Your Five Essential Cable Channels
A few days ago Toney and I were talking about the cable channels we watch. I think we receive roughly six million, but only actually tune in to a handful of them.
I watch Nickelodeon (it’s continuously running at all times), Fox News, NBC (Friday Night Lights only), ABC (LOST only), and that’s about it. In fact, I barely watch TV at all. I see less of it now, than at any time in my life – and have more choices than ever before.
Funny how that works, huh? Back when we had twelve channels (nothing was ever on 1), and were forced to turn a hand-crank to switch from one to another, I logged many daily hours in front of the flickering light. And now that we have 500, or whatever, I rarely watch.
In addition to my “favorites,” Toney only watches two or three additional stations, and the boys are partial to Discovery and the History Channel.
They watch MythBusters, and some show featuring a Brit with a pronounced underbite, who escapes from ridiculous situations. I’ve seen him wearing a jumpsuit of bees, and hanging upside-down with his head inside a clothes hamper full of water (I think).
Whenever he’s not on fire, or nailing his forearm to a porch railing, the dude looks like a cash register with the drawer open. And I find that to be distracting.
The History Channel, as far as I can tell, should have a little Hitler mustache in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. It should be their logo, because World War II is the only thing they cover. Hasn’t there been other history?
The Secrets also watch a lot of shows with titles such as Air Shows Gone Horribly Wrong, Assholes Under Arrest, and When Shit Flies Apart. But I don’t know who broadcasts those gems.
I’m not exaggerating when I say we watch less than fifteen channels, out of the hundreds we’re paying for. In fact, I can only tell you, without cheating, the channel numbers for Fox News (64), NBC (is it always 3, everywhere in the country?), and possibly ABC (2?). And that’s it. Nickelodeon is never off, so it’s not necessary for me to ever go looking for it… And I don’t watch anything else.
What about you? How many channels can you name by number, off the top of your head?
Occasionally I read where some grandstanding politician suggests a new government regulation, which would force cable providers to allow customers to only pay for the channels they watch.
It would be an a la carte situation, and I don’t know how I feel about it. At first it seems like a good idea. But many channels would instantly disappear, like that weird stuff way up in the 200s, I think, and we’d have a lot less available to us.
And yeah, I know it’s survival of the fittest, and all that. Believe me, I agree. But I also like channel surfing every once in a while, and maybe discovering something freaky and mind-blowing on a channel I’ll never be able to locate again. I don’t take advantage of the choices too often, but I’m glad they’re there. For some reason…
How much TV do you watch? Are you like me, and see less today than at any time in history? What channels do you frequent, and can you name their number off the top of your head?
Any opinions on the a la carte scheme? If it cost $5.00 per month to subscribe to a channel, and you didn’t want to go over $25.00, which ones would you choose? What would be your essential five?
And this is a quickie, typed like a freakin’ email. They’re usually longer, and a little better crafted. But I’m running radically short of time here.
I’ll do better tomorrow, I promise.
See ya then.
Filed under: Daily
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters!!
I pay for about 300 channels on a monthly basis, and when I have the leisure to watch, it’s about 5 channels I tune to.
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number 2 sweet Jesus!!!!
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Whee!
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Espn – background noise
Nbc – 30 rock heroes
Abc – lost
Cartoon network – because I’m 32
Whatever poofer channel the white woman watches.
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Top 5 ?
Guess I’ll read now!
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NBC is channel 5 in St. Louis, Channel 4 in Nashville TN. I’ve never lived in a place that had a Channel 3.
I was recently thinking if I could just pay for some basic cable channels they would be: Comedy Central, ESPN, Military Channel, Discovery Channel and Cartoon Network (mainly for Adult Swim which you can watch online). Our PBS station is broadcasting the Documentary Channel as part of their over the air digital television signal and I’ve enjoyed that quite a bit.
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7?
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A very timely topic here. We were just talking about downgrading our service and found that we only watch about 10 channels out of the approximately 1000 we receive, not counting all the various HBOs. As for that, I keep meaning to ditch HBO and they keep stringing me along, one production at a time. For now, it’s Big Love and Flight of the Conchords. Big Love will be on Netflix and Flight of the Conchords is ending soon, so I thought I could pull the plug. Now they’ve added Eastbound and Down which looks funny as hell.
We watch more programming these days, and less actual TV. Thank God for the instant view feature on Netflix!
