My wife is upset today because her soap operas are not being recorded. The local CBS channel has blocked Dish from receiving their signal, and since I have Dish satellite services I will not get this channel until their dispute is settled. I did not record NCIS last evening either, which makes me upset. Not upset with Dish but with the channel that suddenly I cannot receive. It happened before with NBC and then ABC and, while I do not understand the negotiations taking place, the bottom line is that the customer is paying the price until it is resolved. I could put up an antenna and get the channel, which is aired free, but when I pay another party to transfer a cleaner signal to my home I have to pay for the signal (Dish) and also the free signal, which is not free anymore. I really do not understand why a TV station would charge for its free signal when that distribution greatly enlarges its area for broadcast and advertising. It would seem that they should be paying Dish for the service.
I remember when the FCC allowed the TV networks to advertise for three minutes each half hour. It was a bummer and seemed to be advertising all of the time. Can you imagine that happening now. You would probably get bored with the shows that lasted that long. Trying to watch TV now is difficult especially when you get older. I usually fall asleep at the second ad and wake up when the show is over. Most of the programming that I watch is recorded and I can see an hour show in 40 minutes. 2 hour movies only take 1 1/2 hours and I can stay awake for the whole movie. Our first TV arrived when I was in the tenth grade. A huge antenna went up and fastened to the chimney. We got 3 channels. Years later I signed up for cable at $4.00 per month. We got 10 channels. It was great. I now have 350 channels and have a hard time finding anything to watch. I am paying as much for my TV signal as I do for electricity until we start air conditioning. TV reception cost has increased nearly 50 times since my first cable use. I do not have any of the pay-extra channels but now know that we are paying for each channel we receive even when their signal is free over the air waves.
Perhaps you have noticed or are using the newer internet TV modules such as Netflix or Hulu, etc. Of course now you have to buy high-speed internet, which is also expensive. Suddenly the movie theater is getting cheaper by the minute and we use it if we can find a movie that will not curl our ears with the present day language. We used to call TVs idiot boxes, and now they have achieved the name by their usual content. It takes 3 announcers to tell you what happened in a football game that you just watched. I have watched and played more football games than they have, but paying high priced announcers apparently improves the game. I just shut the sound off and enjoy the game the old fashioned way. Much of TV is the same way. The news is delivered with a bias that has to be backed up with name calling and opinion. Where is Joe Friday when all you want is just the facts.
Hopefully the CBS/Dish dispute will be over soon so I do not have to explain to my wife why she did not get her shows each evening. I’ll be glad when NCIS is back on. Maybe I can catch the shows that I missed during the replays. Just saying.
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