I was reading through an article on televisionwithoutpity.com about which shows to watch live (watching as it is being broadcast) and which ones to DVR (and which ones to skip altogether or wait for the DVD), which got me thinking…do any of you who have a DVR and know how to use it still watch live TV? Is it on purpose (i.e. are there certain shows that for some reason you need to see immediately, despite having to sit through commercial breaks?) or is it just out of boredom - and if the latter, how could you have a DVR and NOT have plenty of recorded stuff to watch, forcing you to flip through channels?
I myself have not watched a “live” show in YEARS (unless you count occasionally putting on the news, which I guess would be the one genre that is DVR-proof) and thus haven’t even seen a commercial in years. Actually, a part of me is feeling like I am missing out on a part of society (and all of those favorite/least favorite commercial threads) by doing so, but having a 1 hour show only take up 42 minutes of my day makes it worth it. And as a daily mass transit rider, I still get to see the movie posters.
Even when we are watching a show around airtime, we’ll start around 15 minutes late, so we’ll buzz through the commercials, allowing us to slowly catch up with the show until both it and our viewing of it end around the same time.
I’m finding more and more that I miss watching live tv. Not network broadcasts; those I always dvr without fail. But sometimes I like to just sit around and flip through the basic cable channels, back and forth between two or three watchable shows whenever the current one hits commercials. Particularly USA, TNT, TBS, Spike, History Channel, Comedy Central, E! and VH1. I used to watch a lot more of those channels before I got the DVR. I’ve recently started doing this again, but I feel guilty because my DVR is usually at around 80% full.
Other than sports events, all stuff I actually want to watch is DVRed. By “want to watch” I mean stuff I’m aware that I want to watch it before it airs.
One thing that annoys me about the dvr is that half of what I tape is stuff I want to have seen, but never seem to be in the mood to actually watch it.
Of all the shows I watch regularly I watch them not live off the DVR. But even when I have a lot of stuff on the DVR there will be times I don’t feel like watching any of it and will channel surf. I also will leave live TV on as background noise while web surfing. But yeah, no show that I watch regularly is watched live.
OTOH, unlike most DVR people, I don’t fast forward through the commercials.
I DVR news - I watch “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” and the “Rachel Maddow Show” (I’m a big leftie) and watch both of those every evening, zapping commercials. I also DVR a huge bunch of other stuff that I’ll watch whenever I want, although a lot of it gets deleted unwatched.
We watch almost nothing live…actually, that is not true - we don’t watch “almost” nothing, we watch “nothing” live. Even if it is a show I want to see NOW, I will put the DVR on pause, go get something to drink, empty the dishwasher, whatever…then I come in after it is at least 15 minutes underway and start watching. That way I can zap through the commercials.
Some shows, like American Idol, or America’s Got Talent, are unbearable to watch live…with DVR you can see an hour show in about 10 minutes or less, minus the inane pauses for dramatic effect and the stupid back stories.
Even the nightly news…will start watching and when the first commercial shows up, I put it on pause and go do something else for about 10 minutes and come back to watch the entire newscast, without commercials.
I am sure advertisers hate me…although I have to admit, they are getting cleverer…now they will have the name of the product at the bottom of the screen the entire commercial, so even when you fast forward, you can see the name of the product.
I don’t even watch sports live. I’ll set it to record, then start watching 30 minutes late, skip the opening crap and the commercials, take a break at half-time, watch the commentary if I feel like it, zoom to the end, pick it up at overtime if any.
Regular shows? Never watch live. News? Same as others, leave the channel on, do other stuff, watch until caught up to real time, do other stuff, rinse, repeat.
I always make sure to find a way to watch Lost live. I can’t stand the idea of something happening and the rest of the world knowing about it before I do (I’m in the Eastern time zone, so yay!)
I also watch college and NFL football live. Baseball for me is almost 100% radio anymore.
I don’t have a DVR, but I regularly use Comcast’s On Demand. For those of you not familiar with it, it works basically like a DVR except there is a menu of shows that you can choose from instead of deciding what to record yourself. Almost all of the shows are free.* There’s a good selection of prime-time type stuff, though you usually can only access the previous few episodes. (Unless they’re promoting a new season, in which case they’ll often put the whole previous season on the menu so you can do your own marathon.) There are commercials, but they are usually only short promos for some other show on the network.
To answer the question–almost none. I don’t watch very much TV anyway, though I’ve been watching more the last month or so because some favorite shows are airing new episodes. The only thing I really watch live are random old Law & Order episodes, and I usually only watch those if I’m out of new episodes of my favorite On Demand shows.
