Like others, nothing. I start watching any show *I must see tonight! *20 minutes late so I can zip through the commercials. I still see commercials at the gym, and when out at dinner, so I don’t feel culturally illiterate or anything. I kind of like the new prius series with the dancers in plant costumes.
I haven’t watched anything live since about 2006.
*I do not necessarily set there and skip commercials. *
I record them to get them into my schedule during the day.
I’ll second that. The other week, we waited until ten o’clock to start watching a two-hour “America’s Got Talent” that had started at nine. By 10:30, we’d already caught up. We watched an hour and a half of TV in half an hour.
I do still watch live a fair amount, though, because I’m old. Really old (anyone else remember a time before TV’s had remote controls? Tiny little 13-inch black-and-whites? TVs with actual dials? Way back then, my “remote” was a yardstick with a slot cut in the end that I could fit over the dial to turn it), and the habit of channel surfing to see what’s on and then stopping at something that looks interesting and then moving on when it’s not, dies hard.
Nothing. I was without it for a week and it was a PITA to watch things live.
None. Nada. Zip.
Another thing that just occured to me. Since March of this year, I’ve been working mostly in the late afternoon and evenings. I’m usually away from home from 3PM-1AM (2PM-midnight central and specific time) which means if it wasn’t for the elaborate but effective DVR system I have set up, I would have either missed the entire last two months of last year’s season, or would have had to build an even MORE elaborate VHS recording system. How did people manage to have lives AND keep up on their shows in the days before DVR???
Also, it’s only odd when I actually stop and think about it, but I almost NEVER watch prime time shows in actual prime time. Most of my tv show watching occurs in that time period in the late morning/early afternoon between when I wake up and when I have to leave for work, or any time on my days off (usually with the EXCEPTION of the evenings, unless it’s a movie I’m watching)
I also recall that before TV on DVR became big, most television shows did NOT get video releases, and if they did, it was a “best of” collection. So unless a show got sold into syndication, if you missed it the first time around, it was gone forever. However, I also recall that before TV on DVD became so common, reruns in prime time were the standard, rather than the exception. Nowadays it seems like a valuable prime time slot only gets wasted on a rerun if it was either a very popular episode, or if it was a holiday-themed episode that happens to fall on that holiday next year. I also seem to recall that 10 years ago, there were almost NEVER summer series, especially on network TV. The entire summer was all reruns!
The one big disadvantaging to DVRing is that you NEVER miss an episode. While this sounds like a pro, it means that there’s a lot more actual TV watching to do than if I just happen to tune into something if I’m at home in the evening, like in the olden days. Then again back then there were far fewer amounts of serial shows (which I’m sure is not a coincidence), so it usually didn’t matter if you missed an ep here or there. I have an incredible queue of stuff to watch still, including an ENTIRE SEASON of stuff (Heroes, Dexter, 24 - all of which are waiting for a full marathon weekend)
In the past three months, everything I’ve watched all the way through has been taped, to avoid the ads, to allow me to repeat a section of a mystery, or simply to time-shift things I’m too groggy to pay attention to.
The only things I prefer to watch “live” are… well nothing comes to mind.
FWIW, I have caught baseball games I’ve missed by getting them, on-demand. I watched Jonathan Sanchez’ no-hitter the next morning since I missed it live. So sports aren’t entirely immune.
I’m almost at that point but I do find a way to not start watching it till it’s 20 minutes in. Skipping the commercials at that point the show ends at exactly the same time as the people watching it live.
For those with Comcast DVR remotes which feature a FWD>>, BCK<<, and 10 sec. back<= button there is a way to program a 30 second skip forward button on the remote. Just do some googling to find it.
Me too. For me, the consequence of rarely watching anything live is that I’m about two or three years behind on new series. Without the commercials advertising shows, or finding something new during a commercial break, I have no idea what’s on.
Like many, if I want to watch something the same night, I’ll let it queue up in the DVR for about twenty minutes, so I can watch without ads.
My mom called tonight and I informed her that I was watching a great documentary on the French Revolution. When she asked me what channel it was on, I burst out laughing.
Just reporting that I will probably be watching the new Project Runway episode tonight live.
Unless I find something more interesting to do.
never at home. Can barely stand doing it when I’m at someone’s house with no DVR.
I suspect my kids will grow up with no knowledge that shows are actually “on” at a certain time.