# Why is TV so bad



## Rick31797 (Apr 20, 2007)

200 channels and nothing is on.. I am so sick of paying 70.00 a month to end up with about 5 good channels out of 200.. If this tax goes through it will be 80.00.

I have star choice and wonder if they are all as bad as this. I thought i might look into direct Tv, but i am reading they are running illegal in Canada, does anybody know if this is true.

Rick


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## stodge (Sep 4, 2009)

I agree! I watch the same few programs on Rogers. The digital box is awful; slow, confusing UI and On Demand is unreliable with lots of errors and drops. I pay $70 a month for junk.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

I hate it.... as I type watching YouTube ( the Peter Green story) and paying for a dish.....


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Watch shows for free online?

I don't have cable when I'm at school, and very rarely watch TV at home or at my grandparents. I don't miss it at all.


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## bscott (Mar 3, 2008)

Budda said:


> Watch shows for free online?
> 
> I don't have cable when I'm at school, and very rarely watch TV at home or at my grandparents. I don't miss it at all.


I find the same thing but can get caught up watching shows if I am tired at the end of the day. Brain numbing. If I don't turn it on I don't miss it.
So, I try my hardest to not turn it on - listen to music or come online.

Brian


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

online is the linker site surfthechannel for me.

offline... books, going out for walks in the fresh air, futzing with my soldering iron ...


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## Rick31797 (Apr 20, 2007)

So could a person really get TV shows for a dish and link it too the TV.. sounds very complicated..and the picture would probably be no good..

Rick


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Rick31797 said:


> 200 channels and nothing is on.. I am so sick of paying 70.00 a month to end up with about 5 good channels out of 200.. If this tax goes through it will be 80.00.
> 
> I have star choice and wonder if they are all as bad as this. I thought i might look into direct Tv, but i am reading they are running illegal in Canada, does anybody know if this is true.
> 
> Rick


It's not the amount of channels, it's the fact that there is nothing "worth" watching.


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

GuitarsCanada said:


> It's not the amount of channels, it's the fact that there is nothing "worth" watching.


Yep, outside of Glee, 30 Rock, and too a lesser extent The Office, there is really nothing to watch. Possibly the best show ever, Arrested Development, was canceled, The Simpsons is VERY long in the tooth, and Family Guy has really leveled off.

TG


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

nkjanssen said:


> Why are the Leafs so bad?


Yikes, low blow! 

TG


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Rick31797 said:


> 200 channels and nothing is on.. I am so sick of paying 70.00 a month to end up with about 5 good channels out of 200.. If this tax goes through it will be 80.00.
> 
> I have star choice and wonder if they are all as bad as this. I thought i might look into direct Tv, but i am reading they are running illegal in Canada, does anybody know if this is true.
> 
> Rick


Let's see. I haven't had TV for over 10 years. That's 10 years x 12 months in a year=120 months x $70=$8400.00. 

PS: I'll be back in a minute......I just want to go tell my wife that I've been saving for a new guitar and amp combo and finally have over $8000.00 to get some REAL nice.:smile:


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## Lester B. Flat (Feb 21, 2006)

Rick31797 said:


> So could a person really get TV shows for a dish and link it too the TV.. sounds very complicated..and the picture would probably be no good..
> 
> Rick


Who cares if the picture is no good if it's crap even if it is good?

I think the answer to the TV tax is a TV bonfire!


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

Theres only about 5 channels I would pay to receive. Otherwise I'm fine with my over the air antenna HD channels.

I cant justify a tv tax when most of these smaller channels will just continue to re-broadcast the same old network feeds of re-runs of Simpsons, Seinfeld, Family Guy, King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond, and of course fill in at least 8 hours of progamming time with...INFOMERCIALS! 

Boo, hiss, for the television, cable and satellite industry.


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

The only thing I like about my dish from Bell is the number of football games I get every Sunday. I will never need Sunday ticket... Other than that TV is largely made for morons (or so it seems), so tough to watch. Thank goodness for Discovery - even that channel has some terrible programs.


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## jimihendrix (Jun 27, 2009)

teavee gude...mi raize selph on sessamie streat end poolka dott dore...

mi hoam skoolled...boob toob mye teecher...mi spelle gude...:smile:


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## kw_guitarguy (Apr 29, 2008)

We cancelled Rogers about 6 months ago....moved to Teksavvy for internet and between tvshack.net and surfthechannel.com, globaltv.ca and hgtv.ca...We can watch all our shows online, for free with less commercials and in really good quality.

Next year I might spring for the nhl.com live subscription but that would be it...

We also increased our monthly dvd budget a little 

~Andrew


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## Rick31797 (Apr 20, 2007)

So what are you watching TV on a computer monitor?
Rick


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I guess there's bad and good on TV, but the stuff that's bad is REALLY bad.


