TV was free once, remember that?

B

buffys

Registered Loser
Registered Senior Member
TV isn't actually free. People do make stuff, props are rented, writers are paid, blah, blah, etc... money is spent. So, a return is expected and that's fair enough.

Originally, the only reason anyone was expected to watch a commercial was because it was attatched to a show for FREE. Like a billboard, if you see it, hopefully you'll buy it.

TV was once "free" because each show had a sponsor. The program was a way to promote a product... think of it as an infomercial without the crap. They made a story and injected commercials. Thats a fair trade in my opinion.

Now, we pay for tv but... we still have commercials. Channels like hbo make sense, the rest confuses me.
 
Now, we pay for tv but... we still have commercials. Channels like hbo make sense, the rest confuses me.
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Where I live there's a choice. We can pay for it or see the regular channels for free. There are about 15 channels here that we can access for free. I've seen the pay programs and it seems they repeat themselves two or three times a day and the movie channels repeat the movies on them about 15 to 30 times a month. Most movies today aren't that good and only a few, IMO, are worth anything to view.

I just rent any movies that seem appealing to me for 2.00 a day and since there aren't many movies out there I like, I don't rent that many during the year. It's quite allot to get ready for a movie out for you have to drive to the theater, find a place to park, buy the 5.00 popcorn and 3.00 drink, find a good seat and listen to the people talk throughout the movie. I'd rather stay home and enjoy the movie for 2.00, that way if it isn't any good I've not lost much money either.
 
You know, people always bitch about the cost of popcorn and soft drinks in cinemas, but really, nobody says you *have* to buy them. It's an option, nothing more.
It's not that you'd die from thirst and hunger if stopped eating for a couple of hours at most.

As for me, I think going to cinemas is a waste of money, of course if they are not showing some rare flick that can't be found anywhere else.
 
If all the channels have adverts then technically you should not pay anything, but there must exist channels being broadcast with no advertising, like in the UK we have the BBC which has no adverts or sponsors,they are the ones you pay for i would assume.
 
But most likely it is just people trying to suck your bank balance down to zero like everyone else.
 
but really, nobody says you *have* to buy them
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I'm not saying that I do or that anyone should, I just pointed out the costs of those items so as to get a proper perspective of how much you could spend if you went to a theater. I see many people eating the food from the concessions at the theater. Another thing about the theater is that there are now many comercials before the movie actually begins. I find out when a movie starts in the local movie times listing on the PC then go at that time only to find 30 minutes of comercials, which I detest. Put the time that the movie actually starts not what time the comercials do...PLEASE!
 
I remember the promise of subscription TV. Not just no ads, but we'll finally get to see all the stuff that the "huddled masses" don't like. We pay the bill, we get to see what we want.

Oh boy! We'll have the Shakespeare Channel, the Philharmonic Channel, the Literature Discussion Channel, the Great Moments in Math Channel, won't life be great?

So now I'm paying $600 a year for TV and what do I get? About twelve channels of news for people who either can't read the newspaper or don't want to decide for themselves how they feel about it. About twenty channels of sports--at least I think so, I don't know whether people who follow sports count golf and fishing or not. Several channels that call themselves "music television" but only show music videos between 1am and 5am. Several channels that look like full-time advertising with a twist: they want me to dial a phone number and actually buy the stuff without going out and doing my own research and comparison. Several channels of really prosperous looking evangelists who aren't exactly advertising anything but they still insist that I send them my money for reasons not clearly explained except that pink beehive hairdos must cost a fortune to maintain. Several channels that show nothing but reruns of old tv shows that even the commercial channels don't bother showing anymore. Well there are a lot of movies--no wait, only a couple of of those actually come in and the movies are almost as old as I am--I have to pay MORE money than taking my wife to the theater to get the newer ones, talk about inexplicable.

So what do I, Fraggle Rocker, actually get for my money? If I miss my soap opera and forget to tape it, I can catch it later in the evening on SoapNet. I've actually done that. Comedy Central. Jon Stewart and South Park are two of the best shows ever produced. The SciFi channel. The Invisible Man, Farscape, The Chronicle, Stargate, Atlantis, okay, they usually run at least one show I love. Discovery, Home&Garden, Food, History. Hey, they've got really, really good stuff--but I don't watch it very much. Wait a minute--those channels all show commercials! I thought this was supposed to be PAY TV!

