killinj, good find of a very true article. Six or seven years ago, I was a television junky. There were 7 or 8 series that I followed most seriously. Because my job had me leaving the country several months at a time, I had two TiVos recording my favorite shows while I was away. Even went as far as plugging them into an UPS in case the power went out. Yeah, I was hopelessly addicted to television.

Then things slowly changed. First, I discovered the internet and that was a new world to explore. And my favorite shows were cancelled or went lame to the point I didn't care anymore. Now, I hardly ever watch television as broadcasted. There's only two series I wish to watch and, if I miss them, no biggie. I'll catch up on the DVD releases. My DVD collection is really the only thing I watch now. The only thing I watch on TV is the History Channel or live news. So yeah, it's a shrinking wasteland. Do I miss it? Not really.

Oh, he did kinda' leave me with these "on-line devotees of Buffy the Vampire Slayer whom discuss plot points". Really, does such a site exist? ;)

Madhatter | April 30, 21:17 CET

Rings very true here, and I'll add another dimension to it. People like me, living in the UK, choosing to watch US shows without waiting for a local station to pick them up. 'Lost', for example, hasen't even started to air here but I have all twenty episodes so far on my PC having watched them within a few hours of US viewers.

This selecting shows to download means I am much more selective, it's not just a matter of changing chane and watching whats on the other side, and I have almost got out of the habit of turning my TV on.

While for me the grass is always greener on the US side (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Lost, VM, Robot Chicken etc) I imagine there are US folks who gaze longingly at the UK for Little Britain and... er...

zz9 | April 30, 21:47 CET

'Hex' perhaps? When does that series start again?

Madhatter | April 30, 22:36 CET

DVDs have really spoiled regular TV for me, I really have a hard time sitting through commercials now. (What does it mean if I have the attention span sufficient for films and television programs but can't sit through a 30 second commercial without getting bored?)

I actually do long for UK television, and foreign television in general, mainly because I'm so disillusioned with the majority of what's on in the US. The added cultural difference can make programs quite a bit palatable merely because at least they're not the same old thing they show here.

Plus, when you dub lame US tv into Spanish or French it gets more interesting, especially if you're jet lagged and are staring wide-eyed at the tv in your hotel room at 3 am.

Biff Turkle | April 30, 22:46 CET

Madhatter, please tell me you were joking... Hex isn't a poor copy of Buffy, it's a poor copy of Charmed.

zz9 | May 01, 00:29 CET

Personally I think DVDs are the perfect alternative to TV. While I enjoy following a TV series from week-to-week there are certain things that can annoy me- ad breaks, interruptions in the show's run, or severe cutting.

Take Angel for example. Here in the UK it started off on Channel 4 at 6PM on Friday evenings. It was cut to shreds by the editors, 'I Will Remember You' wasn't shown at all. By the time season two arrived, it was rescheduled to around 9PM on Saturday nights- a perfect timeslot, in my opinion, and a great antidote to the usual rubbish on at that time. And there was some advertising to promote it as an adult series.

However, it was gradually pushed back later and later, I'm not sure exactly why, perhaps it wasn't getting enough ratings, but it went to 10PM and then 11PM and eventually after midnight. Then C4 dropped the series at the end of season 2. It was picked up by Channel 5 for season three, with a decent timeslot at about 8PM on Tuesday nights, I think. Not as ideal as season 2 but still good. However when they began to show season 4 it was pushed back until after midnight, and there is no word of when season 5 will be shown, if at all.

Basically I gave up trying to follow Angel during the 3rd season, and watched season 4 entirely on DVD. I expect I will get season 5 as well and not wait for the TV screening.

Alias followed a similar pattern. It started off with a nice C4 slot, around 7PM on Saturdays, but was dropped after the 1st season. C5 picked it up and kept it at the same timeslot, but during seasons 2 and 3 it was pushed back until after midnight. I gace up on watching it on TV, and instead purchased seasons 1 and 2 on DVD, and I will get season 3 when it's out.

It seems a strange trend- C4 starts off with the shows, giving them good timeslots, gradually puts them on later, then drops them, C5 picks them up, gives them good timeslots and pushes them back later. Perhaps ratings is the main problem, but how can they expect to build fanbases unless they nuture shows properly instead of changing the timeslots constantly? If they were to advertise more and keep the good timeslots, it would only be a matter of time before ratings pick up. In the modern world, if something it's a hit straight away it tends to get cancelled, as Firefly and Tru Calling can testify.

I would want to buy all my favourite shows on DVD anyway, such as Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Alias, but the networks ruin their transmissions so much that I almost rely on DVDs.

There are some series that have a regular timeslot and have become successful- E.R. as a long term example and Desperate Housewives as a newer one.

Unfortunately it's just the way things are but I think a lot of people are enjoying TV series on DVD and I personally love having all the episodes together. And I for one can watch one episode at a time, spacing them out to maybe once a week, which keeps the elements of suspense that have often worked successfully for the Buffyverse. A week to think about the last episode and what is going to happen next, through choice, not through TV schedules.

