Anybody NOT own a televison set?

eric the red · « **on:** 2 Sep 2006, 11:55 pm »

Curious as to whether anyone here does not own a televison set (is that the PC correct term for one??). I've had the same 27" set for 15 years and haven't turned it on in for a long time and have been thinking about donating the beast to Goodwill and living without one. Except for the occasional sporting event (Vikings games, Tiger Woods playing golf) I could easily live without the noisy intrusive box and spend more time listening to music, reading and enjoying the quiet. Anyone here not own a television set?

mfsoa · « **Reply #1 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 12:04 am »

Sounds like you don't own any kids, either!!!

Russell Dawkins · « **Reply #2 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 12:10 am »

Our family has a set, but we watch "TV" only when we are staying at hotels on holiday. This turns out to be so seldom that news personalities are visibly older each time we see them! What we see doesn't encourage us to pay for cable.

At home all we watch is videos (we have a great video store one block away).

boead · « **Reply #3 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 12:56 am »

Wow, what alternate universe do you guys come from?

There are dozens upon dozens of VERY entertaining and informative programming on TV these days. Maybe you haven’t heard yet but there are hundreds of channels available from something called ‘cable’ and ‘satellite’ TV, it’s an amazing invention.

I watch hours and hours of very good programming on the History channels, Discovery, National Geographic and so many others. Si-Fi is a favorite of mine. I use my DVR to record programming I don’t want to miss and catch up at all different times.

To even think of NOT watching TV is very sad to me.

The History channel has surpassed PBS program from Nova and such by orders of magnitude! SO MUCH information about all different subjects, its astonishing.

Reading is fun too but it’s so limiting. I listen to books on tape (or now CD) in my car on my 2+ hour commute each day. I’ve read hundreds of books this way, it maximizes my time since listening to music in the car is not nearly as desirable then it is at home.
I do most, if not all, my reading for news and information on the web each morning and through out the day. By the time I get in bed at night I’m too tired and/or tense to read. I’d much prefer to have sex or watch some TV (or both).

I have 5 TV’s in my house (one HiDef) and my PC is also a TV so that makes 6.
I also listen to lots and lots of music and I have two kids. Too much of any one thing is boring. Too much reading puts you in a self created fantasy world and too much music is numbing like taking drugs.

Get out a bit, experience different things – subscribe to cable TV at the very least.

ehart · « **Reply #4 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 12:56 am »

We have a 13" combo VCR/TV, but no cable. We had cable for 2 or 3 years (we got it for an Internet connection) and cancelled it a few years ago.

I'd like to say I'm a great parent and all that, but the reason we cancelled was actually to keep me from staying up late watching reruns of law and order and bad old movies!

- Eric

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #5 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 01:03 am »

I need an antenna......

boead · « **Reply #6 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 01:09 am »

Russell Dawkins · « **Reply #7 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 01:16 am »

Quote from: boead on 3 Sep 2006, 12:56 am

Wow, what alternate universe do you guys come from?

Get out a bit, experience different things – subscribe to cable TV at the very least.

from our perspective, while you are watching TV you are in the alternate universe, we are in the real one.

My wife is a professional musician, I am a recording engineer. We are both so busy (and loving it) that we don't know where we would find the time to watch much more than the videos we rent.

I recently recorded and mixed the sound for a (modesty aside!) wonderful DVD documenting a gala orchestral concert in Armenia, performed outside an old temple.

So, it appears, the people who make the stuff you watch and listen to don't have time to watch and listen to much more than their own stuff! It is a hazard of the job.

And don't worry, we do get out a bit!

boead · « **Reply #8 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 01:56 am »

Quote from: Russell Dawkins on 3 Sep 2006, 01:16 am

Quote from: boead on 3 Sep 2006, 12:56 am
Wow, what alternate universe do you guys come from?

Get out a bit, experience different things – subscribe to cable TV at the very least.

from our perspective, while you are watching TV you are in the alternate universe, we are in the real one.

My wife is a professional musician, I am a recording engineer. We are both so busy (and loving it) that we don't know where we would find the time to watch much more than the videos we rent.

I recently recorded and mixed the sound for a (modesty aside!) wonderful DVD documenting a gala orchestral concert in Armenia, performed outside an old temple.

So, it appears, the people who make the stuff you watch and listen to don't have time to watch and listen to much more than their own stuff! It is a hazard of the job.

And don't worry, we do get out a bit!

LOL!! That’s funny.

