Word: tivo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...warnings on the package. No "this product will open a window into your soul that you aren't ready to see." The box doesn't say anything about all the wires you have to hook up, either, but the soul-window thing, that was the real problem. TiVo, the most advanced machine for taping TV shows, lures you in by masquerading as the VCR you've always dreamed of: it lets you program by a show's name instead of the time it's on and remembers to record your favorite programs every week. But its real mission...
...sponsorship, "we got an order from the WB for 13 episodes." (Says network spokesman Paul McGuire: "The WB would not have gone forward with the show unless we liked and embraced the concept of the program.") There are longer-term pressures at work too. Digital video recorders like TiVo are making it easier for viewers to zap past ads. Commercial breaks--16 minutes or so of every TV hour--have stretched the limits of viewer tolerance. And this "clutter," plus the metastasizing of ads to benches, bananas and buses, makes it hard for a commercial message to stand out. "Commercial...
...TiVo has decided it knows what's best for me. Pretending to be a responsible journalist, I have the news on in my office, but my TiVo - the digital TV recorder that is a trusted sidekick for my job as a television critic - figures I'd rather watch So Weird, a goopy family show on the Disney Channel. And unlike my VCR, TiVo can do something about it. A couple of clicks from its infrared channel changer and instead of the conflict in the Middle East, there's One Day at a Time's Mackenzie Phillips - yes, she's still...
Thanks to TiVo, I no longer merely watch TV; I wrestle with it. Sure, I could turn off the TiVo's suggestions feature. But I'd feel like I was shirking my critical responsibility to embrace the medium's future. Besides programming TiVo to record my favorite shows, I also indulge in a special function that lets me rate programs with its "thumbs-up" and "thumbs-down" buttons, so that it learns to guess my tastes better...
...contestants early in the show; as a result, the producers are leaving the voting in season two to the contestants. The lesson: I don't want you programming my TV and, trust me, you don't want me programming yours. I can't even control my own. Just now TiVo is telling me I want to watch a rerun of the '80s sitcom Growing Pains, and frankly I'm too exhausted to argue. If you need me, I'll be multitasking with a bag of potato chips...