Maybe the general audience are too apathetic to care about such niceties, I don't know.
Misse said:
Casinos, with very few exceptions, do not have publicly displayed clocks, and are designed to limit an awareness and contact with the outside world. Intensively farmed chickens live on an accelerated lighting and feeding program to increase food consumption.
If TV program controllers do not advertise a specific showing, how can they possibly transmit the wrong episode? There have been instances (the technology has changed, so this was in the past) of segments being shown out of order, or even from different episodes.
The medium has become a massage, so the literal content of the medium no longer has to make sense.
In the USA there is a growing tendency to show repeats interleaved with episodes from the current series. Even quality channels operate an around the clock carousel schedule, so that without stern self discipline a viewer can become a bloated, indiscriminate consumer.
The broadcasters also heighten this discontinuity and sense of being in the zone and spaced out by blurring the start and finish of segments. Gone are the Reithian days of someone in a dinner jacket or pretty frock announcing the schedule. Opening titles have been largely abandoned, and closing credits are often sandwiched between two doses of advertising.
I have friends who work in the television industry. One described his job as a supplier of moving wallpaper and mental chewing gum.
It's not all bad. I can comfortably walk through casinos (the noise is sometimes a problem, although in recent years the levels have gone down) and enjoy an hour's people watching. Engaging people in conversation is harder, their attention is elsewhere. I would like to take pix, but it is forbidden. I have mastered the mathematics of games of chance, but I have never been clever enough enough to figure out the mechanics of participating. Thus casinos are a safe place for me to shamble around, and I never carry money anyway.
TV is a harder call. An iron will is required. Selecting, and then finding programs to watch, is a Sisyphian task. I have no problems turning the TV off. I just wish the broadcasters would make it more tempting for me to turn it on. Contrary to the impression I may have unintentionally created, I think there is a wealth of engaging, rewarding, and thoroughly enjoyable entertainment and information awaiting.
That's how I feel. Because occasionally I do find it. But they make it so hard to find!
11 comments:
They want you to watch.
They don't care if you've seen it before. They don't care if you have it on DVD. They don't care if you're seeing it out of sequence. They want you to watch this airing. (Especially if you're watching commercial TV. If you're watching the BBC, maybe they just don't want to feel that they're shouting into the void when they air the program.)
Casinos, with very few exceptions, do not have publicly displayed clocks, and are designed to limit an awareness and contact with the outside world. Intensively farmed chickens live on an accelerated lighting and feeding program to increase food consumption.
If TV program controllers do not advertise a specific showing, how can they possibly transmit the wrong episode? There have been instances (the technology has changed, so this was in the past) of segments being shown out of order, or even from different episodes.
The medium has become a massage, so the literal content of the medium no longer has to make sense.
In the USA there is a growing tendency to show repeats interleaved with episodes from the current series. Even quality channels operate an around the clock carousel schedule, so that without stern self discipline a viewer can become a bloated, indiscriminate consumer.
The broadcasters also heighten this discontinuity and sense of being in the zone and spaced out by blurring the start and finish of segments. Gone are the Reithian days of someone in a dinner jacket or pretty frock announcing the schedule. Opening titles have been largely abandoned, and closing credits are often sandwiched between two doses of advertising.
I have friends who work in the television industry. One described his job as a supplier of moving wallpaper and mental chewing gum.
It's not all bad. I can comfortably walk through casinos (the noise is sometimes a problem, although in recent years the levels have gone down) and enjoy an hour's people watching. Engaging people in conversation is harder, their attention is elsewhere. I would like to take pix, but it is forbidden. I have mastered the mathematics of games of chance, but I have never been clever enough enough to figure out the mechanics of participating. Thus casinos are a safe place for me to shamble around, and I never carry money anyway.
TV is a harder call. An iron will is required. Selecting, and then finding programs to watch, is a Sisyphian task. I have no problems turning the TV off. I just wish the broadcasters would make it more tempting for me to turn it on. Contrary to the impression I may have unintentionally created, I think there is a wealth of engaging, rewarding, and thoroughly enjoyable entertainment and information awaiting.
That's how I feel. Because occasionally I do find it. But they make it so hard to find!
Here in the States: I am DishNetwork subscriber, and part of EPG (Electronic Program guide) is when the show was first aired (for movies, it's usially 01-01-xxxx, for series, it's actual air date). For series, it also includes an episode number, so my DVR knows whether a particular airing is new or repeat.
I suppose other sat / cable providers' EPG carries on similar information.
I haven't turned my TV on since I tested to make sure the cable subscription (required for my internet to work) actually did as it was supposed to. I think that was November...
Good for you.
I only watch Scrubs, anything else is too often a waste of time :-)
Some shows are produced with so little time that when something wrong happens in the production line, the broadcaster is forced to show repeats.
Luckily this does not happen in my country where all foreign products are dubbed, so we watch them when they are old in the rest of the world :-)
Good for you.
How so?
in my country where all foreign products are dubbed
Even though I don't understand it, I sometimes will watch Family Guy dubbed in German.
Three cheers for the Netherlands, where only kids stuff is dubbed! :)
Yes, I love that about Scandinavia also. I don't think the other countries understand how important it is for learning English, or perhaps how important it is *to* learn English.
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