Wife and I turned off "TV" in 1987.
By that I mean, we stopped watching tv shows of any kind, back then. We've never seen a single episode of Friends, Seinfeld, etc. Never watched a "reality show" of any kind (Exactly what kind of reality is it that comes with a script?).
This left movies, and news. First of all, you have to remember it is a "News
Show". It sells soap and hamburgers, just like any other show, or it's gone.
Second, a linear feed of selected stories (someone else does the selecting) is about the most useless means of trying to inform oneself there is. It took us awhile, but we eventually turned that off about 2002. The Internet, with some judicious filtering, can inform you much faster, and at much greater depth.
This left movies. The movie channels don't want to be movie channels anymore. Instead they have switched to producing the same cr@p sitcoms, etc that the old TV stations abandoned for "reality". Of course they are all "Award winning, inciteful, original, and hard hitting". Translation: They use the F-word, and show the occasional pair of boobs.
To the point that, last month, Showtime had exactly 22 movies avail "On Demand".
Pathetic! Hell, I have some 27 DVR'd. Means I could offer someone a greater variety than Showtime.
So at this point, we are thinking about cancelling HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and The Movie Channel, and instead using the money for a Netflix subscription. We could get 100 times the variety, and still watch each movie 100 times, to replace the movie channel's monthly behavior if we wished.
One thing that is funny to watch on "news forums" is the endless left/right debate about which news outlet is putting out the
REAL truth. It always reminds me of a Fred Reed quote:
"These people wouldn't have a clue, even if you gave them another one."
"The News" is corporate owned, liberal written (last poll, over 72% of respondents among news writers and readers were from the left). What this represents is a two-stage filter that guarantees nothing of value gets through. Just turn it off.
This does present a problem. I have basically replaced my TV time with reading. I probably read 6+ hours every day. The problem? After a few years you'll find that you end up with almost nothing in common with most people you run across. Education sounds a noble cause, but most lack the attention span, or inclination.
Maybe I'm just getting old in my grumpy age. Who knows?
Fred