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My mother came to visit recently and watched The Weather Channel during her entire 4 days here. We’d leave the room and when we came back in it would be on the goddamn weather channel (I know it’s 37, it was on so fucking often).
I watch the news now and then (73) and The Office on Thursdays on NBC (5). My wife likes to watch queers, people crying for no apparent reason, things to do with weddings, and midgets.
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We have Dish Network and it sucks–1000′s of channels, $90 a month, we watch maybe 9 or 10. A la carte would be WONDERFUL!!!! My top five would be 111 DIY, 23 The WB, 17 NBC, 3 CBS and whatever station is ABC Family. We surf the TV every night and absolutely nothing.
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3 Discovery Channels
Vh 1 Rehab!
Speed Channel
ESPN
ESPN 2
ESPN 3
2 1/2 Men
A & E, Intervention & Soprano Reruns
History Channel
The Real Housewives of Orange County only, The Atlanta Housewives and New York Houswives Suck!
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top twenty- yahoo
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NBC – for The Office only
ABC – for Scrubs only
FOX – Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad only
Discovery/Discovery Health Channel
HGTV
E – The Soup only
I’d also like to get National Geographic or Science – only for the How It’s Made type of shows.
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Off the top of my head…..
2 is CBS
4 is ABC
11 is NBC
13 is PBS
19 is CW
53 is FOX
107 is Comedy Central
114 is E!
118 is A&E
119 is Biography
120 is History
140 is ESPN
151 is Versus
428 FOX Sports News / Pittsburgh
And of those select few I watch maybe 4 or 5. The news at night after work, hockey games(Penguins) on FSN or Versus, and if something catched my interest I’ll watch Biography or A&E.
The wife has, however, got me hooked on Hell’s Kitchen Thursday nights on FOX. Love it when Chef Ramsay goes flat out ballistic on the kitchen staff. Sweet Jeebus is that funny to watch!!
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Jason, that means your wife watches TLC (49) or Bravo (39 I think).
I’m a big fan of Dirty Jobs and Deadliest Catch and Mythbusters.
I frequent Discovery (32) and Comedy Central (57). I’m aware of VH1 (33), MTV (16) and Lifetime (18), but don’t watch them unless I need to see some useless realtiy waste like Rock of Love or Celebrity Rehab.
Espn is 21 AND 22?
Discovery Health is 41, but I can’t watch it during meal time…they show some gross shit on there.
NASA is 47, and I only know that because on my old cable 47 was comedy central and that took some time to get used to.
I watch a lot of tv in the winter. I’m single, I live alone, and I hate going out in the cold.
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What is this t.v. and channels that you speak of?
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catched? catches? caught?…..whatever
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Fox “24″
ABC “Lost”
Food, Travel, Fox News Channels backround
The kid has Nick, Toon, Disney and such
My wife loves disaster shows like “When Planes Crash”, “When Trains Derail”, and of course, “When Lots of People Die.” She says she just likes to be ready, in case.
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Why do you watch Fox News?
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A friend sent me a couple of questions regarding the Wal-Mart game.
1) What is a camel hatch?
2) What is a funking whistle?
Can anyone help me with this?
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Oh wait, the game says “camel hack”. Sorry.
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I am completely television obsessed. To buy my channels a la carte would require picking up a second job to pay the bill.
I dont know if I can pick a top 5 but I’ll give it a shot:
ABC – Lost
Fox – Prison Break, 24
NBC – 30 Rock
HBO – Big Love, True Blood
VH1 – Celebrity Rehab
So many good shows would go unwatched. It would be too sad.
Sometimes at work, I log onto http://www.tvismypacifier.com , decide which shows I’m going to watch that night, and then program them to record to my DVR remotely from my cell phone. I better go do that now…
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I can’t limit myself to five channels, so a la carte might be expensive for me. Aside from NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, I watch…
PBS for Frontline, Nova, and Masterpiece Theater
CNN and MSNBC for background noise
USA for Burn Notice and In Plain Sight
FX for Damages
TNT for Saving Grace and Trust Me
AMC for Mad Men
Discover for Deadliest Catch
and BBC America for occasional random shit.
My father would come away with the cheapest cable bill ever, given that he only watches CSPAN, Fox News, the Military Channel, the History Channel, and History International. After spending a week with Dad and his TV choices, I wanted to do myself in.
