I got my parents set-top boxes with Netflix and cancelled their cable and they still mostly watch broadcast TV, with tons of ads. At this point, I dunno WTF is wrong with them – it’s as if they’re addicted to having the worst experience possible.
They just don’t want to choose. They want the TV on to fill the silence, not to watch a show. Maybe to watch the “news”.
Sometimes I miss the days of flow TV, you just turn it on and that’s it. No browsing the catalogue you just get whatever is on.
You know the Dead Internet theory? Where like 80% of the internet is just bots talking to each other and there are no humans involved?
American Cable TV has already reached the equivalent of that. It is a vehicle for advertisement. The whole industry is primarily propped up by advertisers in order to have a platform for their advertisements. Hardly any human eyes are on them anymore, because anyone out there who is still watching TV shows is overwhelmingly likely to be watching those shows on Netflix or Hulu. But the ads must flow.
Mostly the only people who are still seeing these are older folks, who are one of the easiest markets to market to. So there is still, arguably, some value in this. But realistically speaking if you’re advertising on cable TV and your target market is anything other than folks 70+ years old, you’re wasting your time. The whole thing is one big advertiser circlejerk. I believe this is why we now get less than 20 minutes of actual content during a 30-minute programming block. Air time has been shrinking to make room for more ads for a couple decades at least.
I left live-TV behind years ago. I only consider and watch streaming services that offer an ad-free option. Also don’t want my kids to watch all those ads. If we teach the next generation to despise ads, maybe we can change things.
I don’t know how anyone watches live news with all the drug ads
Old people. Hence all the drug ads.
I got my parents set-top boxes with Netflix and cancelled their cable and they still mostly watch broadcast TV, with tons of ads. At this point, I dunno WTF is wrong with them – it’s as if they’re addicted to having the worst experience possible.
They just don’t want to choose. They want the TV on to fill the silence, not to watch a show. Maybe to watch the “news”.
Sometimes I miss the days of flow TV, you just turn it on and that’s it. No browsing the catalogue you just get whatever is on.
I don’t know how anyone watches anything with ads
There’s nothing quite like the experience of watching US tv for the first (and most likely last) time.
That your broadcast system is still up is a mystery to the rest of us.
You know the Dead Internet theory? Where like 80% of the internet is just bots talking to each other and there are no humans involved?
American Cable TV has already reached the equivalent of that. It is a vehicle for advertisement. The whole industry is primarily propped up by advertisers in order to have a platform for their advertisements. Hardly any human eyes are on them anymore, because anyone out there who is still watching TV shows is overwhelmingly likely to be watching those shows on Netflix or Hulu. But the ads must flow.
Mostly the only people who are still seeing these are older folks, who are one of the easiest markets to market to. So there is still, arguably, some value in this. But realistically speaking if you’re advertising on cable TV and your target market is anything other than folks 70+ years old, you’re wasting your time. The whole thing is one big advertiser circlejerk. I believe this is why we now get less than 20 minutes of actual content during a 30-minute programming block. Air time has been shrinking to make room for more ads for a couple decades at least.
I left live-TV behind years ago. I only consider and watch streaming services that offer an ad-free option. Also don’t want my kids to watch all those ads. If we teach the next generation to despise ads, maybe we can change things.