The most boring cable channel, U.S. and elsewhere ...

In My Humble Opinion
1

… otherwise titled “250 Channels, and Nothing On,” as the digits displayed on the Scientific Atlanta box that sits on top of my television climb higher and higher.

As I pass 60, 70, 80, and climb into the high three digits, I increasingly think “what’s the point?” “Who watches this?” There’s no shortage of programming that could lull elmwood into a state of slumber, for instance …

C-SPAN 3, which must appeal to only the very wonkiest of inside-the-Beltway policy wonks. Don Imus and Arianna Huffington probably don’t even consider themselves worthy of viewing “The Trip.” “And now, the third part of our series on American agricultural technical assistance to Bulgaria.”

The Golf Channel, where, if I took all the advice offered for improving my swing, would probably throw my arm out of my socket as I’m hunched over forwards, struggling to remember the thirty other things that’ll help me knock a Titlest out of the sand.

EWTN, where you’ll find a show where the Hail Mary is recited over and over again, for an hour straight. However, an urban legend in Buffalo has it that the Brown Nun show beats Survivor in the local Nielson ratings.

Bloomberg. C’mon … on a Saturday night, who is watching Bloomberg? Is there anyone peeled to one of the twenty scrolling tickers at 3:00 AM, fascinated that green bean futures are up a half cent in Chicago, or that the rand is down against the rupee? Do any of the Bloomberg babes have cult followings among investment bankers, like the Weather Channel meterologesses? “Mmmmmm … she looks so cute when she says ‘Nikkei Index’ …”

I won’t even get into NBA Classic.

It’s times like this when I’d live to see my cable system carry TSN (“Sweep! Sweep that rock, McKenzie!”), MTV India, or ART (Hatt baby!).

2

I have insomnia, and the weather channel often comes in handy.

3

Our local cable system has one that shows still photos of houses and vehicles for sale while a crap soft-rock radio station plays in the background. I’m falling asleep just typing about it.

Of the ‘real’ cable channels, QVC or PAX. Unbearable, both of them.

4

I read in one of the “News of the Weird” books that a cable company, in lieu of disconnecting overdue accounts, “locked” those accounts so that the only channel they could receive was CSPAN. Apparently the customers paid quickly to get rid of that!

We have a craptacular channel that’s divided between PSA’s and such scintillating shows as staticy rebroadcasts of city council meetings and the standard local yokel with a beef and a camcorder show. My 4 year old accidentally got to that channel and yelled “MOM – help me!” . LOL.

5

My vote goes to the NASA Channel.

6

We have SCOLA here. It shows news programs from around the world. Sounds great dont it. Well it would be if they had subtitles or a translator. It would rock to watch Pakistani news or Trinidad and Tobaggo. But unless you know them silly feren languages, its pointless.
dead0man

7

I think the ultimate boring channel might be have been Channel 13 on Courier Cable, now Adelphia Cable in Buffalo. The local NOAA weather radio station played in the background, as a camera panned back and forth between an analog clock and an analog thermometer. It was the 1973 equivalent of a very low-budget Weather Channel.

8

Space Night on the Astra satellite. Blurry satellite images of earth staring at you for hours. A lot less cool than it sounds.

I tried to make it seem more interesting by claiming to friends that they were live images. But no. That was still pretty boring. You know how when they show you satellite weathermaps they have to superimpose an outline of the country, because otherwise you wouldn’t know what the heck you were looking at? Imagine that without the outline. And annoyingly, they’re not stationery - they’re just moving so slowly you want to kick the screen in.

The Fox News Network, which has inexplicably appeared on the Astra system, is also pretty boring. Particularly when it goes to what I presume is an ad break for US residents. We just get a flashcard saying “Fox News Network will Return in a Moment”. It lasts maybe ten minutes. Not that the programmes are any better.

The Parliament Channel ably demonstrates why television cameras were for so long banned from filming inside, and why the average person only gets to see about 45 seconds of the week’s happenings on the news: it’s because the other 23 hours, 59 minutes and 15 seconds are so unbearably TEDIOUS!

The German stations used to run a couple of groovy things at night. There was a log fire which just burned away at you. That was pretty cool. And sometimes you’d get to watch entire train or car journeys from cameras on the roof. Not unentertaining if you’re resigned to boredom anyway, and some of them were across Africa and cool places like that.