What are you SO BUSY doing? I hear people say how busy they are all the time and I just laugh because I’m as busy as any of you, likely more so and quite frankly I have lots of time on my hands. So let’s cut the BS and not use the ‘I’m so busy’ excuse for anything – it’s really just an excuse and I hate excuses. Maybe you sleep too much, maybe you waste the time you have procrastinating but 24 hours a day is plenty of time for quite a bit of everything.
I publish magazines, several a month and I produce video broadcast. The company I help run owned a Post Production studio for many years and we are also very heavily involved in the sound engineering, musical instrument and entertainment industries for over 5 decades.

You produce components for programming you don’t watch or listen to? That’s scary!

I enjoy filling my brain with information, as much useful and useless information as I can gather. Thank god for cable tv and the internet, if it weren’t for them I’d be a sad individual – I’d also be less knowledgeable.

Video rentals? You mean Hollywood movies?

jon_010101 · « **Reply #9 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 02:01 am »

Welp, maybe I'm weird , but I don't have a television!

Really, it's for four reasons:
1) I shouldn't be watching TV anyways, there is "work" to be done.
2) The neighbors upstairs re-routed my unused, stolen, cable connection into their window, rendering me cable-less.
3) I live in a <300 sq. ft., two-room apartment, and there is no room for a TV thanks to my stereo.
4) My pad looks much classier, and more retro-cool, with no TV in sight.

chadh · « **Reply #10 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 02:45 am »

I own a television. And I even have a cable subscription. But I have no cable outlet on the main floor of my house. So the TV is hooked up in the basement and has been watched for the sum total of about 75 minutes in the past month. The first 60 minutes was a few weeks ago, when I sat in the dank and musty basement to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I was also fiddling with a Swiss Army knife.

God punished me for watching TV that day, as I slipped and stabbed myself in the hand with the knife. It hurt a little. It bled a little more. It looked pretty disturbing - I mean, I could actually look inside my own hand. But the worst part was that I had to wake my wife up to ask for assistance in binding the damn thing up.

I was very nervous today when I switched on the football game for a few minutes. Who knew what sort of penance I would have to pay! Fortunately, it wasn't so gruesome. Michigan fumbled on the Vanderbilt 20 yard line. But I got the message, and switched the box off.

In the near future the basement will be luxuriously finished, and watching TV down there will be much more comfortable. But it will still be dangerous. Divine retribution provides pretty compelling incentive not to have a TV. What's more, the cursed idiot box will only make it more difficult properly to arrange the stereo down there.

I wish I could get rid of my TV!

Chad

eric the red · « **Reply #11 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 03:51 am »

I'm not trying to pass judgement on anybody regarding their television watching habits, just curious as to whether there are any non-tv owners here. So far we have one confirmed yes...I just find televison in general kind of boring no matter how may channels are available. I do find it kind of humorous though that in order to switch from CBS to NBC or FOX, I have to go up on my roof and rotate my antenna.

boead · « **Reply #12 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 04:13 am »

Quote from: eric the red on 3 Sep 2006, 03:51 am

I'm not trying to pass judgement on anybody regarding their television watching habits, just curious as to whether there are any non-tv owners here. So far we have one confirmed yes...I just find televison in general kind of boring no matter how may channels are available. I do find it kind of humorous though that in order to switch from CBS to NBC or FOX, I have to go up on my roof and rotate my antenna.

Well I can see why you find TV boring. If I had only 13 channels of shit to choose from I’d feel the same way. And from what you said, it sounds like you have just 3.

Have you had cable or satellite TV in the last few years? It doesn’t sound like it if you have to climb out on the roof of your house just to switch between three main-stream network channels.

And Chad, the cursed idiot box can be gotten rid of. Just call the Salvation Army or your local charity and from your escapades with the Swiss army knife I’d consider hiring someone to build your luxurious basement entertainment room.

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #13 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 04:27 am »

July 1, 1941.......TV went downhill.....