I can watch some discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel stuff. I also gt some cool concert stuff.


The mainstream sit com and reality TV programs drive me out of the room.


If not for the wife and kids I would have abandoned TV long ago.


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

Rick31797 said:


> So what are you watching TV on a computer monitor?
> Rick


My good friend Nilli in Sweden, they have their computer hooked to her fiancé's 52" flat plasma. They watch their computer on the TV. They have cable Internet now too, but for a year she used her cell phone as a modem and got up and down load speeds 4 times faster with that than I do with Bell.ca


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Rick31797 said:


> So what are you watching TV on a computer monitor?
> Rick


We can use our TV as a monitor. You have to mess with the resolution to make it fit.


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## lbrown1 (Mar 22, 2007)

I watch a lot of movies - so ned the TV (and I'll eventually finish the theatre with the projector) - but as for TV - for the wife and I - its' HGTV - we rarely watch any other channel....and the kid watches "family"......so paying for hundreds of channels - watching 2....me thinks we need to re-evaluate our satellite subscription


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Same here, we pay for loads of channels and only watch a few. Why is it that we have to take all those Fox, sports, French, fashion, etc channels to get the news (CBC, CTV) weather (the wife's addicted to it and HGTV), history and discovery? All I want are news, the Leafs, and the documentary stuff. Crime shows have gone down the crapper, there's little humour beyond the CBC...Wish we could choose the favoured 6 or 8.

We have a high definition boobtube and it's great for hockey, concert videos, documentaries, and movies. I don't give a toss about the other crapola.

Peace, Mooh.


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## lbrown1 (Mar 22, 2007)

if there was a channel dedicated to concert movies and music documentaries - I'd be all over that....so I guess it's 3 channels that I'd need......

oh - I guess we watch the bio channel fairly often too - so that's 4...there were 2 cool bios on this weekend - 1 for Motley Crue and one for Duran Duran....right after those 2 they follow it up with Cameron diaz...at which point I promptly shut the TV off....man I can't stand that actress


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

Well tv is so bad cause it's not about the progrmas, it's about selling all that crap on the commercials... Check out Oasis if you get it. it's a HD Nature channel that is simply stunning. It's on preview at the moment. There is another one about people that I can't remember the name of, but really good documentaries. Of course when it's available they'll package it up with 3 channels of garbage and bend you over..... 

I just watched a documentary on Pete Seeger, now I've always known who he is but not to this depth. What an amazing movie! I highly recommend it. I didn't know that I knew so much of his body of work.

[youtube=Option]gmBbIFY8V_0[/youtube]


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## Jimmypaz (Sep 15, 2009)

"Spectacle" with Elvis Costello is consistantly worth watching. "Aux" (Rogers 107) seems to play a lot of interesting stuff too. We mostly have Rogers Digital for stuff like BBC Canada though,, a couple of hundred channels we NEVER watch that we pay for too. Occasionally there is something we want on Pay For View. Of course if we didn't get "One Life To Live" and "All My Children" my wife would freak! (Don't see the appeal myself.)


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## Rugburn (Jan 14, 2009)

We use "digital" rabbit ears and they're just as terrible as "regular" rabbit ears, but it's free. We rent docs and movies.....a lot. It likely winds up being about as much as cable, but we get exactly what we want. As long as I can watch "The Rick Mercer Report" and "The Agenda", and the Mrs. can watch her dancing and singiing contests......I'm happy.


Shawn


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## Jim DaddyO (Mar 20, 2009)

I'm a TV addict. There isn't too much on it these days that is interesting. I wish I could just get the channels I want instead of "packages". Having to pay for 5 channels to get the one you want is ridiculous. But then, the crappy channels would go out of bussiness wouldn't they. We are seriously considering our cable subscription too (Shaw, via Mitchell Cable). I have heard (from people who have it) that getting the Dish Network (pirating) is the way to go. We are starting to watch more on the internet too. JustinTV, surfthechannel are good starting places. Need to find a few more sites, but I can get my fix of Trailer Park Boys and NASCAR races there. We can go to channel sites and get older episodes of other things there too. So it's a week behind....big deal. I do like my PBS though...Nova, etc. are great shows.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

It's like anything else. Music is so awful because there are millions of superstar wannabes filling up the 24hr programming of ALL THOSE stations. Magazines are so awful because too many of them are all vying for the same market. And television is so bad because all those stations have 24hrs x 365 days to fill up with....something...and that something has to be quickly cobbled together, as well as placate all those advertisers who could just as easily move their advertising dollars to one or more of the many other channels vying for the same audience.

In a word, saturation.

Then, there is something I like to call the "party-tape effect". Back in the days before digital anything, I would prepare "party-tapes". Sometimes they were 2hr reel-to-reel things, but other times cassettes of mixes that I thought would sync up to the general vibe of the gathering at that point in the evening. People seemed to like them and appreciated the choice of music that was made for them. Of course, the moment the tape ended and they now believed THEY had a choice in what was tobe played, NOTHING was good enough. Anything you put on was too fast, too slow, too heavy, too country, too mushy, too whatever.