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OMG…!! TV!?!? U kidding? That’s my shit. It’s on whether I can hear it or not! I will watch movies I have seen a bazillion times over. As far as I’m concerned The Godfather, parts 1 and 2, could run in a continous loop….as well as Casino, Goodfella’s, and Titanic!! Can’t remember all the channels.. But we only watch a few too. Family Guy is drop dead funny. Military, History, Discovery, and National Geographic Channels the most. I do like American Idol but my boyfriend controls the goddamn remote… He says he doesn’t want to watch a bunch of fag douchers singin for their supper….. So if it’s not exploding/or being blown to smitherines, someone getting FUBAR’d, some redneck bullshit, or crap about inmates in the correctional systems across the country (I call it Jailhouse Rock)….then my choices don’t stand a chance. HA!
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I just read my earlier posting and it appears I desperately need to get a life.
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ESPN 1 and 2-Gotta have sports
VS.- Red Wings
Fox Sports- Red Wings, Tigers
A&E- First 48
Discovery- Deadliest Catch
Tru- Cops
NBC
ABC
CBS-Letterman
HBO
The Kids Watch
Disney east,west,toon
Nick East, West Toon, Jr
CTN
PBS
Discovery Kids
That’s 22. At five bucks a month that would be $110. I don’t pay that for cable,phone, and internet combined. I say leave it as it is.
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Shit I forgot FX and regular Fox. I’ll loose my damn house!
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I have 1,076 channels. I wouldn’t give up any of them, except maybe the foreign language ones at the end, although for a really good time, get drunk late at night (or in the middle of the day) and make up your own dialogue. Somehow, though, there never seems to be ANYTHING worth watching during the day on saturday. Some people may suggest finding alternative means of entertainment, like, say, getting up off the couch, taking a shower, letting my skin feel the warmth of natural sunlight… to them I say “pfffft.” or “if you need me, you know where i’ll be. Pass the corn nuts.”
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I watch more TV now that I have a 9 to 5 and a really busy spouse them i have in my entire life combined! Top 5-
VH1 (26)- All things Rock of Love and Junky Celebs
E! (54)- Cannot live without The Girls Next Door or Chelsea Lately.
Fox (6)- House, Bones, Family Guy
CBS (7)- CSI; except NY, 2 and a Half Men
NBC (10)-ER, All Law & Order
I would miss Comedy Central, TNT, USA, and TLC but I could probably survive.
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I love the a la carte idea. I mean do we really need a SHAMWOW channel?
The ones I watch:
1 – Foxnews
2- ESPN (during football season)
3-Channel 39 Allentown PBS (because they have 4 hours of British comedy on Saturday evenings.
4 – A&E because I like American Justice and Forensic Files
5 – TVland because I need my daily fix of the Andy Griffith Show.
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I watch 99% of my TV through a TiVo so I have no idea what the actual channel numbers are. I have no need to know if The Simpsons was broadcast by Fox or FX or the Yellow Cartoon People Channel.
I would need to keep Speed TV, TLC, the channels that broadcast King of the Hill, The Simpsons, House, Criminal Minds.
Just last week dropped HBO.
The rest of it I’ll just download and watch through my TiVo. I often get a better quality picture from stuff I download than I do from Comcrap’s SD channels.
Oh and Fox News? Bloody hell, and yet you sometimes write fairly well. Can’t watch it too often…
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When the cable company jacked up their rates and I got tired of fighting with them, I canceled and got myself a handy digital converter box with my government coupon. The picture is actually cable-esque… when it’s not flickering in and out. I do miss a few cable channels, but realized I could watch most of my shows online or get the DVDs in the mail with Blockbuster (I think I’m the only person who uses Blockbuster Total Access instead of Netflix…)
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King of the Hill had been canceled. I know one thing, I hate paying 64 dollars a month for cable. Particularly when several of the channels are religious channels.
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Oh the joy of living in a Communist Country:) (Canada where strange relatives come from!!) Our own Canadian T.V. is regulated by the State (If we watch to much U.S. T.V. we might go crazy demand privatized medicine & start voting republican!) It’s not that bad ,the Comedy is pretty good excellent news coverage(CBC) & lots of Brit comedy you don’t see Stateside! We get most of the U.S. feeds from Bufallo & Detroit & bizzarely nearly all our H.D. channels are from Seattle so I can watch house or Family guy at midnight because of the time difference! The downside: 200 frickin French channels: “Bonjour Sponge Bob Ca Va?” and the awful habit of slotting in Canadian commercials where the real ones belong: EVEN DURING THE SUPERBOWL AND THAT”S JUST WRONG PEOPLE!!!!!!!
