BillJ wrote: 
Do they have lupus?

 oldslabsides wrote: 
Next time I go on vacation can you watch my House? And the dogs?

No boycott, but I almost never watch network TV.  There's nothing fit to watch on it.  Most of what I watch is Discovery or History channel stuff, occasionally PBS.  Oh - and House.

I gave up TV (any TV) sometime this summer. (I forget when exactly) All of the sudden, you have more time. Its magical. I've read more, exercised more, cooked more, soaked in a hot bathtub more, practiced my musical crafts more, talked with friends more, volunteered more. There is just more to do than sit and watch it. It sucks the life out of you.

(and it saves me $100 a month which I'm adding to my IRA, so thats a good thing too!)

Xeric wrote: Yes every once in a while they throw out a small taste of what could be...like a rose blooming amongst mountains of garbage.

Never have had cable and haven't had a TV in the house that could receive broadcast since...1983. Don't miss it.

It's not a boycott, I just don't know how anybody has the time (or patience) to watch it. Most of it is just insipid, and its absence hasn't seemed to stunt the kids' growth any. We do watch movies, and my mom tapes cool stuff on Discovery for us. Pretty much anything I'd want to watch is either available online or for rent at the movie store. We get news from NPR and reading.

Our TV gathered dust in the basement for years.  We hauled it out for this last Olympics.  It's still out.  We watch far too much.  Some of it I rather enjoy (including some rather commercial trash, I guess—can you say "Two and a Half Men"?).  There are far too many commercials and they assume far too low an IQ, far too high a tolerance for repetition, and complete deafness. 

Then again, last night, PBS showed the most wonderful documentary on Yellowstone in the wintertime and a photographer who works there, and (fund raiser, you know) its subject (Tom Murphy) was there in the studio, talking about how he works . . . it was delightful.  A taste of what could be.

But of what very seldom is, even on PBS.  (Why is, even on, say, Nova, a show that should be "New Jurassic Predator's Fossil Discovered" instead called "Killers in the Swamp!!!"?)

What I'm most struck by is how hard it is to turn the Goddamned thing OFF, even when what's on is shite. 

It should go back in the basement.

I can't remember the last program I watched on network TV, other than football games.  It's not a boycott per se, but there's just not much on that's worth the time.  *shrug*

I do try and catch Austin City Limits on PBS whenever I can.

OCDHG wrote:
That's about myself and my husbands watching pattern too - the occasional movie- and only if it looks really good.
The 'entertainment' industry these days is anything but - and from working in the ad biz and knowing the negative social programming that entails - we watch no commercials at all.
But occasionally they pop out a decent movie.

Not totally, but we gave up cable years ago (5 or 6 years now??).  We still get a couple of channels over the old airwaves and occasionally turn on the tube (the rare SNL, etc.).  The only thing I watch is Lost, and since that's been off the air since last year, I've been pretty much TV free!

We watch Heros on netflix though. And we watch The Office and 30 Rock on the NBC website sometimes, but that is more like watching a movie, you can watch when you want and there are less (or no with netflix) commercials.

I could give up TV altogether and not really miss it at this point.  I do like watching shows/movies on netflix, though.  We probably watch about 2 hours per week on most weeks, with periods of one or two weeks in between with no viewing at all.