Advertisement
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum

Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.
Hi all, please see this major site announcement: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058427594/boards-ie-2026

Does anyone actually watch TV any more?

2

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,280 ✭✭✭Andrewf20


    Im 95% tinternet and 5% TV. Usually just watch turbochef or masterchef, whatever its called. Maybe a bit of F1 if its on and the news.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,014 ✭✭✭MonaPizza


    But what I don't get is that with online viewing you have to KNOW what you want to watch before you watch it. I can't get my head around that. I mean when you flick through the channels you see "ah, nature documentary!" great.....now you mightn't have had anything in particular in mind to watch and then something like that pops up. Like wise with music. Sometimes I don't know what I want to listen to so I put on the radio and get a feast of randomly selected music to entertain me.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,966 ✭✭✭✭syklops


    Police Academy 2 was on late 2 nights ago. At the first ad break I went for a piss and paused it. Came back, got comfy and pressed play. Fast forward through the ads. There was a snobby couple and one went "Its no better than television". Police Academy 2 was made in 1986? Thats what the OP sounded like to me. Aren't I so superior because I dont watch TV any more.

    Also had to laugh at the poster who said he/she reads all the time and then explained his/her point by embedding a youtube video into their post.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,966 ✭✭✭✭syklops


    MonaPizza wrote: »
    But what I don't get is that with online viewing you have to KNOW what you want to watch before you watch it. I can't get my head around that. I mean when you flick through the channels you see "ah, nature documentary!" great.....now you mightn't have had anything in particular in mind to watch and then something like that pops up. Like wise with music. Sometimes I don't know what I want to listen to so I put on the radio and get a feast of randomly selected music to entertain me.

    I used to live abroad in a foreign speaking country, so paying for a cable connection would have been a waste of time, so I downloaded everything and transferred it to the machine acting as my HTPC for the flat screen.

    Flippin hell it was like a full time job. Making sure you had downloaded recent stuff, having something fresh to watch etc. Considering I was spending my days in front of shells and browsers, it could get quite irritating when you're just in from work. Now, I come in, flop on my armchair, Six One news is starting around the same time as I get home, and there is no admin involved. If theres nothing on I check out the On Demand options, then I hook up the hard drive.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,824 ✭✭✭FanadMan


    Doc Ruby wrote: »
    I don't think I know anyone under the age of 50 that actually watches the telly any more. The options here aren't that great anyway, are they any different anywhere I suppose, we have RTE, saorview, Sky where half the channels are just repeats of the other half, with adverts every five minutes, which you pay a monthly fee to watch, and so on.

    Most of the news I get from the internet, movies shows and entertainment are for the most part free and legally available online, most music even you can queue up a youtube playlist, maybe watching a match down the pub involves broadcast telly but that's it. A good collection of DVDs is better by far than most nights on the box.

    So I say, the TV is dead! Long live the internet. And DVDs.

    I don't know if anyone else replied like this......

    I live in the middle of nowhere, at least 1 mile from the nearest Eircom broadband connection. I have to depend on 3s NBS crap connection to the net - with its "Massive 40GB usage allowance" there is no way I could watch proper tv on the internet and still use it for day to day work.

    Doc - you are either living in an urban area or else semi-rural that still has proper broadband.

    I depend on a second hand FTA Sky box for my tv. Don't have RTE yet cos saving up to get a Saorview box and ariel (or if I get hold of a wee bit extra money, a Saorview enabled tv).

    I would love to have proper BB - I'd be able to keep up to date with what's being watched and talked about but unfortunately Eircom, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that my area of at least 50 houses isn't economically viable.

    Long live Free To Air tv (and including Saorview when I get it :D )


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 108 ✭✭Mooby


    Rarely watch tv these days, it's all internet/downloads.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,966 ✭✭✭✭syklops


    Mooby wrote: »
    Rarely watch tv these days, it's all internet/downloads.

    So you dont watch the physical television machine any more, but you do watch what will forever be called TV shows right?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,622 Mod ✭✭✭✭Amirani


    I don't own a TV. I have a large PC monitor and a Nexus tablet that I do all my watching on. There's not a single thing that makes me miss having a TV subscription.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,407 ✭✭✭lkionm


    syklops wrote: »
    So you dont watch the physical television machine any more, but you do watch what will forever be called TV shows right?

    Mr pedantic to the rescue


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 108 ✭✭Mooby


    syklops wrote: »
    So you dont watch the physical television machine any more, but you do watch what will forever be called TV shows right?

