I’ve been a bit of a lazy blogger this week partly because a couple of the regular challenges that I join in with were asking questions that I didn’t particularly want to answer and partly because I wanted to do other things. One of the other things involves television which brings me to Fandango’s post which is about TV Viewing habits.

https://fivedotoh.com/2022/07/27/fandangos-provocative-question-175/

What country do you live in?

Australia.

How many televisions do you have in your home?

Technically we have four. Naomi just bought a 65 inch smart TV which is in the downstairs living room. She gave me her old TV which I think is 90 or 95cms and that is now in the upstairs living room. My old TV, an 80cm/32 inch set is currently not being used but later on it will go out to the shed that will become our art and craft studio. We’ll use it to watch DVD’s or, if the Wi fi will work out there, tutorial videos which we will stream. I also have a small, portable TV in my room. It belonged to David’s mum so it’s quite old but it works. I don’t really watch it though because whenever I try to watch TV in bed I fall asleep. It might be handy if I get sick I suppose.

On average, how many hours a day do you watch TV?

Do YouTube videos count as TV? I watch those quite a lot either three or four hours some evenings or sometimes a couple during the day but often I’m doing other things at the same time, cooking, writing blog posts, knitting, even reading a magazine. You don’t need to concentrate very hard on short segments. As to sitting down to watch an actual TV program I might do that for 3-4 hours if I’m binge watching a series but not every day.

What kinds of programs do you typically watch (e.g., news, sports, movies, dramas, sitcoms, reality shows)?

I watch documentary type shows a lot. I like programs about train journeys in various parts of the world, Michael Portillo does a lot of these but I’ve watched others as well. I like history and I like seeing programs about places I’d like to go but probably never will so “Coast” and pretty much anything that Sir Tony Robinson does; exploring history in various parts of Britain and Australia. I recently discovered that an old favourite “Time Team” is now being made again (without Sir Tony unfortunately) and it is available on YouTube as it is fan funded.

I enjoy sitcoms or comedy/dramas especially if there is a good ensemble cast; “Detectorists” was one of my favourites. I liked “The Good Place” too. I watch some SF but mostly older shows as I find the newer ones to be mostly too dark or depressing. The exception being “The Orville” which is nearer to original Star Trek than the newer versions are I believe. I probably choose to rewatch old favourite shows more often than I look for new ones. As for my YouTube viewing that could be anything from reviews of cruise ships, news about the Queen, pets, dolls or old TV shows.

I have been following the Jan 6th hearings, mostly on YouTube but don’t usually watch the news as I prefer to read it. Sport, I really only watch a bit of cricket in the summer when I get a chance to.

Do you watch programs as they are aired or do you record them and watch them at other times?

We don’t have an antenna currently so we stream everything now. I kind of prefer it because then I can watch when I want to without fear of being interrupted and I can binge watch my favourites. We used to record a lot back in the day but often didn’t get around to watching everything we’d saved.

Do you mostly watch “network” TV? Premium cable channels (e.g., HBO, Showtime)? Streaming channels (e.g., Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Disney+, Apple+)?

Apart from YouTube I have Netflix which I don’t watch often and Amazon Prime, ditto. They come via our Telstra TV streaming device. I can also get programs from the free to air stations “catch up” channels. I only really watch ABC iView and SBS On Demand. I’m not very interested in the commercial stations. People in the USA will be horrified to know that for many years Australia only had four TV channels until SBS made five. In fact I’m told that for a very long time Tasmania only had two stations. The ABC and a commercial channel in the north and a different commercial channel in the south. The ABC and SBS are public TV channels. Now each channel also has two or three streaming channels where you can catch their programs and other content but we don’t have 60 plus channels to choose from. There are various pay TV channels including quite a few we can stream if we want to but probably not as many as in the USA.

How often, if at all, do you use other devices than television (e.g., computers, smartphones) to watch programs?

Rarely. I don’t find it comfortable to sit at the computer to watch television and I’d flatten my phone battery very quickly watching TV on that. I do have an Amazon Echo Show which functions as my radio and alarm clock and sometimes I watch on that in bed but usually I fall asleep after about ten minutes and wake up in the small hours wondering who is talking.