I was raised in front of the television. My mother found early in my life that sitting me in front of a shiny moving picture would shut me up for quite a while. Jack LaLane, Queen for a Day, Dobie Gillis, Love That Bob, December Bride, Pete and Gladys, I Married Joan, Our Miss Brooks, Jack Benny and George Burn and Gracie Allen, I watched them all. I also watched Amos and Andy but don't tell anyone, that would be incorrect now.
Television was free then. You paid for a console television, you got an antenna and then you had television. Three channels and at some point we got a few UHF channels. Television went off the air at midnight-ish. The Star Spangle Banner played and then you got a test pattern. In the morning there was kids television, then moms television, then soaps. You waited for the local and national news. You got to hear the local news again at 10:00 p.m. "Do you know where your children are?" One of the first public service announcements. Thanks so much for that, my parents always wondered where I was at that time even if I was in the house.
One night when I was 10 years old we were watching television in the den, the entire family, when a character said, "damn". My dad turned off the television. He didn't want his children exposed to that. Now you turn on television at anytime night or day and someone is naked and saying the F word.
One evening last year my brother was here and he wanted to watch something on HBO. Sure. I am a good hostess. The first scene was two naked people humping like dogs, really. Yeah, don't want to watch porn with my brother. Don't want to watch it with my stepson or daughter-in-law either. Thank heavens they like the food channel, football and anything ESPN.
I don't know when we lost our imaginations but I could always pretty much figure out when the scene was too private to show on television there was humping involved. Now just to make sure no one is confused it is necessary to to show people in the act graphically. We also get slow motion, graphic, up close and personal violence and dissection in the medical labs. Thanks, I can use my imagination. I don't need to see the liver or the splayed open corpse. I watch NCIS with my hand covering half the scene in Ducky's lab.
When I first heard of cable television I thought, "finally, television without commercials". Seemed logical to me. If the public was paying for programming why would we need commercials? Now that's all we have is commercials. I think we should just have "The Commercial Channel". That makes sense to me. You can DVR programming and fast forward through the commercials so let's just move them to one channel. Except the Budweiser Clydesdale's at Christmas. That one should be shown all the time.
I pay more money for a land line, cable and Internet service than I will even say out loud. I rarely find anything new I want to watch. I have more sports channels than I can figure out. I can't call my provider and say, "Hi, I want these channels", no everything is bundled. Whatever. I don't need any Spanish language programming. I don't need a dedicated channel for every sport on earth. Classic Sports? How much fun is it when you now the outcome of a game?
The "premium channels" show the same things over and over for a month or more. Is that so we can watch the same movies and programs again and again? Isn't that what the DVR is for? I pay extra for the DVR. I pay extra for the premium channels. I pay for everything that appears on my now digital television. Why digital? Because the government said we all had to have one. Suddenly TV that once drifted through the air and was captured by an antenna and a receiver is no longer feasible.
This is how I see it so you know it is skewed. Someone figured out that we would pay for extra channels. Then all programming had to be paid for to be seen. Advertisers have to pay to support the production of the programming. We pay for that too because we are consumers. SO, we pay for the products that produce the programming. We pay the people who now capture the digital signal and send it to our homes. We now can only have digital programming so you need a new digital television. Well, several actually if you are television addicted. They got us. Whoever, "they" are. They got us good.
All of this is splendid for everyone except the consumer. I draw the line at 3D. I will not sit in my house wearing special glasses to watch new and improved technology. If I want to see something in 3D I will go outside and take a look around for a minute. I should be fine.
My point to this ramble can be summed up quickly. But it is me so nothing is quick. We are paying outrageous money to watch bad television. At the very least they could not insult our intelligence or make us wish to heaven we weren't sitting with strangers somewhere in public with every television telling us what to do in the event someone has a four hour erection. WE KNOW ALREADY! On the other hand I guess it could be a conversation starter, "you ever have one of those 4 hour erections? My name is Curious Barbie, nice to meet you, Bob".
Remember how nice it was when the picture and sound just came through the air? All synchronized and black and white and then COLOR! That really was enough for me. I love my big television. It's very nice. Forty-six inches of HD glory. It was expensive. I pay the equivalent money in a year of paying my cable/Internet bill. And my laptop. I could buy a new TV and laptop every year for what I pay for cable and Internet service. The land line I keep for emergencies. Can't tell you how often I need that phone when the power goes out. Try calling from your cell. AND sometimes my cell doesn't get a good signal here. I pay for that too. Separately, different company altogether.
We consumers lost complete control. Actually, we just handed it over. "Yes master, we understand that what once always worked is now unavailable and obsolete. The magic air pictures now must be paid for. It takes many dollars to keep Snooki happy. We will keep paying more and more. How can we now live without the real housewives of any city anywhere?"
I am willing to give it my all.
Just sayin'
LBB
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