200 Channels and Nothing On

Cold weather has kept me inside as of late and I have come to realize something. The more channels I get on my cable box, the less it seems there is to watch. It sounds strange to me too but it is true. When I was growing up there were a half dozen stations to watch. You made your choice and if the channel was coming in well enough, you watched it. Those were your options and you accepted things as they were. Then I subscribed to cable and I had about 20 channels. It seemed like there was so much to see. That number kept growing and growing and now there are about a couple of hundred channels to surf. The problem is that the more specialized the channels become, the smaller the share of the market they appeal to. The result is many niche channels filling your menu and nothing of interest to watch. You would think more options would make for more viewing time but it has proved to be the opposite. I scan the channels and find nothing of interest. Then I decide to do something else. Television used to be mesmerizing. There were shows that you made sure you were home in time to see. Other shows you talked about with friends the next day because chances were, they watched them as well. Now you ask someone if they watched a show and either they were watching something else or they were not watching television. I constantly talk to people who tell me about shows I either never watch or have never heard of before. Likewise, I talk about something I saw and it appears I was the only one on the planet watching that program. Then there are the reality shows. Do you know what we used to call reality TV...NEWS. Now every channel has some sort of contest or adventure show where cooks square off, or fishermen fish or pilots in Alaska fly or some guy eats disgusting food all over the world. I mean the list just doesn’t stop. We have pawn brokers made into stars and teenaged moms mouthing off and throwing their lives away. These shows are supposed to make us want to watch? What ever happened to writers who actually wrote scripts for shows? I guess people want realism because the prevalence of such shows displays their unimaginable popularity. In the end I pay my cable bill every month and wonder why I even bother having the service. Maybe the people who just watch Netflix have it right. Who knows? All I know is it seems I keep seeing new channels appear that I will never watch.