Anyone else here that stopped watching TV almost completely?

Absolutely. I was tired of watching regurgitated bullshit. If your media is making me check my phone ever 5 minutes or less your media is garbage. I can go to an EDM show and listen from 5 to 8 hours of music and forget I even have a phone.

I'm 47 and never had a television. Computers, projector, tablets yes but never watched linear TV at my place.

The only time I see broadcast TV is if I'm in a hotel. I honestly can't remember the last time I watched it in my own home, but it's probably been around 15 years.

My wife and I will cuddle up most nights to continue q show we're watching, we finish WWDITS (finale just aired) and move on to something else tonight

Though our "TV" is my local Plex instance running stuff I request through Overseerr rather than even the normal streaming platforms, so I have a much better experience than those provide

As for news and the like: YouTube, specific creators like the daily show or journalists I know have actual merit, and my local station through plexs live tv

Years ago, my TV is a screen only. I'm using a Nvidia Shield to display content for privacy purposes. I watch movies and shows from Netflix or pirate whatever isn't on there, and if I need news I'll get them online.

I watch YouTube, and some shows on streaming apps, but traditional tv hasn’t existed for me since about 2008

Not since like ... almost 10 years ago. Even before I moved out. Last time my family moved, we just didn't bother to set it up. Literally everything you could want is available online, with less hassle, and no ads.

I watch stuff in the background to satisfy my ADHD. And when I'm burnt out I watch stuff as it keeps me entertained while not taking much mental energy.

I haven't watched TV since I was 14 or so. Just didn't see a point when i could watch YouTube or download anime.

American here, for sanity's sake I've pretty much stopped consuming political news since the fucking election. I stopped seeing movies in theaters years ago, so there are a lot of good ones still new to me that I can stream without ads.

I gave up TV for a while, but built an automated Plex server about a year ago and have fallen in love with it. I find myself watching more shows than in probably the past decade. My wife was less than thrilled about the initial cost (and the fact that she lost some closet space to the server) but now she uses it every day and refuses to ever let me get rid of it.

For the unaware, Plex is a program that allows you to self-host a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu. You add media to the server, and it will automatically match it to the relevant show, download metadata, and make it available to your client devices to stream. The free version is fine for most small setups, but there is a paid license you can get to unlock all of the functionality; Most users opt to just get a lifetime license, so it’s not an ongoing cost.

If you prefer open source, Jellyfin is a good alternative. There’s a little bit more of a learning curve, because the client apps aren’t widely available and it often requires using something like Kodi to stream instead. But the idea is the same; Host a server, throw media at it, and be able to stream.

Automating the media collection is possible, and is what takes it from “this is a cool side hobby that I’ll abandon in a few months because the upkeep is a pain in the ass” to “this is now my go-to for shows I want to watch, and the upkeep is minimal.” Programs exist that allow your server to automatically search for media Linux ISOs, download it, and add it to your server. So adding new media Linux ISOs is simply a matter of requesting it to be added, and then the server handles all the rest automatically and you’ll have it available as soon as the download finishes.

My one big complaint about Plex is actually the lack of live IPTV support. You can integrate a digital TV tuner into your server to be able to automatically DVR live content. But Plex used to support an IPTV extension, which allowed you to add your own IPTV channels and stream them on any device. Plex did away with that extension support, because they have been pushing their own IPTV channels and they didn’t want to compete with the extension.

Gave up watching broadcast TV a couple of years ago. I have a decent enough laptop running Pop!_OS, an internet connection, and a 32" monotor. I can find what I want/need with that.

What TV?

I run a Jellyfin server for my family. I used to have regular shows to put up, new things, new seasons, new hot shit.

There's nothing, lol. The only thing I even remotely have to look forward to is Severance. I keep up with anime releases season to season but that's its own thing.

Yeah, DanDaDan, we know, awesome show.

But Hollywood is fucking broke. I add ten indie horror flicks for every one Hollywood release. The days of Stranger Things are over.

I still watch live sports on TV. Aside from that it’s exclusively our Plex server.

I had a good run with: YTCh.xyz

Some of the content seems to repeat if you watch it enough. I really like it as a concept though. This is something I miss. Just. Getting to watch something fun on the side and learn or listen to it.

Yeah like 10 years ago. I watch a lot of YouTube, listen to podcasts and watch films on my phone.

The last one seems weird but if I watch things on a TV or monitor I’ll be glued to my phone still, so watching on the phone means I give it my all.

