tv log and territorial spider

Yesterday, a friend announced that he and his family were giving up their paid television service and would simply rely on what they can receive via antenna — and will keep watching their favorite cable shows on BitTorrent and iTunes.

I did the same thing from 2000 to 2004, but with no TV-on-internet supplement. I’d worked for MediaOne (formerly Continental Cablevision, later AT&T Broadband, and now Comcast) 1996-1999, and like all full-time employees had gotten full cable service as part of the standard benefits package. My TV had quickly become a black hole. Living alone, I found myself too easily settling into the comfort of having the television keep me company.

I’d pull myself away from it and would deliberately keep it turned off for days at a time while I got back to living my life — what life I had, outside of my 80-hour work week, wasn’t much. At the very least, I was reading more. But it was still all too convenient to switch on the box as I was cooking or doing housework, sewing dance costumes or working out.

So when I left the company — and they finally remembered to shut off my service — I wasn’t all that sorry to see it go. I did miss access to 24-hour international news, but I’d more frequently turned to public radio for that anyway, and I had a VCR and DVD player for watching movies. I’d like to say that I was generally happier and had more breathing room in my life.

Then I moved to Oregon — where I wouldn’t have access to locally broadcast Atlantic Coast Conference games. And, the Olympics were coming that summer! I simply had to have multi-channel, 24-hour access to Olympic and other sports coverage, or so I told myself. I was the only woman I knew who chose her satellite service package based on what sports channels were offered. (Yes, last week I even watched all four hours and thirty-eight minutes of Game 5 of the NHL championships, Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Detroit Red Wings.)

But the service package comes with a lot more than just sports channels, and that’s the problem. I’ve got a whole lot of nothing being aired all day every day. I’m paying for it whether I watch it or not. I don’t watch it, of course, but it still seems like a huge waste.

A la carte service is not available because of the deals that media corporations make with the distribution companies. They’re under contractual obligation to offer blocks of channels and programming, rather than just individual networks — which means the end consumer doesn’t get to pick and choose either. But I’m wondering…. If I made a list of the programming I wanted to view on a regular basis, and calculated the costs of getting that programming via my computer rather than via a satellite/receiver, it would be interesting to see how that monthly cost would stack up against what I’m paying DISH Network every month.

So while my friend and his family are going cold turkey on paid TV service, I’ve started making a television viewing log. I just want to see what my TV habits really are, what I’m watching, and what — if anything — it’s contributing to my life.

I’ve only been keeping this log for a day, and I’m not sure I want to post the results regularly online, but here’s the log from yesterday:

Monday, 9 June 2008
1:05 p.m. - 1:26 p.m.: CNN’s The Situation Room
While eating lunch. Have there always been so many commercials on CNN? Seems to be more advertising than programming/news.

5:19 p.m. - 6:16 p.m.: Friends/Law & Order/Ocean’s Twelve
Channel surfing while making and eating dinner, and while running upstairs periodically to check e-mail.

8:57 p.m. - 9:59 p.m.: Sex & the City/ER
Post-painting in the bedroom. Just wanted some mindless entertainment to wind down the evening.

(I have a tendency to skip around between channels whenever there’s a commercial break. One reason I love my DVR service is that it allows me to skip over commercials — saving both time and annoyance.)

I’ll keep this log running for at least a week. Admittedly, knowing that I have to write down my viewing behavior will very likely act as a deterrent to too much TV viewing, but I’d still like to see where my TV time is going, and then use this to make a “real use” calculation to compare to my monthly subscription service.

And yes, the Olympics are coming, once again…. Gotta have those sports channels.

On another, somewhat curious, note: While painting the walls of the bedroom last evening, I encountered a spider that was hiding in a small crack between the wall and ceiling. Initially, it was rushing out as if to challenge the paint brush that was sweeping closer and closer to its hiding place, but it finally retreated. At first, I found this a little amusing — a spider battling against a paint brush — but I’m also concerned about having such an aggressive spider in my bedroom, even way up high.