Whining Over Tivo

This story over at Yahoo!News complains about how awful Tivo is.

TiVo [has] turned casual TV watchers into prisoners shackled to sofas, unable to keep up with the flood of their favorite shows.

Many TiVo users say they bought the device thinking it would allow them to take greater control of their TV watching. Instead, they find themselves burdened with another obligation in their already filled day.

I have, yet, to meet these people who don’t just absolutely love their Tivo (and I want to throw in a rant about personal responsibility) but this complaint brings up an idea I’ve been contemplating. Why can’t networks show “near-repeats”?

Instead of showing a new episode of Friends once a season and twice a year, show it on Thursday night then repeat it on Sunday night. The WB is already trying this idea, replaying their most popular shows on Sunday nights. It would eliminate the continuing problem of too many good shows on at once, and reduce the cost of running a network. Especially now that there are at least 6 major networks (ABC, CBC, NBC, Fox, UPN and WB) and several compelling competitors (Spike, MTV — not the video channel, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network), TV schedules are too crowded and networks are facing the an overwhelming glut similar to the fiasco that killed Atari .

Posted by etrigan at November 12, 2003 12:23 PM