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Renee- you are not the only one who uses Blockbuster. I enjoy being able to go to the store and switch out movies for free if i don’t want to wait for snail mail.
I do hate to tell all of you that I get free “classic cable”, up through the movie channels, because I work where i live and send them alot of business. Please don’t hate me!
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I don’t have cable so I only get about 5 channels. But now we got one of them new fangled converter boxes so we get 17!
During the week I watch FOX and CBS after 8pm. And occasionally on the weekends we will watch stuff on the PBS Create. Either cooking or home improvement shows. And thats about it.
We don’t watch so much TV now I think because we have the internet to distract us now.
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TV is my life so i can pretty much name just about every channel offered from DirecTV, including all the HBO’s, Showtimes, TMC’s, Cinemax’s, Starz…. so needless to say, no a la carte for me. when my 2 year “rebates cuz i’m a new bitch to the satellite family” stop, i’m gonna have to get rid of somethin’ tho, and that’s not a good thing for a woman that joneses for TV like Tyron Biggums for his Red Bull and a crack rock.
as for the “regular channels” in this area,
NBC = 7 – tune in for My Name is Earl, ER, Dateline, Days of our Lives
CBS = 9 – tune in for Two and a Half Men, Bold and the Beautiful, 48 Hours Mystery
ABC = 12 – tune in for Grey’s Anatomy
FOX = 14 – tune in for LOST, Family Guy, American Idol
and i’m sure more will be added to the roster once new shows are added.
now, i could get into the cable shows i watch but i’m afraid i’d crash the site. HGTV is probably my fave.
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I use netflix because I can watch movies on the computer. I have The Shawshank Redemption paused in another window right now.
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On the plus side I get a massive discount on my cable bill because I work in property management. On the minus side, because I live in Canada I’m forced to subscribe to a minimum of 30% Canadian channels. So I have to pay for a lot of extra stuff I never watch.
26 CBC Newsworld -like Fox news without the right-wing nut-jobs “commentating”
34 Learning Channel -I’m addicted to Little People Big World, mainly because watching dwarfs run is really, really funny (yes, yes, I know…I’m going to hell)
39 Showcase
42 Discovery -Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, and that crazy fuck Bear Grylls. That guy will eat ANYTHING! He’s like the Jim Rose Circus Side-Show, but with talent.
45 History – Any given time I turn it on there’s a 25% chance they’re playing Patton, Tora! Tora! Tora!, or Midway.
46 Comedy -Simpsons, Robot Chicken, FG, etc
.
47 Peachtree -they show Family Guy a lot
48 Sci Fi -cause a Sci Fi movie beats a chick flick 100% of the time
49 HGTV -I love shows where complete idiots invest their life savings trying to flip a house and lose everything. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. I also enjoy shows where clueless amateurs try to do major renovations and end up destroying the place instead.
50 Cartoon Network -Simpsons, FG, American Dad, Futurama
82 Showcase Action -Decent movies most weekends
84 IFC -Awesome movies most of the time.
100 On Demand -I can choose from 1000′s of movies, porn, TV shows etc. Some cost $$$, some are free.
284 Teletoon Retro -Old cartoons UNCENSORED! I was watching Wait Till Your Father Gets Home last night and the crazy neighbor was going off on how he hates Blacks, Hispanics, and Jews just like he did back in ’74 when it first aired.
And that’s about it. All in all I get over 250 channels and I actually watch less than 20.
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I spend more time in front of computer now that I am working on my degree again. I usually watch the Military Channel, NGC or Animal Planet for entertainment. HBO for Bill Maher and maybe a movie every now and then. Oh and FOX for Hell’s Kitchen now get the fuck out of here you donkey!!!!
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Fox News? WTF? Too “fair and balanced” for me. Didn’t know you traveled in Limbaughland.
Fox entertainment and sports I can — and do– see. Simpsons, Jack Bauer, NFL on Fox, etc.
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Tyrosine – everytime I look at the line up for HGTV, it sounds like Queer Eye for the Gay guy.
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Oh and “wait til your father gets home” is just Family Guy, American Dad, King of the Hill and The Simpsons all rolled up into one cartoon. God forbid if they ever got wind of the Boondocks.
