You Can Watch It If You Can Find It
“What channel is it on?”
We all know what that means. We still say it although the possible answer has expanded greatly. In my youth the answer was easy since we had only five possibilities: 2, 4, 5, 9 and 11. At our house two of them were always grainy so the actual watchable channels was three.
I’ve written before that part of our reception problem was a broken lead-in wire to the roof antenna. But even at its best, the black and white picture was poor. There was no cable TV option back then.
We now have hundreds of channels to choose from and while we can still ask what channel a particular show is on, the answer might not be a number or even a network name like CBS, ABC or NBC. It could be a streaming service such as Netflix, Hulu or YouTube. We still have the old “over-the-air” channels we’re familiar with but some of them have changed affiliations and there are many more of them, including side channels like 2.1 or 4.2.
Your old heavy tube TV wouldn’t pick up any over-the-air channels anymore without a digital to analog converter and a fancier antenna. Remember that device? Seems like a long time ago now.
The Shape of Things to Come
There’s little argument that today’s TVs are a huge improvement – literally. You can get an 85-inch TV that weighs less than an old fuzzy image 27-inch tube TV. It’s so flat you can hang it like a painting and even have it display famous artwork. It can connect to an antenna, cable service and a host of other streaming services via the internet. You just switch between them with two or three remotes. After a dozen clicks and several delays while something loads, you’ve found your show.
Our cable service seems more interested in getting people off their TV service than on it. I sense they are tired of the continual fighting over retransmission costs and equipment support and they take the heat when prices rise. The only way to cut costs is to make TV less convenient to use.
Their main focus now seems to be mostly on internet service. Technically, fast internet access and a modern TV is all you need to watch anything and everything. You just have to figure out what else you need to buy.
TVs now include some built-in streaming apps, no extra hardware needed. Some content is free. You can get many more streaming options if you buy devices you connect to your TV such as Fire TV and Apple TV. You just need to figure out how to use them.
Not that long ago, if you subscribed to a cable TV service, you were provided with (and charged for) a device and remote for each TV. When I recently returned a device and its remote for a TV we don’t need anymore, I was almost laughed at.
Apparently, very few customers use the old equipment anymore. Who knew? Now, a lot of customers just buy internet service and subscribe to streaming services separately which sometimes require additional devices.
Dangling Dongles
I decided to turn in all my cable TV devices but keep the same service. It’s now just delivered differently through an app that requires, of course, a device. As a result, each of our TVs now has a dongle dangling from its back.
None of the remotes has a number pad. You need to find the channel guide screen, then scroll to find your channel. And there is no simple Previous Channel button. That now takes multiple clicks. Progress, right?
Someone could start a business configuring and maintaining people’s internet and TV connections. I’m sure there are services like that. I sure don’t envy them having to keep up with the constant changes. Oh, and those streaming services? You get to pay for them monthly, probably on autopay, so you don’t even remember you have them.
If you don’t understand any of this, good. I have made my point. None of this is easily understandable, probably by design. Sometimes I just scroll through all the available channels, never watching anything. But it sure is nice to know they’re there, right?
I might set up a TV in a cozy corner of our house that gets five channels, like the old days but in color. No remote. I’d have to get up to change the channel or volume.
It would be good exercise.