No TV for one week?

[JoeP]

Cable used to be somewhat ok, but then we dropped it and haven't looked back.

When we visited my parents, I scanned some of the cable channels to see what was on. The formula for programming seems to be this for "reality" type programming, which accounts for a bulk of what I saw:
- Cheesey nondescript soundtracks
- Obviously fake crises (e.g., someone got their hair stuck in a blender and might be late!)
- Scripted and out of context expressions
- The dramatic boom sound when something unexpected occurs
- After each 5 minute commercial break there is a 1 minute recap
- Before each 5 minute commercial break there is a 1 minute build-up to a crisis
- Every possible trademarked product is fuzzed or pixelated
- Sound effects while doing a high speed rewind is required

Why pay into a system that supports this?

[lorraineb]

I think most people believe that they're going to miss TV much more than they actually do. The hard part is getting people to step away from the TV in the first place. Once people stop watching TV, the usually wonder why they spend so much time watching in the first place. At least that's my experience.