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@Tyrosine – now that damn theme song is playing in head, get it out you stupid donkey…
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@ Shiny Rod -They tend to have the fun shows on during the weekend, but it can be hit and miss. I watched a great one last week that featured the line “Don’t blame me! How was I supposed to know it was a load-bearing wall?” followed later by the line “What do you mean we’re $50,000 over budget?!?!”
Ya gotta skip over the fufu crap, especially anything featuring those two “fancy boys” from Scotland, but it can be worth the wait. Think of it like Cops, but featuring people who have the means to obtain a mortgage.
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i am the only one who watches the Food Network?
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@ Dave -The only one with a Y chromosome at least
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Food Network has become my background noise channel.
Showcase.
Discovery.
Fox.
Spike. to round out the 5 for 25.
What I’m not keen on is channels going soft due to their digital offerings. Showcase would fall into that, they don’t seem to broadcast the edgey movies they once did. But, its where TPB hide out, so it stays.
And theres my diatribe about channel format changes… Ie, A&E, TLC, Life, etc. But I’ll save y’all the agony.
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No, I’m a straight man and I watch some Food Network shows too. Although a whole bunch of them I cannot stand. Oddly enough I’m currently waiting for some of AB’s chewy cookie dough to finish chilling before I bake it.
Oh, and I forgot The Daily Show (normally first 12 minutes only).
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Fox News?! (shaking head in disgust). Jeff, why?
Okay, I watch:
356 – MSNBC – I know, Fox but to the left, but I love watching Olbermann pontificate.
501 – HBO Bil Maher and several defunct shows I loved.
269 – History Channel HD
249 – Comedy Central for the Daily Show/Colbert Nation
265 – A&E HD for Intervention
The ONLY time I tune to FOX is for Cops/America’s Most Wanted on Sat night if I’m home (we call that “White Trash TV” night). Cops is a real self-esteem builder, and I still can’t believe I’ve never seen anyone I know on America’s Most Wanted…
Happy Tuesday, Surfers!
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Only one channel really needed, but I’m afraid it doesn’t exist. It’d be the one with Mythbusters, shows about drunk people getting arrested, another show about people blowing shit up, and Dirty jobs. That’s about all we watch at the Tiny House, which is why I’m about to pull the plug on everything except basic-basic cable.
For a third the price of teevee, we can drown our video jones in sweet Netflix squeezins.
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All you friggin leftists. Shove MSNBC up your ass and lick Olberman’s balls.
Whew! That felt good.
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@dave – isn’t it ironic that the better food shows come on the Travel channel. ie Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern. BBC has Gordon Ramsey…
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Dave,
I watch the food channel. And I like watching “Top Chef” but I’m not sure which channel it comes on.
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With Netflix and Hulu, I can watch pretty much anything I want anytime. I mostly just wait until everything is on DVD anyway.
The only thing I don’t wait on is Lost, and I can watch that online easily enough as well, in streaming HD, and with far less commercials. Thanks, internet!
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I am shocked at the amount of people who still watch ABC/CBS/NBC. I thought the “Networks” had gone the way of the Edsel and the icebox.
Over here, I watch only the English language channels, 18 through 21 (Nat Geo, Discovery, Travel&Living) and 65 through 71 (movie channels). Plus the sports channels when they show something worthy.
I totally agree with Jeff about the History Channel. I mean, there is a LOT of history out there besides WWII. A really lot.
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This is going to be long, ranty and unfunny, so everyone stop reading right now…It’s a neat dream, but the a la carte thing will never happen and if it did, you wouldn’t like it. There is a minimum cost in getting the signal to your house regardless of how many channels you receive. So you’re gonna get five channels and your bill will still be $40 – more if you want to count the bigwig salaries at the networks and cable companies. Also, if you knew how much of your cable bill went to the ESPN LTAP (ESPN 1, 2, U, Deportes, Classic, News) alone you would crap. Then there’s Turner, Viacom, Fox and others that have several channels. All these stop the a la carte option. Besides, those 6 channels you watch make up 80% of your bill. It costs more in bandwidth for a cable company to carry them than it does in subscriber fees. The religious channels you hate so much don’t charge anything – in fact, most of them provide a launch incentive of a few thousand dollars and a receiver. All I’m saying is under the current structure, it’s never gonna happen. You can count on the internet, but in most cases it’s the same infrastructure. Whew! I’ll try not to do that again…
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Fox News?! Oh, Dear God…..
I DVR everything, so I only watch Fox for The Simpsons (best show ever), NBC for Heroes & The Office and if I am feeling a bit suicidal I watch a little of Jon & Kate Plus 8 on TLC until I want to rip that evil woman’s head off for treating her husband like a steaming pile of turds.