I think we need to define TV.

Tv in the sense of broadcast stations and shows. Haven’t touched that since 2008, DVDs and Streaming has everything I want.

TV in the sense of a shared screen for everyone. Nah, still needed and can be better than ever thanks to streaming, both retail and… other sources (plex)

I can't even remember the last time I watched regular, broadcast TV and not shows via streaming or videos on YouTube.

I remember how I used to enjoy channel surfing with cable for hours on end. But that was because I would often land on the History Channel which was showing something about ... history, or some other interesting channel. Now I try it once in a while while riding my exercycle and it's just an absolute wasteland with nothing interesting on. How is it possible to have literally 1000+ channels without anything worth watching? Even the Food Channel has become worthless - now it's just hours of the "Pioneer Woman", a nasty creature who only has a cooking show because she's married to one of the richest men and largest landowners in Oklahoma.

I stopped watching over 15 years ago. Don't miss linear tv a single bit

Like regular TV? Ditched that when it went to digital and our TV didn't work, never watched much though.

Netflix and stuff? Streaming? One or two nights a week. We are watching Arcane now, just finished Preacher. I go very slowly through these, husband watches an hour of "TV" every night to relax, but I have to get away from screens before bed to relax.

What "almost"?

This is the majority of young people. I've never paid for cable TV.

My wife still watches some television. I stopped altogether several years ago. I do like YouTube though, which I suppose scratches the same itch.

I never watched it growing up. I do watch a lot of Youtube though

You can still read news, no need to be uninformed.

Definitely, TV is useless.

closest thing I've gotten to watching tv is this: I got one of those smart tvs that you can load apps on, and it had tubi on there, so I'll throw it on every now and again while cooking or cleaning, but even then it's just background noise and mostly Mystery Science Theater 3000. Sometimes I'll look at the other channels but the only thing that really interests is old 90s classics or this one sports channel that shows unconventional sports like jai-alai or footvolly or whatever

TV is hot garbage riddled with ads. So yeah, I no longer watch, ca. since 20 years.

Welcome to the club. I used to watch tv only because my ex wanted to. I would fall asleep anyways. Movies are boring. Rather make shit and have more fun building stuff. Making art building electronics kind of thing.

I have a good working flat screen from like early 2000s somewhere. I also have a couple broken TVs I want to fix for fun. Once I fix my big tv I plan to use it as a display monitor.

That being said I do have these two stacked 32 inch monitors. Only use them for like 15 minutes a day of YouTube.

yeah, we still have a TV package but I havent had a TV in my office where I spend most of my awake off-time, there's nothing worth watching anymore for me, just awful programming , news, sports, and PPV/Inferior on demand services.

I dont even use netflix anymore, I rage-quit after falling for that tyson paul bait and switch scam. the only "TV" I watch anymore is like streams of 15 year old adult cartoons like the Boondocks and South Park. and whatevers on my buddy's Plex server. almost entirely old stuff more than 5 years old.

watching the news is just brain rot. you can get informed by 10 mins of scrolling current events on many different websites.. if you feel the need to be informed.

I use Jellyfin and watch DVD rips. I can get box sets cheap at goodwill. Haven't paid for TV in 15+ years. Sometimes I'll watch streaming on FreeTube.

I have YouTube TV and only use it for sports.

I'll go one step further and say I haven't watched a new, regular network television show in at least a decade. Who has time to watch 20-something episodes each season - with much of that time spent on fluff story lines that only exist so the show can fill a time slot for 22/23 weeks a year?

Here's a great example: Lost.

At the time it was amazing. But there was also a lot of unnecessary BS in there because, frankly, they needed to fill time. If you go and look, almost all of the top rated episodes for the series were the last handful of episodes at the end of the season.

Now imagine if they took that show and made 10/13 episode seasons out of it.

I think you could make the same case for most network TV shows. Even if they were amazing at 23 episodes, they'd be even better at 10 or 13.

A great example IMO is Friday Night Lights. Amazing show overall, but that first season was just too long. Then because of a variety of reasons, they moved to 13-15 episodes a season (instead of 23 in season one), and the show excelled.

I think I watched about half of the US presidential debate, and just enough of the election to have a handle on the result. That’s all the normal TV I’ve watched in years. Not including netflix or other streaming programs.

Haven't stopped but I watch very little TV, whether on terrestrial or Internet. Listen to way more music and radio these days.

