QOTW: Do you still watch live TV?

[lesoudeur]

Live TV has been dead for any discerning mind for a long time

[Biscuit]

Live TV has been dead for any discerning mind for a long time

No it hasnt. People forget just how many old people we have in this country.

[=assassin=]

I still watch F1 on a normal TV, as well as occasional events like Stargazing Live, and Horizon or other space/science documentaries.

[Spreadie]

I do for Formula one - I still get up a silly o'clock to watch the flyaway races live. Some other sports events too, but that's about it.
I used to make a point of watching the news, but there's so little of it repeating on a loop, and I prefer to read blogs and articles than watch televised news.

Things may change, as I recently got a twin tuner satellite card for my PC.

[pa1nkiller]

Only live football & motorsport.

[outwar6010]

I haven't watched live tv in probably well over 6 years.

[Saracen]

Do I still watch live TV? The answer depends on quite what you mean as 'not Live'.

By a literal interpretation, my answer is "Yes, but not much at all". The vast bulk is recorded onto PVR or HDR, and either :-

a) watched later, even if only 20-30 minutes behind live, in order to skip adverts, or

b) recorded to PVR, copied to HDR and edited to remove adverts altogether, or

c) as per b), but then copied to DVD-R and batch-watcheud later.

About the only things watched live are sometimes news, current affairs progs on BBC, or BBC sports events that interest me.

Really, our usage is to record, and sometimes edit adverts out, so that we can watch at a time that suits us, without being pestered by adverts which I loathe and despise.


However, if by "live TV" you mean as opposed to 'by streaming service' like Netflix, Amazon, etc, then it's almost all live, not streaming. Though, occasionally, we'll use a streaming catchup service.


Thing is, I don't watch that much TV at all, and am pretty selective about what I do watch. I work on the basis that my remaining time alive is fixed (though I don't know the number if hours/days/years) and therefore every hour spent watching TV is, quite literally, a valuable resource spent, used, consumed .... by TV, and I won't get it back. So ... did I get value for 'money'? Did the benefit or enjoyment I received from that TV content justify that predefined portion of my remaining life I expended on it?

And THAT is why I so detest adverts.

Also, I find the amount of things on TV I want to watch seems to be reducing year by year. Maybe it's that I see each hour of life as more and more valuable as time goes by, because I have fewer of them to spend, but increasingly, TV seems to be meaningless drivel the point of which is the lowest possible cost container for an advert-carrying medium. What else explains reality TV? And increasingly, I find non-TV things I'd rather be doing.

All that is really a way of saying I don't value content highly enough to pay Netflix (etc) subscriptions and what modest amounts I do watch is either ad-skipped, or ad-removed, so by necessity (for non-BBC) recorded first.


Oh, one major event watched live .... election results night. Sad, I know, but I like to see results come in, see the way the picture changes and develops, and I can't face doing it after I know "the end", so .... live and BBC it is.

[Percy1983]

Bit of a mix, mostly watch live TV with my son as its just put childrens TV on, past that I have everything I want to watch set to record, sometimes I get them live and others I just watch the recordings.

[flearider]

nope .. I just watch what I want when I want ..

[GrahamC]

Record a bit of comedy stuff, the little I watch on terrestrial TV. Don't go for sport, soaps or reality shows so 90% culled right there. Amazon prime video has been well worth it's asking price though.

[DanceswithUnix]

I got a Series 1 TiVo back in 2000 which all but killed live TV for me instantly, and the old thing is still going strong fed by an old Sky+ box.

The only thing which is regularly watched live is Doctor Who, bit of a family tradition. Even that is watched via a Humax Freesat HD DVR which is set to record the show in case we are out, so strictly speaking it is probably delayed by a second

The interesting bit is that the TiVo is older than my teenage kids, so the kids consider automatic suggestion recording, advert skipping etc normal and don't think in terms of channels just content. But to them TV is a secondary thing anyway, they quite like Netflix but YouTube on PC/Phone/Tablet is their main source of material.

b) recorded to PVR, copied to HDR and edited to remove adverts altogether, or

I hardly ever re-watch the same thing twice, I can't imagine investing the time to edit out adverts rather than just trick-play to skip over them. But then a bad edit would annoy me more than the butt end of any stupid advert

[peterb]

I don't record anything at all - if I miss something, it's gone, and TV plays a relatively unimportant aspect of my life. If there is something I want to watch, then IPlayer serves to catch up on (say) the missed episode of a series.

I currently have a trial of Amazon Prime (I accidentally clicked on yes) but apart from watching the first ten minutes of the Clarkson/May/Hammond Grand Tour, I haven't watched anything. I suppose I ought to make the effort before I cancel it at the end of the trial,period, but quite frankly, the effort of finding something that might be worth watching far exceeds the possible reward.

[spacein_vader]

Similar to others, the only live TV watched are live events of interest (sports, stargazing live, most recently Eurovision,) everything else is recorded to avoid adverts.

[DanceswithUnix]

I don't record anything at all - if I miss something, it's gone, and TV plays a relatively unimportant aspect of my life. If there is something I want to watch, then IPlayer serves to catch up on (say) the missed episode of a series.

I currently have a trial of Amazon Prime (I accidentally clicked on yes) but apart from watching the first ten minutes of the Clarkson/May/Hammond Grand Tour, I haven't watched anything. I suppose I ought to make the effort before I cancel it at the end of the trial,period, but quite frankly, the effort of finding something that might be worth watching far exceeds the possible reward.

I really enjoyed "Mr Robot" on Amazon, though I had to search to find series 1 as series 2 is out so that turns up when just browsing (which is stupid, it should know I hadn't see the first series yet). I got Prime when it was on offer for the shipping convenience as I think we use it enough it works out about cost neutral to us compared to having to pay for next day occasionally over the year or pad order to get to free shipping, so the video thing is sort of a bonus. I have dipped into the video streaming but that show was the only thing I enjoyed enough to binge watch.

[Gunbuster]

Only at my parents, I record at most QI and Doctor Who and the odd film. Losing Freeview wouldn't be the end of my life.

[Jonj1611]

I record most things I want to watch just to skip the adverts.

Dr Who I record mainly so I can watch later.

Have Netflix but running out of things I like on there, Amazon was ok for Mr Robot but nothing else has really caught my I on there. Now tv is just sky which we get anyway through Virgin.