Otherwise I avoid it all…..
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It can’t be possible that anyone cares but I meant to say, “It costs more in bandwidth to carry the other 500 channels than it does in subscriber fees”. **sigh**
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Another Canadian here, but 93% of my TV watching is non-Canadian content:
Discovery HD
Speed HD
Comedy Network
CTV NewsNet
Fox HD (Feb to May)
TSN / TSN2 (June to July)
ABC HD (Aug to Nov)
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Fox (Family Guy & House)
Spike (CSI reruns)
Nickelodeon (to keep the kids out of my hair)
VH1 (Rock of Love)
CBS (CSI)
I only know that Spike is channel 168 on my Dish Network, it’s the only channel I watch every night.
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Thank you Metten It’s Jesus T.V. from here on in!
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Wow, Joe T. – sounds like you may have some anger issues.
It’s a television comment – relax before you stroke out. No one is asking you to WATCH Keith Olbermann. And I would never ask you to “lick Olberman’s balls”, as you so eloquently put it.
Relax, man. you guys had a good run – really.
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Remember those sleepless nights back in the pre TCM good old days when you watched old movies all night? Now even on the damn chanells you pay for it’s infomercials from Midnight to 6 am What the hell does Mr.T cooking crap in a plastic oven have to do with History? well at least it’s not about WW2:)
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-ESPN (1, 2, and 3)
-Cartoon Network
-Nick Toons
-TNT/Spike, it’s a toss up
-HGTV
I have to throw in all the lower channels for local news and sports. I watch “Jeopardy”, “Fringe”, “Without a Trace” and “The Big Bang Theory” with some regularity.
If I could I’d block all the female channels I would. I’m such a boy!
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I’d like to see someone lick Olberman’s balls, but it costs more than $5 for that channel.
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CBS: Monday night shows
ABC: Lost and Life on Mars
NBC: Earl
FoxNews: Important information
FX: Rescue Me & Sons of Anarchy
FoodNetwork: The fat guy with bad hair who goes to old diners
I need to cut back on my cable service. I have U-400 and I’m watching about six channels. That leaves 394 that I should be getting a refund on.
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MSNBC
HBO
Showtime
NBC
Discovery
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My five would be:
ABC – For Lost only.
Discovery – Man vs. Wild, Deadliest Catch and Dirty Jobs.
TLC – All the shows about midgets and people with more kids than sense.
Sports South – Braves Baseball.
Fox News – Yeah? So what? Like CNN is any better.
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I blame the guide and the internet. Back when you “hand cranked” you knew you were going to settle for something even if it was a 60′s rerun on a UHF channel. Now you skim through the guide rejecting shows based on name, channel or length and go surf the web instead.
We have Direct-TV with several add on packages. Now I watch < 10 hours of TV per week and what I do watch is almost all news.
My numbers 360 is FoxNews, 356 is MSNBC 355 is CNBC 264 is BBC America and 244 is Sci-Fi.
I cannot remember the last time I watched a traditional network maybe 2006.
The only episodic TV I watch is Big Love and Dr Who. We Tivo tons of stuff but much of it just gets deleted.
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“Leftist” is not a word. Perhaps you mean liberal, or democrat – those are both words. I believe it’s been quite positively proven that the “Fox News Channel” contains pre-scripted propaganda that is presented as news. If you prefer their viewpoint, that’s fine – it’s a free country.
As an MSNBC watcher, I’m also fine with the news on CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC. I guess they’re all part of the “big conspiracy”.
My list is similar to Knucklehead, but replace the History channel with Letterman and The Office.
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The only reason we really have our current cable package was primarily so that we could keep the Independent Film Channel, Sundance and Fox Movie Channels (so I can record movies), but I seem to be finding most every film title I want through Netflix and other various sources, so I almost want to drop the whole damned overpriced package. We get about 150 channels and besides the aforementioned three channels I only watch Fox News (a staple), The History Channel, occasional Discovery Channel, TCM, Comedy Channel. I’ll pop by the lower rungs whenever there’s a classic old sitcom on like Sanford & Son (always) or The Honeymooners, but I also find that I watch less real television than I ever have at any other point in my life, and growing up I was a product of the TV generation! Go figger. I’m too old to give a crap about the 74 different MTV Channel variations that broadcast Rock Of Love copies 24-7 and reality TV just bores me shitless.
