We got DVR (digital video recording – a lot like TIVO) last year, and it’s totally changed how I watch TV. I seldom have any idea what days the shows I watch are broadcast, and I never watch TV live or with commercials if I can avoid it. For me, being able to watch when I watch – and fast-forward past commercials – makes TV twice as enjoyable as it was.<\/p>\n
But me, and others like me, are going to ruin free TV.<\/p>\n
Once almost no one – and especially, no one with enough money to afford DVR or TIVO – watches commercials, the “commercial break” model of free-TV will be ruined. I think that this will lead to one of two possible outcomes:<\/p>\n
1) The high-production-value, high-end TV I like – shows such as Battlestar Gallactica, West Wing<\/em> and Buffy The Vampire Slayer<\/em> – will cease to exist on free TV (although there will still be some of these shows on HBO and Showtime). Only extremely cheap to produce shows – such as reality TV and talk shows – will be available via free TV stations.<\/p>\n or<\/p>\n 2) “Commercial breaks” will be supplemented by, and eventually completely replaced by, animated ads that run during shows at the bottom of the TV screen. There’s already a limited number of these ads run – usually brief promos for other shows on the same network – and they’re dreadful, distracting and dismaying. Some of them even have their own sound track, which makes it impossible to hear what characters on screen are saying.<\/p>\n Perhaps it won’t be one or the other – perhaps it’ll be a combination of the two. But that’s the future. All the fault of me and the “fast foward” button on my DVR remote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We got DVR (digital video recording – a lot like TIVO) last year, and it’s totally changed how I watch TV. I seldom have any idea what days the shows I watch are broadcast, and I never watch TV live … Continue reading