Haven't watched TV in 15 years. I've wanted my media on a TV though.

I don't even have access, it would cost me extra. And the content is cancerous and riddled with ads, I see it every time when visiting my dad. For news there are news websites and the big news corps have their program online anyway.

i haven't owned a television since 2006

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.

You mean broadcast TV? Yes.

But TV is just another part of the internet now.

I still watch scripted, episodic, video content and get my news, local; national; and world, from the internet.

Yep that's me!

Zoomer here, I grew up without cable/tv access. The only thing plugged to the black rectangle was my Wii and the other consoles I got. When it (tv) was available, I didn't see the appeal at all, I had internet access already.

Actual TV? Hell fucking no.

TV Shows? Sure, I'll #yaRrr it from the 🏴‍☠️'Bay and watch it. No Netflixes or crazy subscriptions, I'm broke, lmfao.

Although, I haven't found any thing new in the past few months, so I just watch youtube videos and sometimes download old TV shows / Movies I watched for nostalgia, and maybe catch some minor details I missed.

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.

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

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.

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

I haven't been able to watch broadcast TV in decades. The commercials were making me physically ill. Too much flash flash between them with sudden volume changes.

As for news, it's easier and faster to read, plus I can deep dive on anything interesting. For everything else, there's streaming or piracy.

I haven’t watched regular tv in 15-20 years, with the occasional exception if I’m in a hotel. Mostly just stuck to streaming platforms in the last ten years, however my attention span for those has dwindled and I also just don’t really have the time or mental energy to watch much. I probably watch 1 movie per month, with one or two shows here and there. As a result, I’ve just cancelled almost all of my streaming packages.

I pretty much exclusively watch the local and sometimes national news. YouTube is where I go for most of my mindless content consumption.

I have a media PC running MythTV that I use as a DVR for over the air broadcast TV. Over the years I have been using it less and less. Today I use it for sports almost exclusively. It is good for things like the oscars too. Most of the time I am just trying watching Youtube on my media pc.

I love TV but the content is so terrible,

I don't watch TV, not even streaming.

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...

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

I only use it to watch live sports, everything else is watched online.

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.

I stopped watching almost entirely back in 02 when I got sick of watching planes flying into the WTC over and over. And over. And over. I also hate ads. I've never paid for cable or streaming, aside from YT premium.

If I want to watch a show I buy a disc, watch at a friend's place, or I don't bother. Is it that important, really?

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.

The TV is for the wife, but even she gets annoyed with the amount of ads and reruns to increasingly turn to streaming.

I stopped watching TV a few years ago. It wasn't a conscious choice. I just didn't find it interesting.

I do still follow current events. There are much better sources of information than TV news.

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 did that 20 years ago. It's great!

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

Your public library has a ton of content for free. Music, tv, film, print… honestly, what more do you need? Just throwing that out there.

I watch the morning news with my hubs, then pretty much play video games. RPGs to be precise.

I’d much rather be part of my entertainment than merely a spectator.

Yeah 25 years ago.

I haven’t had access to cable since like 2003 when I lived with my parents. I, like many others here, pirate a bunch of stuff (plus some physical media for independent media and stuff I want to support)

That said I recently got an iptv subscription bc my partner got into sports and the available options are either stupid, prohibitively expensive, or both. NBA streaming package is not crazy at $10/mo but it has a blackout for your local team, so you can’t watch games of your team, forcing you to a cable provider if you follow them. Anything for local sports is minimum like $60 a month and often double that. absurd. Iptv is super piracy but it’s like $70/yr for all the games of all the teams of all the sports plus all the channels of all the countries plus a huge library of content.

I watched tv for like a day with it and it was insane how terrible it was. Most networks just marathon random episodes of mid shows with obnoxious ad breaks. So it’s like comedy central- 6 hours of family guy, 3 hours of american dad, 4 hours of south park, 3 bad movies, 6 more hours of family guy, 4 hours of infomercials, repeat. Maybe there’s like one episode of new content every few days, and it’s something low effort like the daily show. Or another network like hln that literally just shows forensic files and informercials 24/7.

The news is toxic bullshit. Hyper focus on rage bait and propping up anything that gets ratings (which is basically trump and elon nonsense).