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The only show I really make a point of watching is “Top Gear” on BBC. Also the winter Olympics every four years. I used to enjoy “Iron Chef”, but not so much anymore. I think I burned out on TV from working at a TV station for seven years.
Sorry, I don’t know any of my channel numbers. Well, maybe Fox News is 666 in some sense. I don’t have much use for MSNBC, except for the fact that one of my former co-workers is an anchor there.
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You know what channel we need? We need an Obama channel, so he can give all the boring ass speeches he wants to all damn day long without interrupting my regularly scheduled programming.
They can insert that channel in down at the end with all the foreign language channels.
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Top Gear is the balls. Also, the Sundance channel has a show called “Live from Abbey Road”, it’s an hour show that features three different bands performing live in the historic studio. I’m also a religious fan of F1 auto racing on Speed TV. That’s about it for my international culture; unless you count “Survivor”.
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The Military Channel – 112
The Discovery Channel – 061
The History Channel – 046
The Science Channel – 111
CNN – 032
The Weather Channel – 016 (because they’re the only people on TV who know what the hell they are talking about)
The only network show I watch is ’24′. Tear ‘em up, Jack.
Today’s quote is a buy one, get one free…
- “I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.” ~ Groucho Marx
- “Television: A medium – so called because it is neither rare nor well done.” ~ Ernie Kovacs
(If you don’t know who Ernie K. is, sorry about your luck.)
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I never understood the Weather Channel – it should just be local weather, but it’s mostly not. I once said, “why do I give a damn about the weather in Montana?”, and someone replied, “well if you lived in Montana you’d care”, and I replied, “exactly, because it would be the local weather”. Can someone explain this channel?
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I don’t really watch TV. I have been known to watch Mad Men but that’s only if I have time.
Give me a six pack of beer, a gallon of massage oil and Mr.Man chained to the bed and I’m good to go. Who needs TV?
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On Long Island we watch
Channel 2 – Letterman
Channel 9, 11 or 39 – King of Queens, Sienfeld and 2 1/2 Men Reruns
Channel 7 – Jeopardy
Channel 61 – Local Weather and Traffic
One of many Cinemax channels for our Soft Core T&A
That’s about it
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I know too many of the channels by number than I would like to admit… as for essentials:
1. HBO – I wouldn’t want to live without it.
2. Showtime – Because I like to imagine that HBO & Showtime are desperately competing for my devotion to one or the other. Oh and the shows are pretty good.
3. FX – Awesome original series, “Married with Children” reruns and they constantly play “Con Air,” what’s not to like??
4. USA – I could not get through major holidays without a Law & Order SVU marathon.
5. Can we make this one a wildcard? Cause I’d like to be able to pick and choose between a few depending on my mood – CW (for Simpsons reruns), Lifetime (for something to laugh at), TNT (regular Law & Order marathons) and Food Network (so I can fantasize about great food while eating something crappy like a Hot Pocket)
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If I didn’t have 900 channels, I wouldn’t be able to watch golf with my three-year-old son when he wakes me up at 2:00 a.m.
Ahhh…technology!
K(arla)
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My televison watching is limited to sports, home/garden shows and reality. Reality means there is swearing and titties which means I only watch HBO and Showtime . Other than sports and news I watch nothing on the over-the-air network channels.
The home/garden stuff is to keep up on what others are doing out there related to my business. RDF channel included because where I live its a requirement if you want to be included in conversations at the mom and pop restaurant.
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Food Network: Only to watch Alton Brown
TCM: Any old black and white detective movie works for me.
History Channel and Military Channel: Hey, ya can’t EVER get enough of Hitler!
Cartoon Network (I think): Adult Swim…Family Guy reruns, Robot Chicken, and Drinky Crow.
…Uncle Buzz, funny you should mention Ernie Kovacs! I was watching a movie on TCM a couple nights ago (sorry, I forget the name of it) but Ernie Kovacs was in it!. Totally cool!
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How did TVs deal with having a channel 3 on the airwaves back when VCRs and video game consoles required the TV to be on 3 to run them? It sounds like a pain in the ass to me.
AMC, USA, NBC and CBS are about all I watch.
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Discovery
History Channel (We call it the Hitler Channel)
A&E
AMC
TCM
I used to watch a ton of TV Land until it turned into a non-stop ad for a bunch of shows like Hot Chicks That you Went to High School With That are Now Stretched out Whores, Meet Back up with High School Studs that are now Fat Bald Tubs of Goo.