Okay, what's commercial-free? About ten digital music television channels that actually play music videos all the time. I really love MTV en Espanol and I watch the others sometime. Uhhhh, what else? About sixty sound-only music channels that beat the hell out of radio. Fifteen of them--one fourth!--are in Spanish, which I find rather amazing, but fortunately I'm from the Southwest so I feel right at home.

So what do I get for my six hundred bucks a year? Some pretty good stuff actually, but it has COMMERCIALS! And some pretty good music.

No Shakespeare, no Philharmonic, no Literature, no Math.

Whatever happened to the promise of subscription TV? Was that like flying cars and the four-day work week?
 
And not only that. But with the newer digital cable, you get advertisments on the channel listing bar while you flip channels. You get advertisments in the online tv guide. Ads ads ads.

Was that like flying cars and the four-day work week?
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Heh. Speaking of television, this reminds me of a quote from That 70's Show. There was an episode where Red was looking forward to the future or something and there were robots. He made mention of how he'd been promised robots when he was a kid.
 
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The robots are building cars and operating steel plants in Japan...

You gotta have advertising... Lots of it... So much of it that there are whole shows which are nothing but a commercial, which are interrupted by commercials...

Bigger markets...

More competition...

Even "organic robots" [that's you & me, bubby] have become more efficient, and hence produce more better & faster & cheaper...

Stuff, man... STUFF !!!

It's the new virtue -

The new meaning !

The reason for living...

The power and the glory, amen, Jackson !

Who gon' git some ?

Not you ...?

sheet...

.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
...Wait a minute--those channels all show commercials! I thought this was supposed to be PAY TV!
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thats really the only thing that bugs me. Watching the commercial IS the payment, that's why they're there.

Paying for tv with commercials just doesn't make sense. at least it doesn't make sense from the consumer's end.
 
well, I'd say pbs is a better example.

I love the bbc but if the government pays for it, it isn't actually free (at least it isn't for british taxpayer).
 
Avatar said:
Haven't turned on a tv since 1998.
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[personal insult removed]
:eek: :bugeye:
How do you survive???!!!
 
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I think people would be better off reading books and going on the internet rather than watching tv and movies, i wouldnt say avoid video games because they improve mental ability and skill.

Most of what you need to know is on the internet and in books and there are programs you can watch on the internet and you can listen to radio, so these days i think it is possible to survive without the need for a TV.
 
bbc world does have ads, sure they only have 3 that they seem to use in a continuous cycle, and they are for things we might actually want, not even cleaner. but its certainly better than most of the other crap on TV.

i mean, what happened to actors, scripts, directors? its all just stick 10 whiney americans in a box/island/highrise/stage and endure their non-stop bitching and lame songs for 1 hour at a time all so that some dumbass gets payed 500k a year to come up with more of these mindnumbingling lame and repetititve shows.

in a full week there is no more than 10 hours of endurable TV, most of which is only on at 2am, so i have to go downstairs into the cold lounge to watch it
 
aw christ, there goes the thread. I was just remarking on the unusual way we pay for commercial tv.

the quality of the content is another thread completely.
 
Unfortunately nothing one way or another is free everyone needs to eat-cave dwelling and doing the hunter gatherer "Good Life" thing is seriously out of wack with reality in most civilised places. You either seem to have to fork out (as we do in the UK) for a license or go make a cuppa everytime (neverending sometimes) the adverts appear-the payoff is that apart from the soaps that appear on all of them the beeb (BBC) is less inclined (now) towards the ratings so the material can be a bit more intelligent.

Movies, Music & Science http://www.buffguides.com
 
netTV will cut out some of the spam. advertising will become more targeted. they got to pay for the shit.
tv also used to be ran by one company (NBC). they got broken up and so we got CBS and ABC. donating for what you want to see (PBS), is cool. tv will probably go in that direction, as # of viewers becomes accurately countable and w/ targeted advertising.
 
buffys wrote...
I love the bbc but if the government pays for it, it isn't actually free (at least it isn't for british taxpayer).
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Actually, the British government doesn't pay for the BBC.

If you OWN a T. V. in Britain, you are legally required to pay for an annual T. V. license. Even if you don't ever watch BBC channels.

This license fee pays for the BBC.

And not just ownership of a T. V. forces you to pay for a license.
If you own a V. C. R., satellite receiving equipment, D. V. D. player, or T. V. capable P. C. you are legally obliged to pay around £100 per annum or face fines of £1000.
 
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