Razor | May 01, 01:37 CET

Hrm. The reason I don't watch TV is threefold: I don't like the vast majority of what's on (Basically Whedonverse shows, and very occasionally other stuff. Simpsons was good for a long time, and Futurama used to rock out). I could never be bothered to remember when my shows were on, and plan to be home, unoccupied and have control of the TV at that time (my sister and brother both being fierce competitors for the remote, and they also talk right through shows they don't choose). The only one I watched on tv really was Buffy, and that because my whole family loved it. We actually sat down together and made jokes and discussed it. It provided us with much needed dinner conversation fodder. The third reason for my avoidance of tv is that I don't like the constant exposure to horrible mind-numbing crap (not on the shows this time, but on the commercials, PSAs and news). It's all so biased and commercialized and horrible.

I can understand the drive to download (Clone High isn't available on DVD! What else am I supposed to do?), and as there is so little palatable tv on these days anyway, yes, we crave the good BBC shows, and Brits like our best stuff. I liked the stats about different consumption- online versus TV. What I didn't like was the attitude in the article about the irrelevance of anti-tv diatribes. While they can sometimes be full of BS and zealotry, I really think that more people are still watching horrible TV than the author thinks, and they do watch it mindlessly, subjecting themselves to all manner of horrible imagery and commercial pitches.

No problems with any whedonesquers, just found the author of the article to be a touch dismissive of something that I don't think he's really willing to consider.

pixxelpuss | May 01, 02:07 CET

The UK has dropped the ball with a few US shows. Seinfeld for example was aired here at around midnight on BBC2 midweek, but the exact time changed from week to week and didn't air at all if there was snooker. Or darts. Or caber tossing.

So a quality show that was a massive hit in the US is barely known here. And I think that since it has started this way no one would ever think of giving it a repeat in a prime time slot. With all the third rate sitcoms on TV here now they could air Seinfeld as a "New" show and since most people have never heard of it it could be a hit. And don't get me started on The Larry Sanders Show...

zz9 | May 01, 02:12 CET

Cool link from the article, though:

http://www.reason.com/0308/cr.vp.why.shtml

ariana75 | May 01, 05:10 CET

Alias even got shoddy treatment from Sky One which is usually very good at handling US shows. In fact that was the straw that broke the camels back and started me downloading all the US shows that I follow. Before Alias got taken off of Sky One the only tv shows I downloaded were Buffy, Angel, South Park, Family Guy and Futurama. Now the only things I watch on tv are sport, occasionally the news and Doctor Who. I even downloaded Hex (a big mistake) and Battlestar Gallactica (watched 1 episode on sky 1 but my flatmates were noisy and the adverts annoyed me)

Paul_Rocks | May 01, 07:43 CET

I'm quickly following the viewing trends others have described here.
What I'm wondering is, when will the freekin networks adopt a new system for "ratings". Neilsons are obsolete, obsolete, obsolete.
I had a class on Testing and Evaluation (Education) this past semester. Interesting. If you consider the Neilsons a true measurement, which is what a test is, then you have to ask yourself, does this assessment accurately reflect what I'm trying to measure -- viwership, in this case. The answer is a resounding NO. Therefore, Neilson ratings are INVALID and UNRELIABLE.

April | May 01, 17:45 CET

I find that more and more I am picking stuff up on DVD with the occasional download to get my by until DVDs become available as with the new Doctor Who series. Thank goodness for region free players :) You can bet I will be ordering up the box of the new Who come this fall. Eccleston amuses me as much as Tom Baker did and thats saying something. Russell the T has got it right. Anyhow, getting off track here.

Naturally I say that and then diverge further. There are a lot of people watching utter crap and not caring - this is perhaps the saddest bit to be gleaned from all of this. Littlest Bachelor? Fear Factor? Surreal Life?

Another annoyance for me personally is that NBC (for one) seems interested in British shows and then instead of just licensing and showing them, tries to remake them and fails miserably. Oh, the pain, the pain...

Back to my Region 2 DVDs I guess :P

edit -- p.s. I completely agree that Nielsen ratings are next to meaningless these days. I also love having the ability to record with PVR boxes whether commercial or homebrew. Thank goodness for TiVo, MythTV, Freevo, MediaPortal, etc.

[ edited by zeitgeist on 2005-05-01 16:49 ]

zeitgeist | May 01, 18:48 CET

Of course I was. Acting tongue-in-cheek.

Madhatter | May 02, 00:47 CET

Last week was TV-Turnoff week? They need better publicity...maybe a TV ad campaign ;-)

Maeve | May 02, 00:51 CET

Madhatter, thank god for that!

And Zeitgeist, the reason US networkd remake UK shows is that over here a "series" is six episodes while US networks, viewers and advertisers expect twenty two. All sitcoms here are written by one or, at most, two people. And if it's two people they are a team that has worked together for years. They simply cannot write the number of episodes needed and keep the quality up. US sitcoms have anywhere from five to ten writers.

zz9 | May 02, 01:02 CET