[opendtv] The Glut of Shows Unwatched

  • From: Monty Solomon <monty@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: undisclosed-recipient:;
  • Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 08:42:13 -0400

The Glut of Shows Unwatched

By DAVID CARR
September 5, 2010

The great thing about modern technology is that you never have to 
miss anything on television. That's also the terrible thing about it.

Last Sunday, I was traveling and did not see "Mad Men." As someone 
who cares about being in the know, when I got back on Monday, I 
wanted to catch up on the episode. Because I spend time on Twitter, I 
already knew that the episode included a creative session conducted 
in the nude, so I wanted to see it for myself before I came across 
other spoilers.

Having set my DVR - I subscribe to the FiOS television service from 
Verizon - for just such a circumstance, my wife and I plopped down on 
Monday night for a little time with Don and Peggy. I hit play, and 
then the screen went blank. After several more attempts, I called in 
the household's chief technology officer.

"You recorded the high-def channel," said my 13-year-old daughter 
Maddie, adding that seeing as I own a cheap set from Costco, it 
wasn't going to play.

Check, but not checkmate. Verizon has an on-demand service, but as it 
turns out "Mad Men" doesn't show up for a few days. Starting to feel 
desperate, I thought for a moment about hopping on the laptop and 
searching BitTorrent for an illegal copy, but given that I make a 
living creating original content for a large media company, stealing 
from another one did not seem like a good idea.

Then I remembered iTunes. Right there for $2.99, Season 4, Episode 6, 
"Waldorf Stories." As I took the iPad downstairs to put it closer to 
the wireless signal, I told my wife it was going to take about 30 
minutes to download. When I got back upstairs, she was already asleep 
and I shrugged and settled in for a little me time with the Mad Men. 
I woke up in the middle of the night with the iPad perilously 
balanced on my less-than-flat midsection, wondering what I had missed.

That was Monday. By Wednesday, Steve Jobs, the sensei of all consumer 
desires, had announced the resurrection of Apple TV. For $99, I could 
buy a new geegaw from Apple that would allow me to rent, not buy, 
television shows for 99 cents that would play on devices that won't 
fit on my stomach, like big flat-screen televisions. (Then again, for 
the time being only Fox and ABC are doing television business with 
Apple, so it would not have ended my search for "Mad Men.")

Apple is hardly alone. Amazon, Netflix and Google are getting in the 
television game. And all of them want to make sure that I have the 
means to dial up the programming I want at a time of my choosing on a 
device of my selection. Everyone wants to make sure that I never miss 
a thing.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/business/media/06carr.html


 
 
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