The moral of the story is that the more choice you give people the less content they are with the choice they make. It's like that in every aspect of life, and television is no different. When all you could get in Canada was CBC and CBF, and the broadcast day went from maybe 7AM to 11PM, we thought every damn show was a humdinger, whether it was Don Messer, Juliette, Front Page Challenge, Chez Hélène, Norman DePoe chain-smoking his way through another news story while Earl Cameron shilled for Crest toothpaste, or those British imports like Eric Sykes and Tony Hancock.

These days, the tube goes on when it's 30 Rock, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, the Simpsons, the Daily Show, a CFL game, or an NHL playoff involving the Senators. If I'm ill at home, I put it to CPAC, where I figure I can learn something before I doze off. Since my wife got a digital box from Rogers and we now get AUX, I've taken to catching the odd episode of Later...With Jools Holland. They're all repeats of ancient shows, but they're good shows with interesting artists I've never seen live before.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

I'd like to start a guitar channel. Sweet dreams are made of this.

Peace, Mooh.


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## Big_Daddy (Apr 2, 2009)

Mooh said:


> I'd like to start a guitar channel. Sweet dreams are made of this.
> 
> Peace, Mooh.


Oh yeah! +1! :rockon2:


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## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

...not suprisingly, mainstream television is the same as mainstream....anything.

that is, strictly for mainstream...er...._taste_.

one blandburger, please. hold the flavour.

would you like another crantini, ma'am?

more coors lite, miss?

:smile:


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Speaking of great television...



> CHICAGO — Oprah Winfrey’s production company says Winfrey will announce Friday that her talk show will end in 2011 after its 25th season on the air.
> 
> Chicago-based Harpo Productions Inc. said Thursday night that the talk show host will give more details live on the “The Oprah Winfrey Show” broadcast Friday.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Mooh said:


> I'd like to start a guitar channel. Sweet dreams are made of this.
> 
> Peace, Mooh.


I think it's called CMT. :smile:


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## jimsz (Apr 17, 2009)

You could make one of these and pull in HD signals from local stations:










The forum:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=81982

Some more info on the antenna:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

nkjanssen said:


> Why is TV so bad?
> 
> Why are mainstream movies so bad?
> 
> ...


That's the way much of the world works.
Unfortunately.


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

You know I read this article this morning, and it's something that interests me very much. + Dolly Parton is a bigger than life character. But you know this program premiers on CBC cunday Nov 22 at _midnight_ come on! Midnight? I don't have a damn PVR! To me this looks like an interesting program, not to metion the promotion of litteracy is VERY important. Midnight. Ya.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Starbuck said:


> You know I read this article this morning, and it's something that interests me very much. + Dolly Parton is a bigger than life character. But you know this program premiers on CBC cunday Nov 22 at _midnight_ come on! Midnight? I don't have a damn PVR! To me this looks like an interesting program, not to metion the promotion of litteracy is VERY important. Midnight. Ya.


It's the new CBC... it will be repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated.....


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## Hamstrung (Sep 21, 2007)

Very interesting that this thread came up when it did. The old Zappa tune "I am the slime" comes to mind. 

I'm currently reading a book called "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle " by Chris Hedges.
It illustrates the slippery slope we are on. We're not only giving up without a fight we're demanding to be taken over! We've adopted the approach of: Don't bore or confuse me with the facts, entertain me! 

I highly recommend the book but warn that there is a chapter on porn that is quite graphic.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

nkjanssen said:


> Why is TV so bad?
> 
> Why are mainstream movies so bad?
> 
> ...


You got me thinking. I agree with you. All these things are bad. I should really give up watching TV and spend all that time playing my guitars. Because I know they are good and they are paid for.
I've seriously been thinking of canceling cable altogether. I can get an antenna to watch the local news and use the money I save to buy or rent what I want to watch on DVD. There has got to be much better and cheaper forms of entertainment to replace cable tv.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

mhammer said:


> I think it's called CMT. :smile:



Unfortunately along with some nice guitar playing you also have to sit through hours of new "country" rock wannabees and ultra-patriotic flag waving.

CMT is a part of the probem, not a part of the solution. Just my opinion of course.


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## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

Milkman said:


> Unfortunately along with some nice guitar playing you also have to sit through hours of new "country" rock wannabees and ultra-patriotic flag waving.
> CMT is a part of the probem, not a part of the solution. Just my opinion of course.


...not too mention auto-tune, fashion shoots and soft porn parading as music videos, and a new form of songwriting that features a rapid-fire vocal delivery that they would never admit they borrowed from rap and hip hop.

-dh


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