Now cable's in the act as well, more freakin' commercials......

boead · « **Reply #14 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 04:56 am »

Well I’m likely bias considering that my income is mostly dependent on advertising dollars but have you considered who pays for the programming?
Public TV works on donations, they can’t afford to produce their own programming, not in a long shot and so they buy programming and get deals on much because they are non profit organizations. Its like communism, its good at first and for the short run but ultimately it falls way short.
So quality programming requires lots and lots of money. And were do you think that money is coming from? Certainly not from you! It requires the $$ from advertisers willing to spend enormous amounts of money just for the chance that a small percentage of the viewing public (you know the ones watching for free), might buy their product.
Now if you say TV isn’t free, well you might be right to a small extent but also consider the fact that you don’t have to have an antenna on your roof and you don’t have to climb up on it a turn it this way and that way. You don’t have to look at static and our neighborhoods aren’t littered with ugly roof antennas and broadcasting towers. Cable also brings you a multitude of services and possibilities that your antenna can’t possibly come close too, like broadband internet and HiDefinition TV as well as on demand movies and programming. For the price of a nice lunch and a beer, you can get 50 or more channels of quality broadcast per month and you don’t’ have to buy an antenna or a tuner. And because of advertising dollars, programming is quality – ultimately surpassing Hollywood.

I really thought this forum was home to smarter thinking posters but I can see that’s not really the case. Sad.

eric the red · « **Reply #15 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 05:24 am »

Quote from: boead on 3 Sep 2006, 04:56 am

Well I’m likely bias considering that my income is mostly dependent on advertising dollars but have you considered who pays for the programming?
Public TV works on donations, they can’t afford to produce their own programming, not in a long shot and so they buy programming and get deals on much because they are non profit organizations. Its like communism, its good at first and for the short run but ultimately it falls way short.
So quality programming requires lots and lots of money. And were do you think that money is coming from? Certainly not from you! It requires the $$ from advertisers willing to spend enormous amounts of money just for the chance that a small percentage of the viewing public (you know the ones watching for free), might buy their product.
Now if you say TV isn’t free, well you might be right to a small extent but also consider the fact that you don’t have to have an antenna on your roof and you don’t have to climb up on it a turn it this way and that way. You don’t have to look at static and our neighborhoods aren’t littered with ugly roof antennas and broadcasting towers. Cable also brings you a multitude of services and possibilities that your antenna can’t possibly come close too, like broadband internet and HiDefinition TV as well as on demand movies and programming. For the price of a nice lunch and a beer, you can get 50 or more channels of quality broadcast per month and you don’t’ have to buy an antenna or a tuner. And because of advertising dollars, programming is quality – ultimately surpassing Hollywood.

I really thought this forum was home to smarter thinking posters but I can see that’s not really the case. Sad.

Because some of us find television boring and prefer to spend our time pursuing other interests instead of watching the box we are not smart thinking? Interesting logic. I live in hotels 3 weeks out of every month for my job and have access to all that quality programming in my rooms, yet each time I turn it on I feel like whoever is producing 99% of the programs out there is taking me for an idiot.

moray james · « **Reply #16 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 06:00 am »

have not owned a TV since 10 years past. Regards Moray James.

JohnR · « **Reply #17 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 12:52 pm »

I don't own a TV...

Wayner · « **Reply #18 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 02:39 pm »

TV is IMHO the single cause of the destruction of our society as it slides today. Programs like NBC Slightly News has caused the largest riff between the GOP, DFL and the American people. There is no common ground. The little reporters rewrite the news to fit an agenda. Big Brother is here, but it is not the government, it's the news networks. This crap has got to stop. United we stand, divided we fall!

As far as crying for National Public Television, give me a break. They own the finest facilities across the U.S. and are state of the art in all of them including radio. In my area, they are broadcasting in 6 HI-Definition TV channels. They are also heavily funded by the Federal Government and tax reducing payments from large corporations. Do you think companies give to Public Television 'cause it makes them "feel good"? They are wealthier than any private corporation.

I might as well blast the entire news industry here as I will never look at a Times mag or any mag ever again! Radio has also fallen to new lows. Our local Misleader new paper is another example of creative writing. There is no news, only stories mostly made up or so heavily edited, the meaning has changed.

If you don't own a TV or don't watch, you are very, very lucky.

TV = Enemy #1

john1970 · « **Reply #19 on:** 3 Sep 2006, 03:24 pm »

I own a 34" Panasonic CRT HDTV monitor. The set is very small realative to my speakers (VMPS RM40s), but I don't watch too much TV anyway. I also subscribe to Netflix so for ~$18/month I get to watch ~ 10 to 12 movies. I only get basic cable which is ~$12 / month.

I also have the stereo system combined with a mid-end HT system (Marantz SR4500, Infinity Beta center channel, Bose in-wall surround speakers, and SVS PB10 ISD sub). In the near future, I will have the RM40s upgraded to external xovers, but this is ~1 month away.

Best,

John