For the sake of this poll I am defining “Watching TV” as watching any broadcast program of any sort (with one exception noted below) either in real time, tape/TIVO delayed, or as part of a DVD set, like if you watched “Battlestar Galactica” on DVD. It does not matter if you watch it on an actual TV or on your computer on Hulu.
However, do not include time you spend watching theatrical films at home, either rented, owned, broadcasted, or PPV.
If your kid watches “Backyardigans” and you happen to be in the room but you’re not really watching, I don’t think you should count stuff like that, but, hey, you decide.
If your TV watching in seasonal (I, for instance, watch more more TV when baseball season is on) then average it out.
I turn my TV on at 5pm, and then leave it on until sometimes as late as midnight, but rarely do I sit down and actually watch that much, these days.
However, I do get access to a lot of TV via the internet, which I watch on my computer. Between the two avenues it averages out to about 3 hrs a night.
I watch TV once a year, when the Academy Awards are on. Any other award shows I might watch, like the Golden Globes or the Independent Spirit Awards, I watch streaming online. I occasionally watch segments of shows like Rachel Maddow or The Daily Show online.
I’m not snooty about not watching TV. I know there’s tons of good stuff I miss. I could easily become very obsessed, based on past experience, such as once having not one but TWO Tivos packed with shows, and having literally, and I do mean literally, thousands of videotapes full of stuff I’ve taped off TV since I first gained access to a VCR in 1982. And that number is after giving away hundreds when we moved, such as several dozen skating tapes, multiple seasons of ER and Chicago Hope and Novas and I don’t remember what all. I grew up with televison. I could never be snooty about not watching, but I just don’t anymore. I’d rather go out to the movies, or spend time online.
I’ve never watched any TV shows on DVD or Hulu, but if my movie obsession came to an end, which seems unlikely but you never know, there are lots of shows I’ve never seen I’d like to catch up on, like Six Feet Under and Lost and The Sopranos and many many others. I don’t see it happening any time soon though.
Wow. My wife and I just had a talk about this today. We received something in the mail from Comcast advising that if we didn’t get one of their digital adapters or a set top box we wouldn’t get any TV at all. We both just looked at each other and agreed that it’s time to officially cancel the cable.
I guess all we needed was a little push anyway as we’re both at the point where we rarely watch TV anymore and get almost 100% of our programming from online sources. I think we may watch a combined total of 5 hours of TV a week, if you can call it watching because I only turn it on when I come to bed, and that’s only because the flickering lights and dull, non-repetitive audio helps me to fall asleep. I have it on a 30 minute timer. It could just as easily be a radio, if I had a radio in the bedroom.
Having said the above, however, I am amazed at how quickly TV ceased to be a part of our lives. We have one in just about every room, and actually used to use all of them, sometimes simultaneously, a few years ago. Now, the only one that ever gets any use at all is the one in our bedroom as a sleep aid.
Ach! I also didn’t read RickJay’s OP completely. If you count online sources, I’d say we watch, perhaps, 10 hours of television programming per week because of shows like Fringe, Stargate Universe, etc… and my wife’s Law and Order shows. It’s still not much, even counting online sources, and nothing like the 25 to 30, or even more hours per week we used to TiVo just a few years ago. We have literally nothing in our TiVo playlist now. I am so glad I never purchased that second unit I was considering.
I watch 4 hours a night, 4 nights a week - MSNBC’s evening shows, Olbermann, Maddow and O’Donnell and Stewart and Colbert. Friday is just Keith and Rachel.
I started night school back in 1996 and by '97 I pretty much gave up on tv. Prior to then I had shows I religiously watched, but school seemed to always fall on a night that I had a show I loved (never got into taping shows via VHS). So I pretty much found myself repeatedly going without and just kinda got used to it.
It was also around that time when network lineups seemed to change far too frequently, meaning a show I’d love for a few months would move to a night I had class, so I’d give up on it.
I just last week bought my first tv in 5 years, seeing as Comcast gave me a cable bundle at my new place and the tv prices are pretty good now. For the past 5 years any tv viewing was done by DVD or more recently Hulu and network sites or iTunes.
