One of our projects for the summer is to try to get rid of cable. We might even get rid of our land line, which we get through our cable company, so we’d be down to just getting Internet from them. We aren’t heavy tv watchers. Mr. Geeky watches a lot of movies, which he’s been downloading from amazon at 3.99 a pop. We signed up for a trial of Netflix streaming and we’re liking it so far.
Stuff we can’t find on Netflix, we can often get from hulu. Geeky girl often watches her shows that way. And Geeky Boy just doesn’t really watch tv at all. Our only issue right now is getting the two live shows we watch at night, Rachel Maddow and The Last Word. We can get them a day later via iTunes podcast or via the msnbc website. It’s just not as seamless a process as we’d like it to be. We have TiVo so we can actually connect to our downloaded music and podcasts via TiVo desktop, but I’ve had some issues getting that to work perfectly.
We’ve looked into other box options but we have two tivos that work perfectly well. For now I think it will be worth it to have to wait a day to see a couple of shows. And if we end up watching even less tv than we do now, not a huge loss really.
People are talking about the proposed deal between Comcast and NBC and what it will do to the business. NBC owns Hulu, which streams many popular tv shows (and many not-so-popular ones) for free, allowing people to watch shows any time. The speculation is that this will no longer be free, that Hulu will go behind a paywall. Comcast claims this won’t happen, but because online streaming sites are not yet profitable, it seems like a paywall is one avenue for revenue.
The thing is, most people pay for tv already, via their cable bill, so having to pay to watch the same shows on another device is irksome. Some people, like Coates, don’t pay for cable and instead watch via Hulu or iTunes, paying for shows as needed. Ideally, I think, one would pay one bill and then have access to the same content via whatever device you want to watch it on whenever you want to watch it. If I get HBO by paying extra through my cable company, I ought to be able to watch those shows on my computer or my iPhone without having to pay for it again. Right now, that’s exactly what I have to do in most cases. In theory, the cable companies are working on a system that will allow subscribers to log into a site and watch the same shows they might watch on their tv on their computer.
But the elephant in the room in all of this is the changing habits of tv viewers. People just don’t plop in front of the tv anymore at specific times. They have certain shows that they watch, but not necessarily when the network airs them and often without the ads. I watch very little tv myself and we’ve considering cutting off our cable and buying what we need through Amazon, which downloads to our TiVo box (for which we have a lifetime subscription). Yesterday, over lunch, I finished watching The Biggest Loser from last week, which I recorded via TiVo. And that’s usually how we watch tv. We record 5 or 6 shows and then we watch them when we have time. All of us are more likely to be online than in front of the tv when relaxing. If we were in a pay per show situation, I suspect the cable company and the network might be losing money off us. So, the big question is, how do you allow consumers to continue in their tv watching habits and still make money?
I like my tv. It’s big and it’s in front of the couch where I can stretch out and relax. What I’d like is to be able to watch the show I missed last night and forgot to record without having to pay extra. I’d like to turn on my tv and be offered that option. I’d even be willing to watch an ad or two.
Lisa Belkin reminded me that I, too, got sucked into the Memorial Day Jon and Kate plus 8 special. I must admit that Kate has always annoyed me. I understand that organization is key when you have 8 kids to manage, but she is a serious control freak. I think she’d be that way with one kid too. Despite my dislike of her, watching the show was pretty painful. It’s not pleasant to watch a relationship seemingly fall apart right in front of your eyes. Jon seemed quite bitter about the path he and his family had ended up on while Kate seemed to be generally happy with where things went (aside from potentially losing her husband). Belkin suggests that the success of the show itself is partly to blame for their downfall. I certainly think it’s true that they didn’t seem to have a conversation about how to manage their success as a family. They moved into a huge home, and it’s likely that they need the revenue for the show more than ever. I wonder, if they stayed in their smaller home, could they have let the show peter out and return to normal lives?
The above is footage (grainy and shaky) from one of my favorite John Prine songs, Spanish Pipedream. The chorus goes:
Blow up your T.V. throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your own
This week is Turn Off Your TV week, which has, as Lisa Belkin explains, has become about turning off all kinds of screens. But she thinks the whole thing is hooey:
This project also makes me cranky because I like screens. I like using them myself and with my children. Television and computers helped me raise my kids. The length of a video can be enough time to take a shower of start dinner when you have a toddler; a computer can be a portal to friends and homework and the morning newspaper as children grow. And many an important conversation — about sex and drugs and right and wrong — has been triggered with my teens by watching “Lost.”
But mostly it’s because I have come to question rah-rah, all-or-nothing statements for subtle situations. If 70 percent of day-care centers use television during a typical day, then the answer is to talk to your day-care provider. If 66 percent of Americans watch television while eating dinner, then turn off your set while you eat. If you are only clocking 39 minutes of meaningful conversation during the week — start talking. If televisions in bedrooms are bad, remove them. If your kids are watching too much television, unplug the darn thing.
Banning screens completely for a week won’t make any of the above happen. More likely, it will send the message that “we’ve done our part, and now we can go back to normal.”
We constantly evaluate our screen use. We have limits for our kids, and we don’t put computers or the television into an all good or all bad category. How you use the tools is what matters. This week, Geeky Girl and I are watching Hamlet together, in preparation for her role as Laertes in a school production. It’s caused us to have many of the discussions that Belkin mentions. I never thought I’d have to talk about how women were treated during the Shakespeare’s time, but Ophelia’s and the Queen’s roles made me have that conversation. We also have family time around the tv, watching shows or movies together. I think as long as your own viewing isn’t all or nothing, you’re okay. Turn of the tv week does nothing to help people moderate their viewing.
I’m currently hooked on two reality shows, “Top Chef” and “Design Star.” I like both of these shows because they represent real jobs that people do, but put people in competitive and odd situations. Both jobs tend to be focused on the skill of an individual and yet, both shows put the contestants in situations where their success relies on their ability to work on teams. The tension between the individual nature of the job, the competitive nature of the show, and the need to work together is fascinating. Teamwork works best when people can be non-competitive and focus on succeeding at a goal as a group. So far, this season, the teamwork situations have been horrible as people lack a goal, lack an understanding of their role on the team, and compete with each other.
On “Top Chef,” for example, one competition required participants to work in teams to prepare bar food in a truck. On both teams, the participants tended to focus on their own dishes. No one really helped each other and there was generally a lack of communication. This led to food coming out slowly or badly. The person who was eliminated at the end of the show was the weak link on one team, but it was pointed out that other members of the team should have said something to her. Both “Design Star” and “Top Chef” have had situations where the teams did not articulate a vision for their success. Individuals sometimes made decisions that didn’t fit with the goal of the group. Also, people have shunned working with certain people even when those people have much needed skills for the team. For example, on “Design Star” Neeraja didn’t choose Rob because she thought he was difficult to work with, but then she didn’t have a enough carpenter skills on her team. She also failed to plan the project well. Her poor leadership and focus on her own success rather than the team’s was her downfall.
Shows like these should be required viewing for people who must work in teams or committees because they often reveal quite clearly how and why teams work or don’t work. I can think of many situations where competitiveness among individuals got in the way of a group’s success. Learning how to focus on a shared vision and minimize competition and personality conflicts is hard, and I think most people assume that it will just happen and don’t understand the underlying conflict that gets in the way. Talking through the reasons why the tv teams fail might help people see how their own teams and committees are failing and help them find ways to succeed.
Laura Blankenship:RT @njsmyth: Facebook files IPO this week & reveals it has no fems on Board & no men of color. But it has 849 million users RT @womnsrightswrtr
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