Published May 8, 2004
Like about one out of five Americans, I watched the finale of Friends. And it was just awful! Truly unpleasant. Filled with uninteresting and distracting content, condescension, unnecessary titillation, and unfunny punch lines. You guessed it, I had to watch it live, not on TiVo, and sit through the ads.
I don’t know how I watched TV before TiVo. Sure, I occasionally find things on live TV that I want to watch (umm, mostly NASCAR), but usually it’s the wonderful shows Now Playing On TiVo that are worth watching. Even when I want to watch a TV show, I usually don’t want to watch it when it’s on; I’d rather watch a late show the next day, or an early show while I eat dinner, or do the dishes first (ok, I wouldn’t rather, but I have to).
I honestly don’t know how advertisers will survive now that I can fast-forward through their boredom. All I know is, from now on I’m waiting until five minutes into any live show to start watching so that I can fast-forward through the ads.