<OT In the Year, 2020...

[Patti Feinberg]

(to the tune of 'In the Year 2525')

I just replied to MBs post about "Outcast", and, how it didn't seem logical that I could watch it:

a) for FREE
b) BEFORE it was on the network who was paying for the production.

Do we see cable going bye-bye?

I think we'll always have the 4 networks, and maybe 3-5 'syndicated' channels.

What's YOUR opinion?

How many of us have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Roku, and so many others?

When I'm at work, I can stream my local news for free (the boss pays for Internet).

Dish still doesn't do 'a la cart'.

I really only watch (on a regular to semi-regular basis):

ABC (that's my choice for my local news, and my daughter lives for Thursday nights)
CW (Supernatural)
Freeform (mostly for "The Middle")
TNT (4 eps of Supernatural in morning, and, if I don't have to work & its during school time, I'll watch Bones)

Was semi-regular with Pivot, but they're barely showing any Buffy anymore
Up (7th Heaven & Gilmore Girls), but, I've mentioned I'd bought the who series of Gilmore Girls in 'll.

I know most of my family watches cooking shows & some DIY; I'll watch History channel from time to time. I'll watch PBS if Civil War is on (I wonder if PBS will show re-runs of Downton Abbey). Has PBS ever done the whole 'rerun' deal?

Wonder if one of the higher up sydicated channels will eventually buy the rights for reruns (CW)?

How many people think we'll still be watching 'traditional' TV by 2020? And, that's not even correct, because almost all of us remember 'free television' (granted, there were only about 6 channels).

[MagnusTrask]

I like that you like Gilmore Girls, Patti.  I taped the majority of it, but of course, I'm usually missing early episodes because I hadn't warmed to the show yet. There's going to be a new mini-series continuing things, a few years on.

[Gothick]

I stopped watching "traditional TV" years ago. A number of my co-workers do watch things such as "Me TV" with the aid of an antenna they plug into some kind of signal box winched onto the back of the TV set (I think the way I am describing this is archaic but I don't have one so don't know just how it works).

According to the numbers I have seen, the Netflix and Amazon series are steadily encroaching upon the ratings enjoyed by the "traditional" networks.

I haven't read the post about Outcast but usually, only the first episode is offered as a freebie--you have to subscribe, on some kind of platform, to see the whole thing.  This has been a pretty common practice now for at least the past five years or so.

G.

[Patti Feinberg]

So, if I knew how, I could have MeTV which I hear about? I thought it was something which was 'provider specific'.

Can I (as long as it's not too much money) have Me TV?????????????????????????

Patti

[Gothick]

I don't know what kind of TV you have, Patti, but if you have the right kind, you can get one of these antennas that has to be hooked up to the set.  I think you plug it in and it captures certain available signals.  Me-TV and some of the other "retro" channels might be available through it. You could go to Best buy or similar and inquire if nobody you know uses one of these.

A co-worker watches Columbo every Sunday night using this, I think.  He does it kind of in remembrance of his Mom.  She loved the show and he enjoys it as well.  It is all 1970s episodes.  Comfort food.

G.

[dom]

I've seen them advertised on TV, Patti. Maybe you remember seeing the ads?

[Gerard]

I still have cable only because I, surprisingly, get it so cheap.  I actually purchased it for my parents back in the '90's as a present when I lived out of state.  Because they were senior citizens, the installation was free plus they got a massive SC discount (even though I paid the bill).  When my parents' health declined and I moved back home to care for them, the huge discount continued.  After they died, I called the company and told them they had passed (I like to be honest), but the woman on the other end of the phone said:  "Eh, it's too much work to change the billing.  Enjoy."  So, more than a decade later, I still get cable at 60% off the usual price.  The SC discount is no longer offered, but I'm "grandfather-claused" in.  When, a few years ago, I had to "upgrade" to that fiber-cyber-or-whatever thing (where the government demanded that all TV stuff must switch to that Star Trek technology), and the cable company was charging everywhere from $25 to hundreds-of-dollars for it (and lost a lotta customers), I got it for free.  Along with hundreds of new channels.

I love old, classical programming, from I Love Lucy to Cheers.  A friend told me about WE-TV and said lots of old shows are on it, so I checked it out.  All I've found is a bunch of reruns of CSI shows.  I have no interest in those.

Gerard

[Patti Feinberg]

Gerard, this is so funny, because it's me, in reverse.
We were the only people I knew who didn't have cable.
One year, I asked my Mom if she would get it for us for a year (bill going to her).
The cable co. didn't come on 3 separate occassions (we each missed work), so, without them saying, or us asking, for the 3 years we had with that provider, we got HBO & Showtime for free.

Dom, I've never seen an ad for Me TV; as a matter of fact, I mentioned it to my 25 year old daughter, and she's never heard of it either.

Patti

[dom]

I was talking about the antenna.

[MagnusTrask]

I don't know what kind of TV you have, Patti, but if you have the right kind, you can get one of these antennas that has to be hooked up to the set.  I think you plug it in and it captures certain available signals.  Me-TV and some of the other "retro" channels might be available through it. You could go to Best buy or similar and inquire if nobody you know uses one of these.

A co-worker watches Columbo every Sunday night using this, I think.  He does it kind of in remembrance of his Mom.  She loved the show and he enjoys it as well.  It is all 1970s episodes.  Comfort food.

This post is too involved and detailed to be sarcasm.  Are some of us really so young as to be unaware of broadcast television, using an antenna?  I mean, we in this thread?  Time rushes by for me like an out-of-control train.

Last thing I knew, channel 26 in Chicago was "Me-TV".  They make Svengooli's show here.  "Me-TV" isn't a cable channel, or it wasn't to start with, though I'm sure it's on cable too now. What it basically is or was is one of those groupings of local air-broadcast TV stations across the country, an old airwaves network like NBC or CBS, only showing the same syndicated old shows instead of new shows.

