I’ve never been a big TV watcher, so ever since I first moved out on my own, I always got by with just broadcast TV (and Netflix when it came along,) except for one stretch in which I lived in a house with roommates, and during that time I almost never watched TV on my own. But last summer I moved into a brand new apartment complex which offered a combined package of DirecTV and high-speed internet, and rather than inquire as to whether I could get the internet by itself, I figured, hey, what the heck, I’ll try out DirecTV. Until then, I had very little experience with contemporary cable/satellite box interfaces.
As I’m sure many people already know, the DirecTV interface is full of infomercial channels. If I go all the way back to the beginning, channel 2, what’s on the air right now is “Shark Rocket - Ultra - Lightweight!” The next few channels are “real” broadcast TV channels, but as I scroll down, I soon get to page after page of “Thicker Hair - Guaranteed!,” “Fine Jewelry & Fashion Under $10,” “Emerald Isle Style,” “LifeLock Protection,” the Shark Rocket thing again, “I Hate My Aching Joints!,” “Copper Chef,” “Look up to 2 Sizes Smaller Instantly!” and the list goes on and on. After a bunch of infomercial channels, I get to the pay-per-view channels and all DirecTV’s movie on demand channels. After pages and pages of those, I finally get to another “real” channel, CNN, but after that and a few sports channels, it’s more pages of infomercials. Even in stretches of channels that contain mostly “real” channels, there are infomercial channels randomly interspersed.
How do people navigate this? Do I have to memorize the 3-digit channel number for every channel I actually want to watch? Is there any way to hide all these fake channels? I really don’t feel like memorizing a bunch of 3-digit numbers, or spending 5 minutes scrolling every time I want to see if there’s anything on TV.