Althouse: What are Americans watching on TV?

October 28, 2011

What are Americans watching on TV?

In a word: football.

46 comments:

ndspinelli said...: Actual Reality, not the amateur, bad acting, Survivor, Dancing, Real World, etc. "reality." Or horseshit CSI schtick.; 10/28/11, 10:45 AM
Aalap Asurlekar said...: baseball??; 10/28/11, 10:47 AM
David said...: Because most of the rest of it is crap.; 10/28/11, 10:50 AM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/28/11, 10:57 AM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/28/11, 10:58 AM
AllenS said...: No sense in watching football this Sunday, the Packers have their bye week.; 10/28/11, 11:00 AM
new york said...: Most "Americans" aren't watching TV, they are out in the street with protest signs, trying to save our country.; 10/28/11, 11:02 AM
rhhardin said...: Just streaming audio here.

Imus, Armstrong and Getty, Rush, John and Ken.

I cut A&G and J&K short when they run out of material and go to callers, or go for all outrage all the time, respectively.

Weekends a shell script plays that set for a single random day in 2007-2011 at the appointed times.

I knew there was a reason to save all that stuff on the hard drive.

I have a lifelong uninterest in other people playing sports.; 10/28/11, 11:03 AM
traditionalguy said...: The authentic element makes football attractive among the culture that pushes boring delusions on people.

(Enter Herman Cain's new politics stage right.)

Sports and War are for real subjects. The Crime Laboratory shows are also popular because they are about half real.

But other than a Game 6 World Series game, baseball seems like watching paint dry.; 10/28/11, 11:06 AM
kjbe said...: It's not only football, they're watching the Packers. Zing!; 10/28/11, 11:08 AM
sakredkow said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/28/11, 11:10 AM
Anonymous said...: 'Sixty Grit said...
Most football is crap, too. Five or six seconds of fat guys floppin' around, then a flag is thrown. Give me the highlight reel, you can keep the rest of the badly played, poorly coached games...'

The commercial time-outs are making football as slow as baseball.; 10/28/11, 11:23 AM
Lexington Green said...: Everything in American life that is not actually football is merely the continuation of football by other means.; 10/28/11, 11:27 AM
Lexington Green said...: Everything in American life that is not actually football is merely the continuation of football by other means.; 10/28/11, 11:28 AM
MadisonMan said...: No sense in watching football this Sunday, the Packers have their bye week.

This.; 10/28/11, 11:35 AM
traditionalguy said...: But we still have Public Television. Thank God for a few shows that make us think.

Where else do Boomers get to see all their Rock and Roll from the 1960s during pledge drives.; 10/28/11, 11:37 AM
Patrick said...: "Most "Americans" aren't watching TV, they are out in the street with protest signs, trying to save our country."

I didn't realize how dramatically the US population had been reduced!; 10/28/11, 11:38 AM
Pastafarian said...: New York: "...trying to save our country."

I think you're confusing Occupy Wall Street with Occupy Fallujah.; 10/28/11, 11:41 AM
edutcher said...: They certainly aren't watching the "Mad Men" clones.

Have all them been cancelled?; 10/28/11, 11:43 AM
kjbe said...: No sense in watching football this Sunday, the Packers have their bye week.

What to do with the time...what to do???; 10/28/11, 11:50 AM
Robert Cook said...: Not me.; 10/28/11, 11:50 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: I'm waiting for next Saturday when they will be playing the college football national championship game.

Roll Tide!; 10/28/11, 11:56 AM
G Joubert said...: Of the set of people who watch TV.; 10/28/11, 11:56 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: I'm not even watching football. Now it's DVDs, so over the last few days there's been The Matrix and Animatrix, the comic book movie "Unbreakable," Nazi docs (including the Nuremberg Trials), the Salem Witch Trials, Freakonomics, and "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer." Next up:

"The Night James Brown Saved Boston."

Fuck liberal/progressive/green/stupid manipulation.; 10/28/11, 12:00 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Football looks great on HDTV.; 10/28/11, 12:14 PM
ricpic said...: TV series, sitcoms and dramas, are full of mannish aggressive women and feminized passive men and I don't for the life of me get why the powers that be in TV land don't see what a total turnoff that is for the average viewer.; 10/28/11, 12:16 PM
Oclarki said...: What kind of man admits to not liking football?

Ann is right HD technology has benefitted sports more than any other genre of programming.

Why does anyone even bother attending games live anymore?; 10/28/11, 12:28 PM
J said...: Pro football's part of the mafia-o-cracy Miss A. Like you.; 10/28/11, 12:37 PM
ricpic said...: Sixty is right about football mainly being a pile up of bodies, at least to the uneducated eye (like mine). I wouldn't be at all surprised if the forward pass is overused (considering the combined dangers of lost yardage from decking the quarterback and interceptions) simply because fan loss would be tremendous if teams stuck to the 3 yards and a cloud of dust running game, which is percentagewise the best bet for winning.; 10/28/11, 12:40 PM
Anonymous said...: re-runs can make for good tv.

Especially the MSU/UW beat down!; 10/28/11, 12:45 PM
Greg Hlatky said...: Not me.

Worried the Europeans will think less of you?; 10/28/11, 12:47 PM
J said...: Yeah Spitzer--eeevil--busted for solicitation. WHy he should be on death row for that eh. Spitzer's got issues but he went down because he was taking on NY financial rackets and white collar criminals.

