Television?

Growing up I lived in a neighborhood without access to cable television. This meant that our television had rabbit ears, and my parent’s roof still has one of those oddly shaped wire antennas from Radio Shack. As I recall, in the search for clearer television reception, my parents went through several incarnations of roof antennas over the course of my childhood. The real technological breakthrough was a remote antenna adjuster. Turn the dial next to the television to the appropriate spot (marked after much effort) and the selected channel may come in just a little bit cleaner (depending on the weather). This effort was made so that three network channels (ABC, NBC, and CBS) and one PBS channel could be received with the minimum of static and ghosting. With this technological improvement, on a good day, we could now get a very hazy picture from Fox.

Now when the weather cooperated we could watch a maximum of five channels! Usually it was more like three or four. As I remember, it seemed that there was always something worth watching on one of the channels when I was growing up, even through the static and ghosting. My DH and I have over 300 digital channels, and there is less worth watching than when I was living with my parents. I think that’s called irony; and maybe a little bit of taste discrimination and pickiness I didn’t have the option of having back then.

Have you experienced this trend also?