I’m giving up TV for one year.
Now, when I say I’m giving up TV, I mean I’m giving up watching TV on my TV. I’m still going to watch my shows, I’m just not going to watch them on my TV or on my DVR. I’m going to watch everything online.
I think the time has come where we can get rid of our TV sets and do away with broadcast television. I’m not sure it’s going to be easy, but I think it’s doable. The only way to find out is to do it.
A little background: I’m not quite a TV addict, but I am a TV-aholic. When I looked at this season’s schedule, I have shows to watch pretty much every night of the week. I’m a guy, so shows like 24, Lost and The Office are at the top of my list; Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, ER, towards the bottom. But there’s a lot in between: Life, The Big Bang Theory, HIMYM, Heroes, Scrubs. Not to mention Mythbusters, anything on The History Channel or HBO, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report…you get the idea.
The Time has Come
Last year, it wasn’t quite possible to get everything online in a timely fashion. iTunes lost a large portion of NBC content, and Hulu didn’t come online until the tail end of the season. This year, there’s even more options to explore, with all the major networks putting their shows online in some form or another. NBC is back on iTunes, Amazon has entered the fray, Netflix is making a play, and Hulu is coming on strong. Not to mention the aggregators and third-party sites that are adding features and context to show itself, making the watching experience more social and entertaining.
It’s Not Just for TV Anymore
In addition to cataloging my experiences in cutting myself off from broadcast, I’m also going to look at web-based media. It is, in my opinion, important to attempt an understanding as to why the web is a different medium and how and why content will or will not succeed online. We’ll get more into this later.
Fun for the Whole Family
And it’s not just me: it’s everyone in the house. My wife and my kids (ages 9, 7 and 4) will be joining me in this experiment. I think it will be quite interesting to get their perspective on what it means to give up TV and go all online.
So that’s the plan. I hope you’ll subscribe to our feed and check back periodically to see how we’re doing. In the mean time, look for reviews of sites and tools, as well as thoughts on shows, both the professional and the amateur.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Jacki 10.08.08 at 9:19 am
I think this is awesome! I would love to participate too, if not for the fact that it’s college football season. Maybe I’ll try it after the season is over.
Question, though. Are you allowed to hook your computer up to your TV, or are you literally watching on your computer monitor? Seems like it would be pretty impossible to have the family huddle around a computer to watch something together.
Greg 10.08.08 at 9:41 am
Jacki: thanks! I’m working on a way for others to participate as well, check back soon! There will be options for all TV or just parts of your TV viewing, so you won’t have to give up college football.
And yes, hooking up the computer to the TV is allowed; I actually tried last night, but I don’t have the proper cables. I’m going to get them this week, and am even considering a dedicated computer for my TV.
Cindi Burkey 05.07.09 at 6:00 pm
I was so pleased to find this page. I actually decided to see if I could get nomoretv.com for myself, because I haven’t had a TV for almost 20 years now, (not in my home) and this has made the way I see the world quite a bit different from the way others do. I get my news from NPR, online sources like bobcesca.com, kevin drum at motherjones.com, alternet.com, truthout.org, huffingtonpost.com, youtube, magazines, online newspapers and newswires, talk radio, (Alan Colmes is my favorite for sanity) and books books books. I worked in radio news for a long time at an NPR station, so I was surrounded by it and listening all day. We did have TVs in the control room (as I do now, I’m a traffic reporter) but I watched them with the sound off and they stayed on the news channels.
Why don’t I have a TV? I’m not militant about it…in fact I don’t really mention it to people, but the longer I go without it and the more I see its effects on “the broader culture” (I know that sounds snobbish) it creeps me out more and more.
I highly reccommend “Four Arguments For the Elimination of Television” or “In the Absence of the Sacred” by Gerry Mander. I do have a communications degree and have worked in media (radio) for a long time. And I do watch TV periodically to see what’s on and what it’s like. I also read tabloid newpapers because like everyone else, I like to see sexy people having problems (guilty pleasure…I know….really cheesy but I live in LA so our celeb culture is something you do have to be up on, if you’re going to be on the air at all. That’s my excuse anyway). I watched Fox News almost exclusively during the runup to the election, and except for Shepard Smith’s hour, facts are very slippery things at that network, is what I found. But you can google that and see more for yourself, in fact, there’s a great Alternet article with video clips of how Fox takes comments out of context and in doing so presents absolute lies. I think the article is May 6.
Well, I have babbled on enough….but the more I look at what’s going on in the world, the more I find TV disturbing just as a medium. There are brilliant and powerful shows, commercials, art, and documentaries on TV….but I have a real problem with the way it makes life small. Unlike movies, which seem to saturate life with magic and which, next to music, I think I’d be lost without, when it comes to relating to the wider world.