But my biggest vote for most boring station is simply ITV, which counts as cable cos it’s on digital now. Britain’s premier broadcaster of third-rate populist drivel, with one decent drama a year to wave around as a flaship. I blame ITV for single-handedly dumbing down an entire country. I’m talkin’ game shows and soaps, people. In a country with four and a half terrestrial channels, that matters, dammit!

9

So far, my vote would have to go to my local public access channel. EVERY TIME I’VE BEEN SURFING, there has been NOTHING on. Whatsoever. At all. In any respect. Null.

10

There’s a channel on my digital cable with nothing on. Just a box that says “Please wait, retrieving information”. It’s the same box that’s been up on the screen since June. The channel guide calls it WINK2, so I suppose that’s what it is, but I don’t know what it is.

It’s not even good enough for insomnia because it forces you to sit there and wonder why it’s even still included in the cable package.
jessica

11

One of our local channels is somehow hooked to a PC and it always gets the “fatal error” blue screen of death. It’s weird seeing that on my TV, I freaked out once and thougt I’d have to reformat the TV.

12

I second that emotion. Nothing quite like watching earth from 1,000,000 miles.

13

Believe it or not, I think you’re supposed to watch those while you’re on your stationary bike or treadmill, so it’s not so dad-blamed boring and you feel like you’re actually GOING somewhere.

This one sounds pretty tough to beat. I will add that our local programming of city council meetings usually has problems with the sound. It’s REALLY boring when you can’t hear what they’re saying.

14

back in the days before mini dishes and cable, i had one of the big ol 12foot wide dishes. once, when using my cheater box (they didnt have cards) i managed to find a music channel from the middle east…now that was WEIRD

15

Well I actually like the Weather Channel!
:slight_smile:

Aside from the Shopping Channels…and the second tier Sports ones, I’d nominate the History Channel. Not much actual history, other than dull WWII documentaries with stock footage I have seen 1,000 times. They should call it the “Hitler Pacing Around Berteschgaden in Field Attire Channel”.

Here we get several Spanish language Cable Channels which are pretty dull for me, as I speak Spanish and actually want to see something good . Mainly stuff like “Freinds”, “Frasier” and “Just Shoot Me”, dubbed into Spanish, with the occasional Argentine comedy-variety program or Venezuelan mini-series. Channels like GEMS, Galavision, and so on.

And we have not 1 but 2 Shopping channels in Spanish too.

Also I can’t stand Lifetime. Nothing but Golden Girls reruns and TV Movies of the Week.

16

I put Telemundo on every night before I go to bed. I don’t speak spanish so I won’t pay attention to what they are saying. I find the spanish language to be very melodic. It lulls me to sleep better than any sleep aid could.

17

C-PAC - “Canada’s Political Channel”

Need I say more? This is so boring, it makes me want to drive pencils up my nose and into my brain. It also makes me angry that this is what the Canadian government is spending its money on. I mean, who watches this stuff?

I’d also like to note that I just went to the C-PAC website to make sure I had thier tagline right, and they had a showtime schedule. I had not realized up to this point that they had seperate shows, thus demanding an elaborate schedule. How can anyone tell the difference between on hour of pointless beaurocratic glurg and another?

18

quote:

Originally posted by Mudshark
My vote goes to the NASA Channel.

quote:

I second that emotion. Nothing quite like watching earth from 1,000,000 miles.
end quote:

YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN!!!THAT CHANNEL SUCKS!!
**:mad:

19

Here, we get a channel that shows, 24/7 a graph. It’s a green line on a back blackground on a monitor somewhere. There’s a thermometer to the left and a googly-eyed mini-bean bag thing on top of the monitor. I have no clue where it is or why it’s on my TV, but it hasn’t gone away since I discovered it. But it’s still not as boring as CNBC.

20

Actually, I happen to like the NASA Channel. We had it on cable for awhile when I moved here, but the cable company replaced it with another infomercial channel. For some time, they were showing live shots and spacewalks between infomerrcials and public access programs, but that has been dropped.

I rather enjoyed standing in my backyard watching the shuttle lift-off, then tuning in a couple of hours later to watch them work. I actually miss watching where the shuttle was positioned over the earth and figuring out when the sonic booms should hit one the landing approach. Of course the breakaways to the bank of workers in the Houston control center with no audio feed was pretty boring (except for the time some guy nearly knocked over his coffee cup - lots of action on that one).

As a space junkie, the NASA channel fulfilled my need for space and technology, as I still find the fact that we have the ability to break out of the atmosphere amazing and astounding. Of course I would not watch it for hours, but seeing the shuttle crew floating around working sparks a litle twinge of jealousy that I am not there.