Cable TV

[SkyKnight03]

I was thinking about this today after speaking with my older sister. She was talking about how streaming has complicated finding the correct place to watch the New Years midnight celebrations. (As before, it was just something like 'turn on channel 5').

Our family didn't jump from cable until 2016, so I still remember cable TV. I do miss the randomness that came from channel flipping.

Streaming services definitely let me filter through what I want to watch, but it drops the odds of me discovering something completely new and out of book.

Does anybody still have cable or memories of it? I do think the era of traditional TV will fall off even more. Many sports are or already have been making the transition to streaming packages. That'll definitely seal it off.

 

[xSuperMario64x]

I've never been much of a TV person, but I do miss the days of channel surfing. streaming is nice when I want to binge watch a certain show, but while I do like to be able to watch King of the Hill on Hulu on demand, there was also a certain excitement to knowing that it would come on Adult Swim at 8pm. those days are long gone, and it's a little sad.

and I say it's long gone because, while it does technically still exist (you can still pay for a TV subscription package and watch different channels), they are outrageously overpriced. why would I pay $65/mo for live TV when I pay only $2/mo for Hulu?

I really like Pluto TV, because while it's not quite the same as watching channels like Nick and HGTV and The History Channel, it gives me the same vibe. it's all free, and they have some decent stuff on there (I like the Star Trek channels, as well as the Cheers/Frasier channel, and they have so many others too). but as far as I know, there's not gonna be a channel on there that will host the Thanksgiving Parade, or the latest episodes of a new TV show, which is unfortunate. but I do still pick up on some things I've never watched before on Pluto TV, so I would recommend it if you like channel surfing and discovering new stuff.

 

[VernalLapin]

My parents still have it, though I don’t use it all that much. It’s not quite as exciting as it was as a kid, where the menu was really colorful and I loved looking at all the channel logos on it. But sometimes I’ll find something interesting by channel surfing these days.

They also have streaming services but use cable just as much if not more I think haha.

 

[seliph]

Streaming services suck, personally I'm a big fan of piracy

 

[SkyKnight03]

Streaming services suck, personally I'm a big fan of piracy

I will pirate for sports. PPV is an outdated model and I don't agree with paying an extra fee if the PPV is already hosted on a streaming service.

For streaming, having a moderate sized family allowed us to split streaming passwords/payment. So we were able to get every major streaming service and minimize how much was actually being spent. (Each of us pays for a different service and we just give everybody the password).

Of course, password sharing crackdown will damn us. If this goes into fruition, it's off to the to high seas for us.

 

[. Rarity .]

I haven't watched TV in a long time, I'm more a movie, or YouTube person. But when I was a kid I watched alot of TV

I only really watch the TV for the Oscar's! Ironically. I always hold a party for them.

I remember there were certain shows that I'd always have planned to watch. Luke Teletoon, and YTV were the big ones. I'd always watch certain shows before bedtime.

 

[-Raven-]

I miss the monoculture around TV before the last decade. People had things to discuss. The latest TV was an icebreaker more often than politics which it feels like has replaced discussing monoculture.

Maybe I should make a thread looking for opinions on that some day. I just remember when I was a kid seeing all the adults in my life discussing things that were on TV and I was excited about it and looked forward to doing it.

A lot of things aren’t how I thought they would be as a kid. Oh well.

It’s cool that you can find niche things more easily now (streaming does suck though lol piracy all the way) but because so many people just moved to streaming platforms or the internet as their default and those are so splintered, it feels like more of an effort to organise this. It used to be that people had more of a habit of watching TV at whatever time and it got ubiquitous and it gave us more in common. Sure, as an adult you need to schedule more anyway but this made it worse.

Cable also sucked. They removed the draw of it being ad-free. I would figure most people forgot that it started that way. We had it when I was a baby and we got rid of it before I was in elementary. TV now is unwatchable tbh I can never go back to the ads. The internet is heading that way because every browser defaulted to Chromium so unless you use a Firefox fork (default Firefox sucks I’m sad to say) then you get so many ads watching anything. Despite that I really hate the kinds of ads on TV and length of them the most, all for scheduled content that nobody cares about or discusses anymore. TV sucks now. The allure of TV was always more in how it fit in culture than the content. I don’t remember any channels really fondly at all.

Cable could do so much to make up for this, but capitalism.

 

[cornimer]

We still have cable TV! I didn't know so many people had gotten rid of it. I'd say 50% of the time we watch things on Netflix & Prime, and 50% of the time we watch things on cable (e.g. local news, game shows, etc.)

 

[Neb]

I'm probably in the last generation to grow up with cable TV before streaming took over. Netflix started offering streaming when I was a kid, but the selection of movies and TV shows was abysmal, and they didn't have exclusives yet. I mostly watched TV shows on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. Most of the time, it was Spongebob, Fairly Odd Parents, or iCarly reruns. When Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 started airing, I remember liking the series but being confused by the plot since I didn't watch season 1. Then, during the marathon of the entire series played before the final episode premiered, I watched everything from start to finish and became absolutely absorbed. Avatar was the first media piece that showed me a complex story and nuanced characters.

By middle school, streaming sites had started offering more content, and I slowly started watching TV without cable. Watching TV at my own pace for the first time was so lovely. I no longer needed to plan my day around a single episode of my favorite cartoon. By high school, I quit using cable altogether and never went back.

I don't stream TV much anymore because I don't have the attention span to watch TV or movies passively. I only watch cable when my grandparents have it on at their house, or I'm staying in a hotel room. The selection of TV is much worse now. The channels are even worse at rerunning the same shows and movies over and over again than they used to. The 720p resolution cable is still stuck and looks terrible compared to what's available on streaming, and on modern TVs, it looks blurry.

A part of me is sad about what cable has become, but at the same time, I don't think I'd ever go back even if the picture quality was better and they still had interesting series. Being able to watch whatever I want, whenever I want, is too convenient.

 

[Giddy]

I grew up with TV cable, and still have it and used it sometimes, my mum uses it a lot more.
We don't use streaming services, and my mum only just uses the catch up if she misses things from tv. The times I have watched tv was mainly when our internet was being faulty, but I do enjoy watching certain tv channels or shows, Judge Judy for example, actually the other crime shows after Judge Judy reminds me very much of my childhood or teen years cause I would watch that stuff randomally. Heck, I even rememebr a time I was willing to watch those shows where they advertise random stuff to buy and I have no idea why I stayed up to watch it.
Like the old adverts, that feel nostaglic just get to me.

TV cable as a kid for me, was random, you watched what was on. I only had like three children channels, four if you count early mornings on 5. So I do remember watching thinsg I wasnt fond of, or if you missed a day, you missed an episode or something. I very much remember watching shows in the early morning before school, that was great about it.
I wished they would rerun older kids shows, I've looked at what CBBC has to offer and no wonder there's more kids onilne watch random stuff on youtube.

TV now seems to just run things thats has always been on TV. old detective shows, my mum cant actually find new things on tv anymore.
I feel like TV now is only getting things once shows and films get 'old' and thats when they get them on tv. When before, tv was the only place other than the cinema to watch them, so you were more willing to watch it.
Streaming every movie or watching the whole series instantly has erally affect how we produce and consume media now.

I think the only thing I didn't like with cable was again if you missed out on it and didnt know if it was gonna be on again before the next episode.
Also! my mum buys tv guides, and they used to have the children chnnels on and they dont anymore which when I found out ages ago, upset me cause i liked that. You can look on their website what will be on but i prefer it in the tv guides.