Television as a medium, defined by scheduled programming became obsolete as soon as internet-based streaming became viable. The viewer being able to choose what to watch and when is vastly superior.

Piracy was viable a bit earlier, and I quit watching traditional TV then.

I started watching again after moving in with my now wife. Fortunately our TV has a recording function, which has the benefit of being able to fast forward through commercials.

That way I can mitigate the horror that are ads. Otherwise I’d refuse to watch tbh

I watch The Chase with my mum when I go to see my her. TV is so thoroughly removed from my life that it makes that special occasion all the more enjoyable.

I stopped in 2006 because I did not feel like paying the public service fee.

During the past couple of years my media consumption gradually decreased to none. I don’t remember when was the last time I turned on my TV, and haven’t watched a single thing on Plex. My only source of news currently is whatever is on Lemmy. As for youtube, the occasional tech video or a guide for something I’m trying to do.

Not watched it in 20 years.

Any time I’m somewhere else and a TV is on, it seems worse. Adverts seem to be mostly “waste money on scams” and “borrow money in scams”. The content has gone beyond even the cheapest reality TV nonsense.

I can’t believe they even film some of that crap, let alone broadcast it.

It’s hundreds of channels of adverts, with gaps between them filled as cheaply as possible. Doesn’t seem to be any more actual good content than we had when there was only 4 channels.

When we moved into our new house 5 years ago, it was technically complicated (or expensive) to install our TV. Now, it’s just a screen to stream Twitch and VOD platforms.

Occasionally I go to senior citizens homes and watch their broadcast TV. It’s like going back in time, and I don’t like it.

The TV is used as the device it is: A giant monitor for YouTube. Nothing else.

Yep, stopped probably 7 years ago when we moved into our place and cut the antenna cable. We pretty much watch political commentators on YouTube and the odd movie on stream, as well as whatever’s in our DVD collection.

OTA, no. Cable, no. $$ for streaming, no. Ads, no. I watch a lot of shows from many countries (AKA I read a lot of shows), but rarely from the US. I hate US tv, it’s so formulaic and boring. I don’t even watch very many movies anymore. Mostly documentaries.

I have a torrent client in a country where nobody cares so I can get all the shows but I don’t.

However, I recently found an old sat box in the trash. The house still has a dish pointed at the Astra 3B (most of Europe) satellite for my grandparents’ TV so I plugged it in and it can still tune in to some FTA channels that use the old MPEG-2 SD standard. They’re all German, haha. I use it to browse teletext for nostalgia, I bought a hopefully compatible capture card and I’ll try to archive some of it with vhs-teletext before most SD channels’ broadcast shuts down for good in 2025. I found lots of auto-updated or non-updated headlines, hundreds of phone sex ads, SMS chat rooms (kind of shitty IRC where receiving is 100% anonymous but sending is $0.50 per message), use guides to analog satellite broadcast and ShowView VCR codes (how is that still running?) and found out that Germans still import like ¼ of their TV fairytales from the Czech Republic for some reason (never the other way around though).

On ProSieben, my good old method for “skipping” ads still works. I’ll be making a video about it and editing it in Movie Maker style like I’m 12 and it’s 2007. My TV is that old and I can use a badly inserted RF connection to pretend analog is still running.

I had hated the commercials on local TV (and their insipid local newscasters), and the way Cable networks chopped up films to the point where a 90-minute film took 2-1/2 hours to watch. NOT to mention their 200+ channels with 7 worth watching (for many $$$).

When they shut down analog TV in 2009, that was it for me. I didn’t even grab a ~~free HDTV converter for local stuff. Nothing but Internet ever since. Music? HUNDREDS of online stations.

I stopped watching linear tv 13 years ago, but my Plex library is not what I’d call small lol.

I got my own place a decade ago, I don’t have a TV, never had.

I just don’t see the point, it just feels restrictive.

I am considering getting a projector though…