Word: tivo
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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...
...bought my TiVo because my editor keeps scheduling meetings during that soap opera with Timmy the Living Doll. But when I programmed it for the first time after coming home one Saturday night--the last I would ever spend outside my apartment--I decided to try to impress it, so I'd get pooled with the smart people. I asked it to tape Meet the Press, Full Metal Jacket and some British sitcom called Keeping Up Appearances...
...next morning, TiVo had also taped Married with Children; Malibu, CA; El Chavo del Ocho; and Aqui Esta la Chilindrina. Not wanting to insult my new home appliance, and not speaking any Spanish, I first watched Malibu, CA, which is about the zany antics of a group of Baywatch-y teens. I'm sure there were similarly interesting plot lines offered by El Chavo, but I used TiVo's superfast-forward and stopped only on the cleavage shots. ¡Muy bueno...
...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...
...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...