Television

TV Free

How does one explain to people that they really don't watch television. I have a TV. I watch movies and I do watch some TV series via NetFlix when they come out on DVD. I quit watching the TV about 18 months ago now. My choice came from the revelation that even the best TV both failed to improve my life but also managed to suck productive hours from my day.

It never fails though. Some well meaning friend or family member calls or IMs with the latest "must see" show or special that is on right now. The advice may well be good but for one little detail. Turning on the TV would make me far less productive and cut into the already too-few hours of sleep each day brings.

The future of news

From time to time when I'm traveling I'll catch a bit of TV news here or there. For the most part it's horrible. There seems to be about 40 minutes of sports and 30 seconds of everything else. There are self-promoting pieces about the latest Breaking News story from last week. All and all it is worse than watching a high school football game on ESPN Classic.

Given that it seems the same everywhere I figured I must be in the minority when it comes to what's important in TV news. Well the 2006 Future of News report seems to suggest that far from being alone my preferences register with the majority of the population.

DVR owners watch less TV

Market research cited in the New York Times suggests adults in households with digital video recorders (DVR) watch less television than their counterparts in households without. In our house it is true without a doubt. Since 2002 when we got a pair of TiVo DVR's our TV viewing has continued to decline. Prior to TiVo it was common to leave the boob tube on all evening with some educational show... it had to be educational or it wouldn't have been on The Learning Channel, right?

From Earth to the Moon

For years I've been a fan of the space program. For all its flaws NASA has an amazing record of achievement. As such I have a pretty solid understanding of the history of the space program and have seen many great and not so great films on the subject.

As a Netflix viewer I've had the HBO series From Earth to the Moon on the list for some time now. However with the general notion that there wouldn't be much new in the story I kept pushing it down the stack. Recently the first DVD arrived and it is so far from a stale retelling of the same fascinating story.

One of the big things the series did well is it abandoned the notion that the space story needs to be told chronologically. Following Part 4 - 1968 which shows the important impact of the Apollo program on bringing some light to a dark time, the next episode Part 5 - Spider starts in 1962 with the development of the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) and follows the process through 1969. This form of storytelling makes it possible to focus on the stories of the Apollo program.

Poor OLN journalism

Viewers of the Tour de France have been seeing the ads that later this year the Outdoor Life Network will change it's name to VERSUS. Seems like a silly change but it also seems their goal is to be yet another ESPN knock-off.

Tonight, however, they mentioned "tune in tomorrow for a big announcement from Floyd Landis' team". Wondering what the big news will be tomorrow? Head over to Google or any newspaper and you'll soon learn that Landis will have hip replacement after the Tour.

Getting the most bang for the buck

Once again this year GoDaddy will be a Super Bowl advertiser. After last year's controversial ad GoDaddy has figured out how to get the most from their advertising buck. Several attempts along the way failed with the network but they finally got one approved. Even more brilliant is their posting of all the "denied" ads with a survey asking whether those that choose to go to the site, and choose to watch the ads find them offensive. It is easy to guess that the folks who would complain about them will stay away from the website while GoDaddy will get many of the folks who like their commercials to spend time on their site watching more than the one they paid to air during the Super Bowl.

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