Decline of television

Our less than 2 month old dvr bit the dust a few days ago. We had recorded quite a few things that I never got around to transferring to dvd. Needless to say we were upset over losing everything. It got me thinking though. Yes, I watch too much television. I always have since I can remember. I do other things too, but a lot of the time I will have the tv on in the background.

I wonder now if I should change my habits though. The more I thought about all the recorded shows/movies we lost on the dvr the more I realized it really does not matter. Television really does not matter that much anymore. Unless you are watching a breaking news story or something live like the Presidential Debates does it really matter what is on? I did a quick check of the top rated tv show for this season. In case you did not know it is CSI Las Vegas with a little over 21 million viewers. That seems like a lot. Then stop and think about the population of the U.S. at a little over 300 million. Now we are only talking about maybe 7% of the total population watch that particular show. Even with taking out the under 18 crowd it still is less than 10% of the total population. How relevant does that make CSI? Or any show since they will have an even lower percentage of total viewers?

Thanks to cable the television landscape has become so fractured as to be meaningless. Throw in the internet, books, games, and countless other activities and tv is no longer the driving force in pop culture. Is that a good thing? I still am going to wait to decide that. It was nice in the old days to have a limited number of choices. That meant a much larger percentage of people would be watching and discussing the same things. In a way it helped to bind our culture together. Now we are becoming so many separate sub-cultures we are becoming disconnected from society as a whole. The more choices we have the less we see the bigger picture.

Or am I just getting old. Did I become my parents and start lamenting the loss of the good ole days...

New tv show Eli Stone

I caught a small part of this show tonight. I had taped it along with Lost for my wife. I will not be watching any more episodes. The part I caught involved the main character taking a legal case for a woman trying to show that a vaccine caused her son to get autism. I cannot believe ABC and Disney allowed this episode to be shown. I am so sick of people perpetuating this myth. And I am not the only one. I know tv is not real but unfortunately a large segment of our population is unable to make the distinction. I really worry that there will be kids that will die now because parents will believe this nonsense. Autism is not laughing matter. I wish will we be able to find a cause and then possibly a cure. Until then please don't put your child and then others at risk because you refuse to believe reality...

If a writer's pen falls in the woods would we hear it...

So the Writer's Guild has officially started their strike. I have not been following the reasons that close. I don't really care to be honest. I would hope it is not over something trivial and if they feel strongly enough to strike they should stay out until they get something worthwhile. I hate when a union strikes and then eventually caves for what they were originally (or less than originally) offered in their new contract. So what does this mean for the rest of us? It means less new shows if this drags out a long time. There has been some good things to watch this season. Supernatural and Reaper have been two of my favs so far. But there is a silver lining in all of this. I watch too much tv. This will force me to do other things. I can read more, play more video/PC games, play card/board games, socialize with friends, and actually talk to people! Imagine that. Hey, this could turn out to be a very good thing...

Emmy's...

I caught part of the show tonight. I have to say it was a disappointment. In the past watching the Emmy's was must see tv. At least for me it was. As an avid tv viewer the Emmy's were a celebration. I have to say things are not the same. What a disappointment tonight was. Have the Emmy's lost complete touch with reality? From the nominees and the winners I would think they have. The fragmentation of television watching has reached such a degree as to make any award show completely meaningless. Do the people who vote actually watch television anymore? Do they have any clue about what the rest of us watch? Those of us who made the mistake of watching tonight's telecast know the answer to those questions. At least now I know there is no reason to bother with any future telecasts of the Emmy's. Another childhood pleasure bites the dust...