It’s insane. It’s just streaming networks where you can’t pick what you watch. They realized people like binge watching and leaned into that, hard. The advantage they had is creating new content but there’s none of that the overwhelming majority of the time. They’ve given up and are propped up solely by sports

I will say some of the other countries have decent programming at least. Tbs from Japan has some good shit (although you have to speak Japanese of course). They tend to have better news too

Don’t even have one anymore. The number of books I’ve read in the past few years exceeds that of the rest of my life, or at least comes close.

At least in my country, yes since 2016 after our election.

It's almost just kiddie shows and news back then, but now after our next election in 2022 it I stopped watching news, since its almost all yapping about the dictator's son

When our TV broke along with the storm in December that year I stopped watching it altogether

Of course it's over-the-air TV. My higher-ups refuse to install cable/sattelite TV that time before

Yeah I haven't owned a television in years

I’ve been living completely without TV until recently, but after finding out that things on TV is worthless, I stopped watching it.

I’m surprised many of you still watch TVs. Maybe the quality of contents is different between countries. In my country, TV sucks.

You mean broadcast tv? Only for sports. Cut the cable years ago. Streaming and piracy only, now. There are some amazing shows available right now. Don't watch the news.

Haven't had an antenna connected to my TV for... 17 years.

Haven't missed a single thing of worth. Can pick and choose from the net

I have. If there something that is really good I wait to hear about it from word of mouth then totally find a “legitimate” source for it.

I will rent movies and television shows from the library. I don't watch broadcast TV unless I'm forced to at the gym. Speaking of, I don't understand why gyms subject people to watching the shitty news while on cardio machines. I wish they would turn them off or just show random inspirational stuff instead.

yup. cable got too damn expensive to have just to be able to get the local channels (only way to get them where i am). really should've dumped them years before i finally did. haven't had a streaming sub in a couple years either. i mainly watch old recordings (some on tape, even), discs, and other things i have here. and maybe once or twice a month, i'll look for something different or 'new to me' on a free service. i get enough news and current events from public radio when i'm in the car or when the radio is on at the office.

Cable, about 30 years ago. I bought a TV a few years ago to watch my digital movie collection. A bigger screen is nice.

Gave up TV and movies like 15 yrs ago. Still have old TVs in the living room, no one will take them...

Haven't missed it at all.

Its been about 15 years.
The shows I actually do watch I hoist my flag for.
Most recently, silo season 2

I watch some shows I've aquired here and there on Plex. And a bit of Youtube. But most of my time in front of a screen is spent either working or playing games. I've spent years ridding my life of advertising and I cant stand even 10-minutes of watching cable or broadcast TV.

Streaming only. I was pirating tv shows for years until I could pay for what I want.

Cable TV? Yeah, I once in a while hop in for some free IPTV and deal with what comes with it (mostly use Pluto TV BTW) that is mostly for background noise of course, for TV Shows, Anime and Movies I use my own means 🏴‍☠️

I refuse to end up watching YouTube and reels exclusively lol.

I stopped watching television in like 2007. I'm not sure why anyone puts up with it.

iwatch allkinds of media and my local news every day. I mean a lot of times in in the background while im doing other things.

Haven't had a television set in my life ever. Don't understand why they're still sold either.

I'll have YT on in the background on my desktop PC for noise while I work or do chores and occasional purposeful viewing for some select few channels mostly for me and my gf to watch and discuss while we lounge, (I turned the algo off with no search history, no home page, only subscriptions, ublock, dearrow, sponsorblock etc.)

For news I tend to prefer reading to stay on top of current events in politics but I'll also overhear the general headline gist in the morning from political YT channels. I think people should generally try to stay informed and have a fully-formed worldview which necessitates a political ideology once they're at least a few years into adulthood, lack of curiousity and worldliness isn't anything to be proud of imho.

For shows I just download what I want and stream it off my Jellyfin server. I find out about them mostly through word of mouth.

Dunno/don't care about sports or anything like that personally.

I never started. Soon as I left my parents' house, it was just more time for games and reading and adventure.

I have... lots of media available on a local Plex server, several thousand movies and tv shows, continuously growing, never getting smaller - more than you can say for streaming services. I have an OTA DVR for local stations so I can watch sports on the weekend and maybe some PBS content. I pay $0/mo for all of it.

Since having kids, it's just PBS Kids. Didn't watch much before that

I'll watch a season of a show here and there but other than that its mostly just football and Jeopardy randomly..

I just generally avoid all video media, yes. Occasionally, maybe twice a month, I will watch a feature film with my family.

You can just tailor what you want to see. That's the point of having internet on your TV.