TV: your connection with consumer addiction

Those people who know me personally will be aware I don't watch a lot of TV. Its not that I think TV is inherently bad, although undeniably an alarming percentage of people are watching way too much of it for their own good. Enough that campaigns like TV Turnoff Week become a necessity and expose people really do have a TV addiction problem and have forgotten what its truely like to interact with the world other than through the medium of TV or in the context of TV. Its should be no surprise that "Reality TV" is such a hit, when TV has created the very desire and need for reality experienced through TV in the first place.

No my real problem with TV is that most American TV programming is designed to sell either the advertising that surrounds it, and sometimes in it, or exists purely to sell the medium itself thus creating a further market for advertising. Since I really do have a huge problem with advertising and what it is doing to our perspective on the world, then I really do have a problem with TV programming that is designed very specifically as a medium for advertising.

Yes, there are a few good shows out there that stand up on their own and for these I would willing pay a fee to watch them sans advertising at a time of my choosing. Cable still doesn't cut it, I'm paying for the entire package which often includes a whole bunch of content that I neither desire to watch nor to have my money fund. I'll gladly pay a buck here and a buck there to watch and hour of quality programming, but $40-$100 a month of which a significant percentage goes to support some huge media corporations political and social agendas, no way!

I really just don't understand why TV channels have not grasped the potential of broadband distribution of their content. So until that becomes a reality I remain a TV owner, but one that almost never turns it on. In fact if it was up to me I'd get rid of the thing out of principle, but my partner doesn't exactly agree. Until the day comes that we can git rid of the big black box I have to be selective about viewing only the good stuff and not get sucked in by the nessarily seductive and addictive trash that comes with it. Having grown up in a country with very little advertising on TV and a high percentage of news, current affairs and documentary programming I fortunately have a low tolerance for the trash, and hence that's not too much of a problem.