And their new show, Women Old Enough to Be Your Mom Hitting on Guys That are Your Son’s Age.
What ever happened to Green Acres foe god’s sake?
Networks? What are those?
The only time a network is on is to see the gay local weatherman warning us about how many inches of the “white stuff” were gonna get.
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Where I’m working right now every break room has four TV’s that broadcast Fox News, The Weather Channel, CNN, and MSNBC. I can tell you every time I go in there the news channels are reporting on the exact same things, using the exact same words pretty much. A lot of the time they’re all doing the same story at the same time. I guess this political leaning must happen durring the primetime shows? I don’t really see much of a difference. I think Glenn Beck has a good show. When my wife turns on Nancy Grace I have to leave the room. None of it has anything to do with the left or the right. I just can’t stand the woman.
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Because we have small kids, we gave up trying to watch movies on premium channels a couple of years ago. So we have standard cable and it goes like this:
We are crime show addicts: Law & Order, CSI, Criminal Minds, Mentalist, Numbers, Monk & the Closer are on all the time. That means CBS (channel 3 here in NC), USA (25), TNT (26), A&E (27) and sometimes Spike (40) for CSI reruns.
We also watch sports from time to time (UNC basketball), but our ancient 57″ projection TV is big enough to split the screen equally, so we often have ESPN on the left without sound, and a crime show on the right with sound.
And FYI, Spike is the channel that has most of those Dumbasses Getting Arrested shows – they seem to have migrated form Fox over the years.
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>How much TV do you watch?
Zero. Nada. Zilch. I pulled the plug on cable in 2000 and never went back. A big fat $60 saved. Per fucking month.
“24″ and “Galactica” you can rent from Netflix, and “The Office” and “Family Guy” and all that crap is on various websites in streaming format. Plus a shitload of streaming movies (most of them junk, but whatever) on Netflix’s site.
The only downside is sports. I miss vegging out in front of a game on weekends. I might pay a fiver for a sports channel if it were available.
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Hey, Uncle Buzz in Wheeling:
My beloved 25 year old Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot that just passed away *sniff* was named Percy Dovetonsils!
I LOVE Ernie Kovaks!
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Nads….how’s it hang’in bro?
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I read a magazine while watching with the kids American Idol (FOX) and The Office (NBC).
The Dad Favorites presets are:
ESPN
ESPN2
Foxnews
History
Discovery
Foxs Business News
Military Channel
I skip over all other channels unless a particular sporting even requires viewing.
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Why watch FOX NEWS? You freedom of speech, tolerant liberals are so afraid of a different point of view. And don’t reply to this in a mean way because I don’t want you to indulge in “hate speech”.
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We looooove TV. We love TV so much, we joined Netflix so that we could watch entires series uninterrupted. I’ve never gone so far as to reschedule things because something was on TV, but as one of the last people in the free world without a DVR (thank you, Charter Communications), I’m sure glad they show full episodes of “The Big Bang Theory” on CBS.com. My 13-yr old son loves G4 (channel 47) to watch Cheats and Japanese game shows like Ninja Warrior, along with Cartoon Network (54), Nickelodeon (55), and Toon Disney (102). I couldn’t live without 3 Discovery channels (200-202), the History Channel (46), Food Network (52), and BBC America (108). I’ve gotten hooked on “How Clean Is Your House?”.
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hln 23 – nancy grace and jane velez mitchell
comedy central 26 – south park
cartoon network 49 – the boy likes jimmy neutron
the military channel 52 – (i think this is the right chnl) future weapons for the hubby
the hitler, i mean history channel 122 – background noise, it’s always ww2 stuff but good enough for bg noise
and fox news, because i can’t take the liberal utopia mindset going on at cnn or any of the major news networks.
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What West Virginian could forget Burdette Camping Center’s “Don’t THROW your money away!” guy, who pitched a wad of singles in the air after delivering the oft-repeated, RV-promoting tagline.
C&O Motors maintains a decades old annoying radio ad, in which an announcer lists a bunch of cars and their prices, then shouts “C & O Motors!” three times. That said, I bought my car there.
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Those two tubbies on the electric wheelchair live in my town. I’m so proud!
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Let’s see, Discovery (Mythbusters), TruTV (The Smoking Gun Presents), ABC (FlashForward, 24, V), BYU-TV, Weather Channel
I could cope with only having those.
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