Many of us are wrapped tightly in our TV binge-watching cocoons these days, snuggling up with an entire season of our favorite shows and slaughtering the entire thing in one go or a few dedicated sessions. But how much of your time is that actually taking up? Now you can count the minutes, days and hours you’ve devoted to the boob tube, or an electronic facsimile thereof. [More]
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Time Warner Cable Glitch During “The Walking Dead” Finale Infuriates Upstate NY Customers
By 3.31.14
Last night, the season finale of “The Walking Dead” aired on AMC. Viewers were glued to their televisions as they always are during a major television event, but something terrible happened last night. In the Syracuse, NY area, the AMC signal cut out about 38 minutes into the broadcast. [More]
Watching A Lot Of ‘House’ Comes In Handy For Doctors Trying To Solve Real Medical Mystery
By 2.7.14
Remember how they always told you TV rots your brain? Surely they (whoever “they” are, we all have our theories) would be quite shocked to hear that a healthy TV diet helped a bunch of doctors solve a medical mystery and save a patient. All thanks to the show House M.D., starring the inimitable Hugh Laurie. [More]
FCC Wants To Let You Watch Your Home Team’s Games At Home
By 12.19.13
Sports broadcasting: it’s both lucrative and confusing. Sometimes you can turn on the TV and watch a game that’s taking place in your own hometown, and sometimes you can’t. When you can’t, you’re part of a broadcast blackout. [More]
Sears Commercials Through The Decades: Jingles, Car Repair, Bruises
By 11.27.13
Sears: it was an iconic American retailer, and now has become more of a cautionary business tale as it struggles for relevance and tries to shed more real estate and scrap itself for parts. Many years ago, though, Sears was a central shopping experience in Americans’ lives. Americans who bought boom boxes and played “Space Invaders.” [More]
Report: Panasonic Planning To Ditch The Plasma TV Market Next Year
By 10.9.13
If you’re thinking of buying a plasma TV from Panasonic, you might want to hop on it lickety-split: A new report says Panasonic is wiping its hands of the plasma business by March 2014. It’s all turning into a losing business prospect for the Japanese company and the TV industry in general. [More]
Your DVR Can Probably Skip Over An Ad With A Single Button Push
By 10.3.13
While many of us immediately hit the FF button on the remote control at the first indication of an ad, some folks aren’t as vigilant. But there are always those few ads that you just want to bypass when they come up (Geico camel, I’m looking at you), and your remote probably has the ability to skip that commercial with a single button push. The folks at Lifehacker have created this handy guide on setting this up for a variety of DVRs… or you could just fast-forward through the entire ad break like a sensible person. [Lifehacker] [More]
Morning Talk Show Hosts Will Probably Never Get Sick Of Eating McDonald’s On TV Every Day
By 9.26.13
Coffee mugs branded with your morning TV show’s logo are so… how shall we put this? Stale. Unsatisfying. The new thing to do, apparently, is open a teeny tiny McDonald’s location in the TV studio so you can feed your guests Egg McMuffins before they go on camera to chat about whatever currently interesting thing is being discussed. [More]
Proposed Law Aims To Curb TV Blackouts, Let You Choose To Pay For Broadcast Channels
By 9.9.13
In the wake of the month-long blackout that affected 3 million CBS viewers in several major cities and Showtime subscribers nationwide, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo of California has drafted legislation that would give the Federal Communications Commission the authority to prevent blackouts, and give consumers the right to decide whether or not they want to pay for watching broadcast networks on cable. [More]
Video On Demand Finally Enjoying Cool Kid Status In 60% Of TV Homes
By 9.9.13
A scream of rage goes up, a long howl filled with frustration. You forgot to set the DVR to tape the latest episode of Breaking Amish: L.A. But there’s hope yet for cable and satellite customers, as video on demand programming has been improving through the years, and is now available to 60% of American TV households. [More]
What To Binge-Watch If You’re Staying In This Holiday Weekend
August 30, 2013
Sad that the summer holiday season is ending? Or maybe you’re burned out and cash-poor from going out too frequently? If you’re stuck inside this weekend, you might as well close the curtains, crack open some snacks and binge-watch entire seasons of shows like Orange Is the New Black, The Fall, and Vikings. The folks at AVclub.com have curated a list of 26 shows you could cram into a weekend (not at once, unless you are able to watch several TVs simultaneously without losing your grip on reality), along with info on where to stream each show. [AVclub.com]
Sony & Viacom Closing In On Deal To Make Networks’ Content Available Via The Internet
By 8.16.13
I’m no weathervane (or AM I?!?) but it seems the wind is shifting in the land of TV content and Internet streaming. Sony and Viacom are reportedly close to a deal that would allow network programs from MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and the like to be carried on a system Sony’s working on. [More]
Get A Free Car Wash Today Courtesy Of America’s Favorite Meth Kingpin
By 8.9.13
Even if you’ve never watched a single episode of “Breaking Bad,” the greatest show on television might make your life better. That’s because Walter and Skylar White are AMC is sponsoring free car wash events in eight cities in honor of Sunday’s premiere. The businesses will rebrand themselves as the show’s fictional A1A Car Wash. Octopus Car Wash, the real-life Albuquerque business that stands in for the fictional A1A, will not be participating. If you live in Denver, Washington D.C., Detroit, Cleveland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, or Houston and have a dirty Pontiac Aztek, drive it on over there. [AMC] [More]
Aereo Announces Launch Dates For Service In Miami, Houston, Dallas
By 8.8.13
Even while it’s being sued by all the major broadcast networks, video-streaming service Aereo continues to expand into new markets with the announcement today of launch dates for customers in the Miami, Houston, and Dallas/Ft. Worth areas. [More]
Best Buy Employee Reveals 3 Common Mistakes Customers Make When Picking Up Big-Screen TVs
By 7.23.13 — Updated: 5.23.17
Consumerist reader “A” works at Best Buy and sees a lot of customers buying large TVs. He also sees many of those TV-buying customers making the same mistakes when it comes time to take that new set home. [More]
Study: Tipping TVs Putting Thousands Of Kids In The Hospital Every Year
By 7.22.13
Whether you’ve still got an older box TV or a flat panel mounted on a wall, a new study says falling televisions present a very real danger to young kids. Thousands of injuries resulting from tippy TVs have been reported every year, say researchers, and the numbers coming out of emergency rooms related to tipping TVs are only going up. [More]
Breaking Bad Getting Its Own Beer. No, It’s Not Blue
By 6.25.13
It would obviously be downright tacky to drink your Game of Thrones beer while that show is between seasons, but what’s a true connoisseur of TV-inspired beers to consume in the interim? Thankfully, a brewer in New Mexico has the answer — a Breaking Bad beer. [More]
Networks To FCC: No One’s Watching Our Shows, So Stop Being So Uptight About Decency Standards
By 6.21.13
Remember the days when basic cable was considered a joke and all the real shows were on the broadcast networks? Back in those days, it sort of made sense that the FCC might care about things like bad language, nudity (and supposedly violence, though that never really seemed to be an issue) on network TV. But now, with the majority of viewers spending their TV-watching time glued to basic cable shows featuring loudmouthed, obnoxious, hateful, “real” people shouting at each other in between commercials, the networks are asking the FCC to lighten the heck up. [More]