    Yes, but not regularly.


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Look in TV Guide, spot a tv show or film worth watching, download torrent within half an hour and (for most things) finish watching it, ad-free, before it even airs.

    In the time you waste (time that is never to be returned), vegging through a home-makeover program or other cheaply churned out garbage, you could instead research and start downloading a handful of good quality TV shows on IMDB, that there are entire seasons of, which you won't have the time to finish watching for months.

    Fair enough leaving the TV on if it's just background noise for you, but sitting down and voluntarily assaulting your brain, with some of the crap that's on TV (ads in particular...), is actually something I believe is harmful:
    How many negative social stereotypes in the population, get picked up off of dross on TV and in ads? (not to mention how news/political reporting, helps shape peoples views in a biased way) No matter how smart you are at picking it out, it will affect you, through repetition.

    Pick out what's worth watching, and download it instead (if it's on TV you have access to anyway, or is going to be, it's fair game really).

    It's well past time the TV networks who put out actual good quality shows, properly distributed them online.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,599 ✭✭✭cashback


    It's funny when some people think that the behaviour of their social circle is representative of society as a whole. "Sure I don't know anybody who watches TV anymore", "God, people still buy CDs?", "Newspapers, what are they?"

    Believe it or not, despite the onslaught of digital media, there are still many people out there who have not yet moved to these formats and why should they if they're happy as they are?

    Not that I watch that much TV myself but I find it a little juvenile when people derive some sense of superiority from the fact they consume their media via a laptop screen rather than a TV screen.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,988 ✭✭✭SirDelboy18


    Only ever watch sports on TV really, apart from the odd thing on maybe a Friday/Saturday/Sunday if I'm not out like Graham Norton. While I only watch sport on TV, I watch a lot of sport so I do get a bit of use out of it.

    Anything else, I watch on my own schedule, either through downloading or some streaming platform such as Netflix.

    I watch a LOT of shows, and I cannot watch them with ads of any sort - it annoys me too much. Also, the fact that we get things about 10 years after they are aired in America doesn't help my enthusiasm.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,806 ✭✭✭D1stant


    Dean0088 wrote: »

    I did have the misfortune of having to sit through an episode of THIS recently. I think my brain went into a stupidity coma after the first minute.


    Did you HAVE to post that? :mad:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,377 ✭✭✭zenno


    I dumped the tv in a skip maybe six or seven years ago because of the adverts every 5 minutes, so no tv here. I just watch what i like on the net without the adverts happy days.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,080 ✭✭✭EoghanIRL


    D1stant wrote: »
    Did you HAVE to post that? :mad:

    My sister watches it :(

    I use the tv for Internet downloads at most.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,344 ✭✭✭Skill Magill


    I dont mind paying for a service but when that service inflicts ads on you every 10 mins, its they that should be paying you. (a double whammy for them, getting paid twice) Hence I haven't watched tv in 3 years


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,562 ✭✭✭✭Sunnyisland


    I still watch tv,and listen to the radio,and use the internet.
    Don't see a problem.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 2,965 ✭✭✭dixiefly


    Doc Ruby wrote: »
    Never said I watched RTE news. ;) In fact I don't think I watch much of anything produced by the organisations that the monies are going to.

    Maybe the future for TV shows is a kickstarter model, if GoT charged a dollar in advance per episode to each viewer, they'd have a hundred million in clear profit. Would you pay a tenner for an entire season? Seems like bargain to me.

    This would also help clear out the hangers on and dead weight. Mind you I'm not sure where it would leave programming for people with no money, like kids' cartoons. I suppose their parents would pay for it.
    Truth is some people don't whatnot pay anything for any broadcast ever. I don't agree with the licence fee but a model where everyone pays for every episode probably won't work. Netflix probably has the best model at the moment.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,264 ✭✭✭✭jester77


    I never watch TV but still have to pay over €215 a year for the privilege of maybe watching it some day :rolleyes:


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 464 ✭✭Knight who says Meh


    Doc Ruby wrote: »
    I don't think I know anyone under the age of 50 that actually watches the telly any more. The options here aren't that great anyway, are they any different anywhere I suppose, we have RTE, saorview, Sky where half the channels are just repeats of the other half, with adverts every five minutes, which you pay a monthly fee to watch, and so on.

    Most of the news I get from the internet, movies shows and entertainment are for the most part free and legally available online, most music even you can queue up a youtube playlist, maybe watching a match down the pub involves broadcast telly but that's it. A good collection of DVDs is better by far than most nights on the box.

