Television for people who don't own a television...

I spent eight months (more or less - often less) of my life thinking I wanted to write for television. In fact, I still go back and forth on the subject because I really love a lot of TV. There is some quality programming being produced, but damn-it if the most popular shows aren't usually just huge piles of shit. 

I could wax poetics all night about the great televisions shows that I've loved and lost because not enough people loved them too, but there really isn't anything left to be said about that. Those shows are done, and the only thing to do is watch them on the internet.

There in lies my own hypocrisy. It isn't just canceled shows that show up on my crappy old laptop's screen. The internet is where I watch all television, old and new. And watching television on the internet does not help good shows stay in production, plain and simple. 

I do what I can - I try to watch directly on the network websites. I don't mind watching a few commercials - at least the powers that be know that I'm watching. But you don't hear much about stats from the web in ratings discussions (surprise, surprise), and thus who knows how much good I am actually doing in that regard. 

Also, the networks always post the episodes the day after they air... so if you are in a hurry to watch the latest episode spoiler free of whatever given show is your favorite, then you can almost always find it posted within a few hours elsewhere. I don't blame you a bit if that's the route you chose. In essence, by delaying their posts, networks are shooting themselves in the foot. 
The fact is, that if you are watching one show on the web two hours after it officially aired, it is not necessarily because you were watching something else on another network two hours previously. More likely as not, especially if you are a relatively young person, you are accessing TV the only way you can - via the wonders of the internet. If networks became savvy to this, then they could easily gain the ad revenue to match that of traditional TV. But instead they seem frightened of taking away their own audience - as though if they made the episode available at the same time as the TV broadcast it would hurt their ratings. What they need to work on is recognizing that online ratings have the potential to profoundly impact their business. 
The networks should stop considering the internet (even their own official sites, as seems now the case) as the enemy to ad-based revenue, and instead focus on making a better experience (instant accessibility to episodes, for one) for their online viewers, so that we don't turn to other means (torrents, free streaming sites) to receive the products (the shows). 

I don't hate commercials, and I would much rather sit through a few of them every week, then not have a show to sit through at all. The target demographic of advertisers is supposed to be that generic age range of 18-35, well, guess which age range has decided that paying for cable is a fool's game? You can't go online on any device without experiencing advertising, this is not a revolutionary idea. If I go to NBC, I see commercials. It's time for those commercials to count for something (predominantly, keeping good shows in production). I'd prefer that than see another ad for creepy computer animated online poker at Project Free TV (which I love because it let's me watch British Shows and HBO*).

Anyway, that's what I thought about that. 


*Hey HBO, why don't you put episodes online on your website? I promise, no one will think you're a corporate whore if you put a side bar ad about Pomegranate Juice beside the next episode of Bored to Death. Just as long as it isn't one of those ones that makes noise when all you want to do is listen to (and look at) Jason Schwartzman.