Fair to say that free-to-air television in Australia has scraped the bottom of the barrel these past few years. I genuinely believe that the viewer’s IQ decreases the more they watch Channel Seven, Nine or Ten (or any of their pointless secondary channels). Pay TV (Foxtel) takes the joke to a whole new level, because they’ve literally convinced people to pay to watch ads.
Even on the rare occasion there’s something worthwhile on free-to-air TV, the viewer has to contend with episodes airing ages after the US or UK, the previous show running overtime, missing the ending of episodes because your recording didn’t take into account that the previous show ran overtime, shows not even screening in HD resolution, loud and constant ad breaks and repetitive promotions of other shitty shows on the channel.
Then there’s huge ass watermarks taking up a large chunk of the screen, pop-up promos during the actual show, the inability to pause or rewind (unless you’re recording), new season episodes airing out of order, re-runs airing amongst new season episodes, scenes trimmed and cut to fill the ad quota, shows switching timeslots half way through seasons, and shows being taken off air prematurely by coked up programmers who blame low ratings they brought on themselves through all the reasons I just mentioned.
Not suggesting TV was a great experience a decade ago, but the trash they pump out at the moment almost makes me long for the days of the Up-Late Game Show hosted by former Big Brother contestant Hotdogs, or that time they gave Shane Warne his own variety show (yes, that actually happened).
Honestly though, what’s the point in watching free-to-air (or pay TV) unless they’re screening a live event? Pretty there’s no show you can’t get elsewhere (legally or otherwise) through official catch-up TV services, bittorrent, Usenet, Kodi add-ons, Android apps, YouTube or Netflix. Best way to consume content surely has to be in you own leisure, dealing with none of the shit I listed.
Can’t say I’ve purposely sat down to watch something on TV in a looong time that wasn’t a live event. But from what I gather, the prime time schedules are currently loaded with lame karaoke competitions, staged reality shows, generic politically correct dramas, cheap dating, renovation and cooking shows that reward backstabbing behaviour, and government-approved news bulletins designed to spread fear, misinformation and divide the masses. Then there’s endless repeats, cross-promotion and entire channels created specifically to screen infomercials 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Anyway, my point (before I got sidetracked) was that despite how bad watching TV (in the traditional sense) is these days, we’re living in a golden age of television with more choice and quality than ever before. I had planned to post my favourite TV shows of 2017, but that list might have to wait for another day.