    So I say, the TV is dead! Long live the internet. And DVDs.

    Hmmmmmm. Lets see. When i was growing up the top programme was Dallas.
    Now we have.
    Breaking bad
    Game of Thrones
    Mad men
    Downton Abbey
    Sopranos
    Walking Dead
    Agents of Shield
    Orange is the New Black
    And thats only the shows I just about have time to keep up with.
    And A list movie stars are queueing up to be in TV
    Yeah. TV is dead.....


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,638 ✭✭✭Teyla Emmagan


    8 years since I've had a telly. It's all good!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 576 ✭✭✭Fishyfreak


    Poster 1: Oh I haven't watched tv in 2 years.
    Poster 2: I haven't watched it in 8 years.
    Poster 3: I've never owned a tv.
    Poster 4: What's a tv?
    Poster 5: I just live in a f*ckin cave that has broadband.

    Is not watching tv the new hipster thing?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,638 ✭✭✭Teyla Emmagan


    Fishyfreak wrote: »
    Poster 1: Oh I haven't watched tv in 2 years.
    Poster 2: I haven't watched it in 8 years.
    Poster 3: I've never owned a tv.
    Poster 4: What's a tv?
    Poster 5: I just live in a f*ckin cave that has broadband.

    Is not watching tv the new hipster thing?

    Well I'm far from being a hipster. I just realised that I never watched mine so I got rid of it to save money. Am cheap more than anything.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,346 ✭✭✭King George VI


    I'm watching tv right now. Stargate SG1 is on. It's the one where Col. O'Neill almost dies.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 16,585 ✭✭✭✭The Cush


    Fishyfreak wrote: »
    Poster 1: Oh I haven't watched tv in 2 years.
    Poster 2: I haven't watched it in 8 years.
    Poster 3: I've never owned a tv.
    Poster 4: What's a tv?
    Poster 5: I just live in a f*ckin cave that has broadband.

    Is not watching tv the new hipster thing?

    A lot of people still TV according to this study from earlier this year
    TV still dominates in a world of multi-devices

    ● 97% of Irish adults watch audio-visual content on a TV set EVERYDAY and viewing on a TV set accounts for 89% of all viewing

    ● The vast majority of adults in Ireland still prefer to watch TV at home, which accounts for 85.4% of all audio-visual content consumed.

    ● Outside of TV at home, laptop at home viewing is the next most popular activity, accounting for 4.6% of content consumed. Beyond TV at home and laptop at home, the viewing market begins to fragment with, interestingly, watching a TV set in someone else’s home (1.5%) being the third most popular device/location combination.

    ● Younger Irish viewers are the most likely to be viewing content on non-TV devices but live TV at home on the TV set still makes up the vast majority of their viewing

    “The findings of this report clearly indicate that, despite the availability of content on new devices, the vast majority of Irish people are still watching most of their content at home on the TV set and watching it live. Beyond the TV set, laptops are the second-most popular device for viewing content with tablets still only accounting for 2% of content viewed.

    TV remains a key source of relaxation in the home as almost half the time we are watching, we are not doing anything else and it is also a highly-social activity as 20% of the time we’re watching TV, we’re talking with others. “

    http://tamireland.ie/node/325


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 108 ✭✭Mooby


    Fishyfreak wrote: »
    Poster 1: Oh I haven't watched tv in 2 years.
    Poster 2: I haven't watched it in 8 years.
    Poster 3: I've never owned a tv.
    Poster 4: What's a tv?
    Poster 5: I just live in a f*ckin cave that has broadband.

    Is not watching tv the new hipster thing?

    Haha - yes, you're probably onto something thing there. I just find I can't concentrate on tv shows (and yes, I do watch the odd series - True blood was the last one as it didn't require much concentration and I fancied Eric) any more - nor can I read novels - I blame facebook/twitter/youtube (tho I love them!) - bite sized slices of entertainment, no need to concentrate for long.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 811 ✭✭✭canadianwoman


    I download shows on the internet to watch and I watch dvds. I never use my tv and I am considering giving it away.


  • Posts: 81,308 CMod ✭✭✭✭ Beckett Fluffy Backache


    What would you watch op, that hasn't already been shown on tv?

    netflix originals


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,508 ✭✭✭Green Giant


    realies wrote: »
    I still watch tv,and listen to the radio,and use the internet.
    Don't see a problem.

    Ditto


Advertisement
Advertisement