Amazing Cracki--you mean you ..prefer the GOP biblethumpers, mormons and fundamentalists to the nasty lib-ralls? Or maybe you just don't whose side yr on,do you. Get yr AA in perp-studies or somethin' and start over Dr Cracki.; 10/28/11, 12:49 PM
ndspinelli said...: Football is so good in HD I now won't watch unless the game is in HD..spoiled American couch potato.; 10/28/11, 12:52 PM
new york said...: Ann Althouse said...Football looks great on HDTV. Yes, then you can actually see their pupils dilate when they get a concussion. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease found in individuals who have been subjected to multiple concussions. CTE has been most commonly found in professional athletes participating in gridiron football, ice hockey, professional wrestling and other contact sports, who have experienced head trauma, resulting in characteristic degeneration of brain tissue and the accumulation of tau protein. Individuals with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy may show symptoms of dementia such as memory loss, aggression, confusion and depression which may appear within months of the trauma or many decades later.; 10/28/11, 12:58 PM
J said...: Yeah Spitzer--that eeevil goomba--busted for solicitation. WHy he should be on death row for that eh. Spitzer's got issues but he went down because he was taking on NY financial rackets and white collar criminals.

Amazing Cracki--you mean you ..prefer the GOP biblethumpers, mormons and fundamentalists to the nasty lib-ralls? Or maybe you just don't whose side yr on,do you. Get yr AA in perp-studies or somethin' and start over Dr Cracki.

And note spinelli-aka Byro the AZ -acidboy troll with 50+ names here mumbling away about nothing. . Keep trying to destroy the English language, hayseed...the ghost of Shakespeare laughs at you.; 10/28/11, 1:03 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Ann Althouse said...Football looks great on HDTV. Yes, then you can actually see their pupils dilate when they get a concussion. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease found in individuals who have been subjected to multiple concussions. CTE has been most commonly found in professional athletes participating in gridiron football, ice hockey, professional wrestling and other contact sports, who have experienced head trauma, resulting in characteristic degeneration of brain tissue and the accumulation of tau protein. Individuals with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy may show symptoms of dementia such as memory loss, aggression, confusion and depression which may appear within months of the trauma or many decades later."

News flash: We're all going to die.; 10/28/11, 1:08 PM
Patrick said...: "News flash: We're all going to die."

Oh Crap! When? How can this be happening?; 10/28/11, 1:43 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Yeah Spitzer--that eeevil goomba--busted for solicitation. WHy he should be on death row for that eh. Spitzer's got issues but he went down because he was taking on NY financial rackets and white collar criminals.

Hey numbnuts (or numbbrain) I said I watched the doc, not that I agreed with what happened. Damn, you're stupid. More than Spitzer, who was pretty stupid.

Amazing Cracki--you mean you ..prefer the GOP biblethumpers, mormons and fundamentalists to the nasty lib-ralls?

By a long shot.

Or maybe you just don't whose side yr on,do you.

No, I'm pretty sure which side I'm on - the side of good.

"News flash: We're all going to die."

And it can't come too soon for J.; 10/28/11, 1:53 PM
madAsHell said...: I can't watch a pro football game. There are just too many commercials.

I can see college football going the same way, and that will be the end of my television.; 10/28/11, 2:05 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: What kind of man admits to not liking football?

We haven't watched a football game in probably 18 years, with the exception of a few minutes of superbowl or if we are at someone else's home and they are watching. No baseball, soccer or any other sports. It just isn't interesting enough to look at or spend hours staring at.

Dumbplumber (hubby) says its a waste of time and when they start paying him to watch, he will.

He will, however religiously watch the Barrett Jackson auto auction events: keeps up on all the prices of the collectible cars and critiques the restorations. Old car savant.

So...to each his own.; 10/28/11, 2:09 PM
new york said...: yes, we are all going to die, and for the 24 year old with dementia, death can't come soon enough.; 10/28/11, 2:44 PM
Robert Cook said...: "What kind of man admits to not liking football?"

A man who doesn't like football.

Me, for one.

I also don't like baseball or basketball or golf or soccer or hockey or--frankly--any sporting events. Why is it assumed a man should and will like football, (or the rest of it)?

Boring and pointless, all of it.; 10/28/11, 3:00 PM
DADvocate said...: I watch football on TV more than all other sports combined. But, I have trouble making it through an entire game. Can't remember the last time I watched a single game all the way through, probably Tennessee's national championship in 1998.; 10/28/11, 3:22 PM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: I love watching football. I'll tune in even if the Packers aren't playing if there is a chance of seeing the Bears, Vikings or Lions lose.

Mrs. Bushman and I also love Breaking Bad. We view it on Netflix streaming. It's so good, we usually watch multiple episodes in a single sitting.; 10/28/11, 3:53 PM
sane_voter said...: I prefer certain soccer games (EPL, Champions league, World Cup, US national team games) over American football now. College football is now ruined by the incessant reviews for even the most trivial calls, that can last for minutes at a time.
Last year I watched all the NFL playoff games on DVR, in under an hour each. I did watch the Super Bowl in (mostly) real time. And even the soccer I prefer to watch on DVR to fast forward thru pregame/halftime and injuries. Can't watch baseball unless its late in a playoff game, or this game 7 where it's for all the marbles.; 10/28/11, 8:51 PM
sakredkow said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/29/11, 4:29 PM