Jim Henderson wrote:

> At least here in the US, the programmes are secondary - the whole point 
> of commercial television is the commercials - that's where the 
> broadcasters make their money.
> 
> The shows are what draws people to watch.
> 
> But of course with things like the "magic skippy button" (ie, DVR and the 
> ability to skip commercials), broadcasters are having problems justifying 
> the cost of ad slots since the number of views is lower because 
> technology allows people to skip commercials.

In the UK, everybody who owns a TV has to pay money to the BBC. The BBC 
therefore has no incentive at all to ever show anything. (Well, except I 
suppose that if they stopped broadcasting, the government wouldn't be 
too amused about it...) In general, the BBC used to produce some pretty 
high-quality stuff. (They also have fewER adverts.) Today, even the BBC 
is being diluted across too many channels.

I just don't watch TV any more. :-P

Let's face it, watching TV adverts is like a bad acid trip.

PS. In theory if you don't own a TV you don't have to pay for a TV 
license. In reality, *everybody* has to pay. If you so much as own a 
toaster which contains a CPU with is hypothetically powerful enough to 
run a TCP/IP stack, they will argue that you could mod your toaster to 
watch TV, so you need a TV license.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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