[Gothick]

Nope, not sarcasm.  It's something people started doing a few years ago when they didn't want to switch to cable (here it can cost over $100 a month--Comcast seems to have a de facto monopoly) when analogue TV broadcasting supposedly went dark.  I read that the govt made a large amount of money selling the airspace or bandwidth or whatever the hell it is that was freed up.

I'm a Luddite in recovery and I really have no idea how it all works.  I think you may need a converter box for the new type of plug-in electric antennas to work.  I really have no clue. 

I have a huge backlog of stuff to watch both in physical format and stuff I find online and most of the new shows have no interest for me.  I was watching Penny Dreadful but I've resigned myself to just catching up with it via DVDs from the Library.   I have access to a huge media library where I work so when I need a fix, I check that out.

The thing with Me-TV and the other channels of this type--there are several of them, one called Retro and another Decades which is the one that has run the DS 1967 marathons (it always seems to be the same block of shows)--is that they seem to have massive amounts of commercials and in some cases, the shows play stretched-out in fake "letterbox" format.  I sometimes do watch the channels when I'm staying with my parents in their retirement home in Fla.  My sister tends to binge on these home renovation and real estate shows on the "HG" network so there usually is no time to watch anything else.  I can't watch the shows that have been distorted to accommodate the current trend in screens but sometimes, they are shown in proper aspect ratio.

Me-TV does run the "Svengoolie" show, I think.  Me-TV may randomly get blocked out by something local, I have been told, and the schedule seems to vary from region to region.

G.

[dom]

While we're on the subject of retro channels and TV antennas, I'll add that these old favorites being shown are edited down in time to fit today's expectations of commercial time. And worse yet, sometimes the show is sped up to create more revenue time. It can be quite ghastly for those of us who actually remember these shows - seeing them now aired with whole scenes missing and acted by Munchkins.
 
On a slightly lighter note, it disturbs me that younger viewers getting into these old shows think that they are "crudely" produced pieces of garbage from the get-go. It hearkens back to my childhood opinion of silents movies. It would be nice if a retro channel aired complete versions, playing less attention to trimming them down and fill the void with ads or short subjects, something akin to TCM.

I've seen the free TV antennas advertised on television but thought of them as too good to be true. Our cable bill is over 200 bucks (because we got a young child in the house who lives for the Disney channels which kick us up into a higher package bracket) and that antenna sounds like a great alternative, but...I'm not buying it.

[Gerard]

You're so right, Dom, about how annoying it is that the networks re-running "classic" shows of yore will chop out at least five minutes (or more) of the original length to pump in more commercials.  Parts of, and in some cases entire, scenes are excised.  TVLand seems to be the most notorious.  Even the major networks (CBS, NBC, ABC) are equally guilty.  This past Xmas season, we were horrified that CBS (I think it was that network) aired A Charlie Brown Christmas and cut out entire scenes just to jam in more ads.

Gerard

[Gothick]

Yeah I have seen the speed-up bit in action, and I've been aware of the cuts for many years now.  It's one reason why I keep so many old shows on DVD. 

Another facet that bugs me is cases where the shows have been tampered with to make them "look better."  The only example that comes to mind is Star Trek where the old model shots and some other FX have been "upgraded" with CGI that will look even more dorky and worse, inartistic, than the original work in ten years time.  I've heard that when these shows run on TV now, the CGI versions are shown.  Because of this, last year I collected the pre-CGI prints on old DVD sets, most of which I found used at very reasonable prices.  I did see that in the latest "Blu Ray" issue of these shows, you could choose to watch either the "upgrade" or the work actually created in the 1960s.  This has been how the BBC has handled episodes of Doctor Who where FX were "upgraded."

I also read last year that Lost in Space was being retooled to fit the popular 16 x 9 look.  I haven't seen it yet but presumably this means that only a segment of the original image is selected to get the required aspect ratio, as was done with the disc release of the 1991 DS series.

G.

[Gerard]

Being ultra-picky, as I am, even Hallmark, one of the worst channels but close to one of the best, also does it.  I hate all those "Love at Christmas," "Christmas Love," "Christmas Eve Love," "Love at Christmas Eve," ad-nauseum movies with has-been performers from the '70's and '80's.  But it does show some classic TV shows.  Unfortunately, being a "family" channel, it'll chop out or override scenes with dialogue, such as from The Golden Girls.  But it also has now gotten into the habit of slash-and-hash old TV shows for more commercials, commercials, commercials.  Yes, we need to all know how remove unwanted female hair.  We're dying to discover how we can save more on auto insurance by paying more so we can get a full payment when we yack on our cellphones and crash.  I get up early on most days to go to work and turn on the TV as background and watch I Love Lucy.  Scenes are chomped.  It's vitally important to know I can cut up vegetables for only $19.95 a month.  In one ILC episode, Lucy tries to save money by giving herself a home perm and while it's suppose to be on only 20 minutes, she accidentally leaves it on for four hours.  She comes out with a massive carrot-top bush.  Fred Mertz says:  "Well, if it isn't Little Orphan Annie."  An absolutely hysterical moment and it's deleted because I need to know and give money to someone regarding urine leakage. 

Maybe if we consumers stood up to these people and contacted them and said we'll advocate a boycott against their product/service if their advertisements take away from out shows, things will change.

Imagine the OS DS coming back to TV and five to ten minutes of each episode is cut out so you can learn how to avoid insurance-rates suckers.  As would be said in Russian:  "Is outrage!"  So let's get outraged.  We consumers have more power if we use it than those who want to consume us.  OK, political talk by me turned off.

Gerard