I find that "quality programming" is almost non-existent on TV which tends to create programs suitable for the lowest common denominator of possible audience. Which makes even scientific show dumb, shallow, pointless, non-educational.

Really, I don't see what you can learn from TV. Movies for an emotional response once per week - sure, but TV as anything but mindless time filler? Sorry I can't buy that.

You can randomly browse wikipedia and get exponentially more quality information than watching some dumbed down discovery.

I don't know many documentaries (unfortunately), but have you watched the "Planet Earth" series by the BBC? I guess one day movies like that will be priceless, when the things they show don't exist anymore (hope it'll never come to that). But seriously, some scenes are just incredible, I don't know how they did it (finding certain animals doing certain things, they must have had infinite patience).

>> "Really, I don't see what you can learn from TV."

Speechless... Really I am. Seek out, and you will find.

And likewise, watching selectively is even easier with some peer-to-peer networking and file sharing sites. You can see almost any show you happen to fancy at the moment - and you get to skip the commercials or pause when convenient. Also, most of the time your watching habits aren't recorded by shady companies for unspecified marketing reasons. Even better, there's absolutely no chance of accidentally ending up watching something you didn't plan to, which is the main idea behind corporate TV.

Also - as far as this individual is concerned, popular culture is overrated.

And you don't have to watch stuff according to a schedule that someone else controls.The whole idea of broadcast TV, where everyone watches the same thing on a channel at a time, doesn't make sense except for news and live sports.

>> "popular culture is overrated."

My point is that if you want to have a business, that interacts with people, you better understand popular culture.

Absolutely correct. That sneering attitude toward the masses is a ticket straight to the poorhouse. I want to understand them better than the understand themselves.

In that case I rest mine.

Ding ding ding! You've hit on part of why I don't watch tv. Commercials.

The other reason is that the news is just plain dark.

I must admit that by now there are some really good series out there. I prefer to watch them not via TV, though - DVD or bittorrent to the rescue. I guess that still counts as watching TV, though :-(

But really, some series do impress me - they have a lot more options to go deeper than a movie that is limited to 90min. Not that I can mention many examples, since I don't watch TV, I don't tend to stumble on new series. Buffy is still my favorite...

Also, a lot of documentaries are breathtaking. I keep thinking someone should build a portal for all those documentaries. But then I talked to one documentary maker and she said "it is not that easy, rights belong to TV companies and so on". I guess I shouldn't have let her dissuade me.