I’ve had the tv about 4 days now and have so far watched about 3 hours of Band of Brothers on DVD and maybe 2 hours of cable. I’ll probably ditch cable once the introductory price period ends. Frankly, there really isn’t much on worth paying for, especially when I can search it online for free.
My husband and I watch one or two hours every night… it’s our regularly scheduled together time. We cuddle under an afghan and watch stuff that’s fun to howl at.
I would say I actually “watch” about 4 hours a day, but this doesn’t include TCM movies, so I guess I would have to bump it up to more than 4 hours, on some days… Most of the time the TV is on in the background set to the program guide or weather channel, or something that doesn’t require a lot of attention (like QVC), for background noise. I’m not actually watching, I’m sitting here surfing, but don’t like total quiet… I’m alone here all day, and the rest of the family doesn’t watch TV/watches Fox News or the History Channel downstairs. No one is knocking on my door to whisk me off to interesting adventures/boozing/nights on the town. I enjoy some, not all, TV - Mad Men, Lost, True Blood, Medium, Desperate Housewives, House - and like to read message boards the day after.
During baseball or football season. I go way over 4 hours. In some sense it is not active watching. I go do things like wash dishes, clothes, and feed the animals during games. I walk the dogs at halftime. i never get back in time to see the second half kickoff though. So in a sense it is background music. If it gets loud I come back to see what happened.
I went with the first choice but it breaks down more like this:
Monday-Friday: 6 PM until 10 PM = 4 X 5 = 20 hours
Saturday (during football season) 11 AM until 10 PM = 11 hours
Sunday (during football season) 3 hours of Titans football and then 3 hours of primetime TV shows = 6 hours
Saturday (non football) maybe two hours at night
Sunday (non football) maybe two hours at night.
Football season: 37 hours a week
Non-football season: 24 hours a week
I gave up watching TV when my kids were small and I could never watch a show without getting interrupted. Now, I hate the commercials.
My work schedule has been irregular for the last 8 years, and I will not turn down a paying job to watch a TV show. And I screen what I watch or read because I have enough emotional turmoil in my life right now.
I did turn the TV on the other day when the tornado sirens were going off in my neighborhood :eek: . (I turned it on after I had put my work papers underneath the bathroom sink and was standing in the living room with my raincoat on, purse on my shoulder and flashlight in my hand.!)
My viewing is 99.9% downloaded shows, and according to the site I get the shows from I’m pulling down about 25 hours a week. And I watch them all. Plus I have shows that I fall asleep to every night. Detective shows that I watch 20 minutes of then fall asleep.
It’s a ton less during baseball season, since I don’t get my team on TV. So I do other stuff or surf the net while I listen to the radio.
Baseball and TV season don’t really match up, so I’m not missing anything new on TV during baseball.
mrAru and I watch the news every morning while we share breakfast time together.
Mutually he and I like to watch [in no particular order] Mythbusters, Ghost Hunters, Destination Truth [we keep hoping they will fall off a cliff, or get eaten by a yeti], Eureka, Haven, Warehouse 13, NCIS, Bones, and assorted documentaries that we either find by channel surfing the channel guide or see promos for. That puts us more or less in the 28 hour range.
While I am at home during the day, and weekends when mrAru is home during the day we tend to watch movies, assorted documentaries, and replays of tv shows. Though we do actually have the complete series on DVD of Eureka, Babylon 5 and NCIS, and a nice collection of movies. [I just scored Neverwhen, Haxen and the new Metropolis, and have a few more movies on order] We like the movies and series on DVD for when we are on vacation and it is evening and we want to relax and there is nothing on tv, we will watch them on my laptop.
I always have the TV on and most of the time I’m not “really” watching it. We have ME-TV in Chicago which is a great low power TV airing great old comedy shows, so that is almost always on in the background
Seriously though, does watching Netflix count as watching TV? Or, do you mean scheduled programming vs. on demand when you say “TV”?