hee!

By Nora Kay Francis on 09/01/2009 2:55 pm

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the only way to watch television is digital recording. this way you can speed up the recording and cancel the commercials. because of all of the useless advertisements, we can watch what we want to, when we want to, without interruption.

By liz jenkins on 09/01/2009 3:47 pm

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I’ve always been more of a radio-head than a TV person. I find that I get far more out of my local NPR station and it’s wonderful playlist of classical, folk and world music than out of all the TV currently out there. I discovered hulu a while back, and have caught up online with some old favorites: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Newhart, Rhoda, The Rockford Files, to name a few. There are numerous current shows available online, too, either through their network sites or through hulu, so that will suffice. I caught up on Season 2 of Mad Men on DVD, and so on. Honestly, though, I don’t miss having TV. When I moved eleven years ago, all I had to do was call the local cable company to get set up, but after several weeks when I was settling in, unpacking, and so on, it dawned on me that I hadn’t made that call and I didn’t really miss TV! So I left it, hooked up my set so I could watch my VHS tapes … and how outmoded THAT sounds now, eh? But all the shows I feel I want - or need - to see I can get in other formats, or wait for the DVD to come out.

By Susan Crawford on 09/02/2009 11:44 am