My kids don’t remember this, so let me check with you. Do you miss channel surfing on the TV? Ah, the good ole days. However, with the advent of streaming services and On-Demand TV, America’s age-old pastime is dead. What am I talking about? Let me explain and see if you agree.
Let me start by saying I love streaming and On Demand television services. That being said, I hate that it killed the ability to channel surf.
The young may not remember this, but we all loved channel surfing. Sitting in front of the television with our remote control in hand and clicking from channel to channel to channel in the blink of an eye.
However, thanks to new and advanced digital pay TV technology and now streaming services, we can no longer do that simple, pleasurable act.
This story started decades ago when cable TV was analog. With our remote in hand, we could change channels quickly and easily. Channel surfing was born. Click-click-click.
That meant every time a show would go to commercial break, of even if we just got bored, we could quickly channel surf our happy way.
Sometimes we would come back to what we were watching. Other times we’d find something new or better and would watch that. That was the beauty of channel surfing.
Then the trouble started.
The cable television industry started moving from analog to digital. This meant when you try to channel surf, instead of moving from channel to channel in the blink of an eye, you had to wait for the equipment to find, isolate then show the channel you selected. It took seconds each time you changed channels.
The digital process took forever and that took much of the enjoyment out of watching TV.
I ask you, who the heck gave cable TV companies the right to screw around and change our service and take away something we liked?
Who, I ask you!
Fortunately, we found ways to work around this bullying tactic the cable television industry was trying to pull. We realized if we just unplugged the digital cable box and plugged the TV directly into the wall, we could continue to channel surf using the analog service to our heart’s content.
Ah, once again life was great. There was order in the world.
However, the cable TV industry eventually terminated analog service, so no customer could receive cable television the way they always did.
So yes, the problem was back again.
That meant we had to bite the bullet and deal with the inability to channel surf quickly and efficiently. At least we could still move from channel to channel.
It may have been slow, but it still worked.
DirecTV, SlingTV, Paramount+, PeacockTV+, Disney+, Hulu, Prime Video
Then streaming services were born and put a stop to the freedom to channel surf altogether.
Today, if you are watching traditional cable TV and switch to a streaming service, you are leaving your traditional cable TV connection and going someplace else.
And that’s the rub.
It takes a while to make the switch between cable TV and a streaming service. Then it takes a while to find the program you want to watch. Then it takes a while for that program to begin. Then it takes a while to go back to cable TV.
Channel surfing, hah, fogetaboutit!
Streaming service are an incredible new technology, but everything has two sides.
It comes from companies like DirecTV Stream, SlingTV Blue, FuboTV, Disney Plus, Paramount Plus, Peacock TV Plus, Netflix Streaming Service, HBO Max, Hulu Streaming Service, Amazon Prime Video Streaming and more.
The problem is switching between cable TV and streaming services takes much too much time, and that gets users irritated.
The same problem exists with the On-Demand services you can get from your cable TV provider.
The good part is you no longer have to wait until the show is on, live. Instead, you can choose when you want to watch.
The bad part is once you are there, you are stuck, just like with streaming. It takes too much time and effort to move back and forth, so you are stuck, not being able to surf the dial like in the good ole days.
That means we are stuck watching the same show, start to finish.
That’s no way to watch TV for a channel surfer.
You may remember the Soup Nazi character on the comedy show Seinfeld from the 1990’s, whose funny line was, “No soup for you!”
Well, in the pay TV world, now it’s “no channel surf for you”.
Pay TV should create services for binge watchers and channel surfers
So, the average customer who simply wants the freedom to change channels when a commercial comes on, then to come back after a few minutes gets screwed.
After all, who cares about the customer, right? We’re just the poor schlubs who pay the bills.
So, who’s idea was this new streaming world to begin with? And if this is something we must do, why can’t these services work better and faster?
Channel surfers object! We just want to be able to watch TV the way we always did.
Is anyone from the pay TV world even listening? Do they even care?
Nope.
What should we expect. After all, we are only the user paying hundreds of dollars every stinking month, thousands of dollars per year to be taken advantage of.
We are not the real customer of the cable TV or streaming service industry. The advertiser is the party they want to make happy, not the end user.
Something is all screwed up in this world.
So, let’s say goodbye to our favorite hobby. Farewell to enjoying watching television the way we always did. Channel surfing is dead… long live channel surfing!
