One book argues that people tends to mindlessly watch anything that appears on TV. This reminds me how seldom I watch TV lately. Well I guess I have not randomly flipping from one channel to another for quite a long time now. I think I could not afford spending hours in front of TV anymore. If you work about 8 hours a day you would only have a couple hours in the evening and of course you would not spend all of them in front of TV. Secondly YouTube would allow me to watch exactly what I want to watch. I do not have to wait for the exact moment (unless on live event). Thirdly -I guess this the main reason- I do not have TV cable.
When I was a kid we had but one channel, the government TV channel. I think the first private commercial TV channel in Indonesia was established in 1989. Since then it is essential to have a TV set with remote control. When I lived in a city in Borneo I had a satellite dish which is necessary to watch TV. Relying on regular antenna would yield blurry picture of one channel only. The satellite dish would give us access to many channels including channels from abroad like French and Australia. Now the remote control would even be more essential.
About five years ago, returning to Indonesia having lived abroad I had quite a lot of free time. I did watch TV from time to time but quickly I realized that I do not share the tastes of the people behind those TVs. I thought most sinetron are insulting our ability to think. The storyline are unrealistic, the dialogue are rather stupid to my ears and all in all they are waste of time. Moreover YouTube was easily accessible. I guess -to me- that was the time when TV changed role as means of entertainment. TV is now just a screen. A device to view things. Things that could also be accessed via smartphones or laptops.
I seldom watch Indonesian sinetron but I appreciate the hard work of those who produce it.
ReplyDeleteI guess they could have done much better but I do not watch them either -
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