Channel surfing keeps getting harder.
by AC - permalink
I'd heard that MTV was going to ignore its 25th anniversary today, but it really didn't strike me how weird that was until I saw VH1 Classic's six-hour tribute to MTV's "Day One" this afternoon. I realize that both channels are owned by the same massive conglomerate, but it's still off-putting that MTV is so afraid of alienating its pre-teen audience by acknowledging that it's older than they are that they actually shifted the anniversary programming not only to VH1, but to the upper-tier VH1 Classic that not many people even get, or watch. In my mind, this is MTV officially abandoning any of their original fans. Sorry, old man, we were going to have John Norris intro some Blondie videos, but it would have cut into Next and Made and Room Raiders and a lot of other bullshit we've dedicated 22 hours of the day to in place of, you know, music.
VH1 Classic is really a better channel anyway. Classic/Current is pretty cool. They play a band's first ever video and then their most recent one. And I just watched the Elvis Costello edition of Classic in Concert twice. He played an extended concert with Death Cab for Cutie, Fiona Apple, and Billy Armstrong, and it was just amazing. No, "Wake Me Up When September Ends" didn't really need the Elvis Costello touch, but his collaboration with Fiona on "I Want You" was fucking magic. I want a DVD of that concert.
It seems like all the good shit on TV is on the channels you can't get with a basic cable or satellite package. The Discovery Times Channel is at least as good as Discovery now, probably better. Times has Thomas L. Friedman Reporting, and these days that might be the most significant show on TV. It's also still the only channel where you can see Off to War.
There's also BBC America, one of the first places I check when I turn on the tube. Monty Python has disappeared, which is disapointing, but there's still a lot of guilty pleasures like Keeping Up Appearances (which, like Monty Python, you can find on PBS), Cash in the Attic, and Bargain Hunter. Bravo is still a high-tier channel, and you need Bravo if only for Celebrity Poker Showdown and six hours of Kathy Griffin every day. Actually, you might not need Bravo. But there's still IFC for uncut, often widescreen movies that average at least a thumb and a half up, and you won't get your weekend fix of Samurai movies anywhere else.
It concerns me that it keeps getting harder to find quality TV on non-premium channels, but it concerns me more that the premium channels are becoming more ubiquitous and are getting correspondigly blander as a result. TechTV, for example, has devolved into MTV2 for gamers, aka G4, and Fuse, which started out as "MTV as it used to be," is quickly morphing into "MTV as it already is."
But there's still hope. IFC has shown few signs of commercializing, and channels like Link and Current and even NASA TV prove that there's a future in TV for people with brains that still work reasonably well. And we can always downshift a gear or two and enjoy the train wreck that is Fox Reality. Watching idiots compete with other idiots for small cash prizes amid endless humiliation? Priceless. And you thought you were wasting your money on that premium package.
by AC - permalink
I'd heard that MTV was going to ignore its 25th anniversary today, but it really didn't strike me how weird that was until I saw VH1 Classic's six-hour tribute to MTV's "Day One" this afternoon. I realize that both channels are owned by the same massive conglomerate, but it's still off-putting that MTV is so afraid of alienating its pre-teen audience by acknowledging that it's older than they are that they actually shifted the anniversary programming not only to VH1, but to the upper-tier VH1 Classic that not many people even get, or watch. In my mind, this is MTV officially abandoning any of their original fans. Sorry, old man, we were going to have John Norris intro some Blondie videos, but it would have cut into Next and Made and Room Raiders and a lot of other bullshit we've dedicated 22 hours of the day to in place of, you know, music.
VH1 Classic is really a better channel anyway. Classic/Current is pretty cool. They play a band's first ever video and then their most recent one. And I just watched the Elvis Costello edition of Classic in Concert twice. He played an extended concert with Death Cab for Cutie, Fiona Apple, and Billy Armstrong, and it was just amazing. No, "Wake Me Up When September Ends" didn't really need the Elvis Costello touch, but his collaboration with Fiona on "I Want You" was fucking magic. I want a DVD of that concert.
It seems like all the good shit on TV is on the channels you can't get with a basic cable or satellite package. The Discovery Times Channel is at least as good as Discovery now, probably better. Times has Thomas L. Friedman Reporting, and these days that might be the most significant show on TV. It's also still the only channel where you can see Off to War.
There's also BBC America, one of the first places I check when I turn on the tube. Monty Python has disappeared, which is disapointing, but there's still a lot of guilty pleasures like Keeping Up Appearances (which, like Monty Python, you can find on PBS), Cash in the Attic, and Bargain Hunter. Bravo is still a high-tier channel, and you need Bravo if only for Celebrity Poker Showdown and six hours of Kathy Griffin every day. Actually, you might not need Bravo. But there's still IFC for uncut, often widescreen movies that average at least a thumb and a half up, and you won't get your weekend fix of Samurai movies anywhere else.
It concerns me that it keeps getting harder to find quality TV on non-premium channels, but it concerns me more that the premium channels are becoming more ubiquitous and are getting correspondigly blander as a result. TechTV, for example, has devolved into MTV2 for gamers, aka G4, and Fuse, which started out as "MTV as it used to be," is quickly morphing into "MTV as it already is."
But there's still hope. IFC has shown few signs of commercializing, and channels like Link and Current and even NASA TV prove that there's a future in TV for people with brains that still work reasonably well. And we can always downshift a gear or two and enjoy the train wreck that is Fox Reality. Watching idiots compete with other idiots for small cash prizes amid endless humiliation? Priceless. And you thought you were wasting your money on that premium package.
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