I was never a channel-flipper and I love the fact that I can pause a show and/or rewind if I miss something. It makes TV watching so much less…stressful? I also like the fact that watching a show takes less than a full hour.
I barely even know when shows air live anymore because I don’t need to. There are some reality shows I liked to see ASAP because I like the online discussion of them which starts up immediately after the show airs. But even that is falling by the wayside.
And I’m completely out of the habit of considering the time when I want to watch TV! At this point, it sounds really annoying to have to pay attention to the clock instead of sitting down in front of the idiot box whenever I’m good and ready. If the time is not convenient, I watch it later.
I’d find it very hard to go back to watching TV the old-fashioned way.
NBC charges 99 cents for most of their shows. Why do they do it when nobody else seems to?
I’m as guilty as everyone else. I hate commercials. I’ll watch sports and news live, but that’s it. The only time I watch anything else live is when I am desperate, and the DVR only has Dora the Explorer on it. Then, I still click the fast forward button when it comes to commercials; only to receive the cruel “LIVE TV” popup.
It is funny. My children seem to not understand why they put commercials on TV if people just fast forward through them. Live TV offends them.
You knew that was coming! As soon as I got a DVR, I wondered how long before there was a commercial within the commercial at the bottom for fast forwarders. Like a flip book commercial. Face it. Either they will find a way to get us or free television will disappear or change dramatically.
Because no one is watching the commercials in their live broadcasts! NBC is the first, but they will not be the last. The era of free television on the Internet and ppv menus will probably end soon. There has been much debate about trying to get the genie back in the bottle; whether TV or online newspapers.
I understand the dilemma. I stopped doing illegal downloads, because I felt I was part of the problem. But as long as they are offering stuff for free, and legal, I will ride this pony as long as I can.
Now that I think of it, the last show that I watched LIVE was this season’s finale of Lost. I was in a hotel room in Seattle so I didn’t have a DVR as an option, and since I was going to be out of town for the rest of the month, I knew if I didn’t watch it then, I would have the ending spoiled before I got home.
I can’t believe how often that show had commercial breaks. It was unbearable!
I’ll echo the comments above – I still channel surf on occasion, and will watch the evening news live when I notice that it’s on. Other than that, the only shows I watch live are “event” shows – like the season finale of Lost.
What I like about watching shows like that live is that it allows me to check in on the SD board during commercials to see what everyone here is talking about. That’s kind of fun, and even more fun to do while the show is going on than an hour afterwards.
This. I find live TV unbearable. I will occaisionally flip through channels to see if anything looks good, then DVR it for later. The biggest drawback is that I don’t always find out about new shows right away. I missed the whole first season of Big Bang Theory, which I love, and only learned about it through a Dope thread.
Next to nothing. Football is about as close as I come, and I’ll often start that an hour late or so, and just catch up during commercials.
I’ll occasionally watch some live news over breakfast, but that’s about it.
Edit to add – I’ll sometimes watch football live if there are two simultaneous games that I want to watch, and I’m skipping back and forth between them. Can’t watch one and then the other, because of the score ticker.
My 7-year-old daughter has basically never known a world without DVR, and she used to get genuinely confused by “live” television. She’d turn to us when a commercial came on and and ask us to fast-forward, and we’d try to explain that we can’t do that because the show is actually on right now, and she’d just be baffled. Or she’d turn on a show in the middle of an episode, and couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t/couldn’t rewind back to the beginning for her.
There’s an easy to watch programme that is broadcast around the time we tend to eat dinner, so we sometimes watch that. So a maximum of 1.5 hours per week.
The only time I watch something live (besides the Weather Channel or news) is when I miss the 8 PM Daily Show and have to watch the 10:30 one. That’s late enough that I don’t want to delay it any more.
I actually don’t record that many things, because then I’d have to watch them. I’ve usually got something from NetFlix I’d rather see, and I still have a bunch of movies on my DVR from when we got HBO free for a month, as a promo. I sometimes flip through channels, but seldom find anything very interesting.
I Tivo everything. But if I’m in the kitchen or working anywhere on the first floor, I’ll listen to CNN, a half-hour late. News and *Jeopardy! *are the only things I can listen to, without watching.
Aside from sports, I’ll try to watch premieres/finales and other big episodes of shows I really care about and can discuss with others (BSG & Supernatural comes to mind), but I’m not generally home that much, and I can wait a day to watch on Hulu or the DVR for everything else (Dollhouse, Sons of Anarchy), especially since there’s not a lot of people I can geek out with on those.
NBC is the first, but they will not be the last. The era of free television on the Internet and ppv menus will probably end soon. There has been much debate about trying to get the genie back in the bottle; whether TV or online newspapers.