Friday, April 04, 2008

The death of television as we know it....

Believe me, this is not a bad thing...it's a good thing! How many times, especially in recent years have you sat there flipping though the channels and said, "there isn't crap on TV!" Come on, you know you've said that a million times, just like I have. Recently though, I realized that I've only been watching about two hours of TV a week for the last couple of months. That's right, a week, not a day.

I've just recently realized that probably about 90% of my entertainment these days is coming from the web, not broadcast television. I've been watching classic TV shows on great websites like HULU and IN2TV. HULU is the better of the two, but both offer classic and new programming. I've been watching favorite old shows like Johnny Quest, Buck Rogers and the Partridge Family, and there are hundreds of others available. They stick four or five 15 or 30 second commercials in there, but they're less bothersome than commercial breaks during network television.

Even better, is the burgeoning amount of original user-created content on the internet. I now never miss two of my favorite shows, DIGGNATION and THE TOTALLY RAD SHOW. Both these shows are created by regular people like you and me about things that get them excited.

It's shows like these that are sounding the final curtain call for television as we've known it. Now, anyone with a camcorder, computer and high-speed internet service can create their own unique television program and put it out to a world-wide audience. No longer do we have to sit back and watch only what a select few think we need to see. The greed of television executives who only see the bottom line are hastening the death of traditional television. Like CBS canceling the fantastic show "Jericho", simply because six to eight million viewers weren't enough for their liking. For network television, if it's not a blockbuster hit week after week, it's just not good enough, and they dump it like yesterday's trash. I've become so fed up with that mentality, that I've decided it's time to abandon ship, and swim towards better shores!

I myself participate in this new entertainment medium, through YOUTUBE, making my own short pieces which I share with the world. More and more people are finding out every day that we can entertain each other, better than Hollywood can entertain us.

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