SKY+ Timeshift TV = No time

Like many people in the UK I have multichannel TV (SKY in my case) and a PVR.. SKY+. The service is generally good (except for some obvious bugs which they fail to fix) but, this post isn’t about SKY+ exactly it’s about how services such as this don’t allow us to rearrange TV around our lives so much as make us watch more TV.

In the days before I had SKY+ or freeview for that matter, I had just the 5 basic terrestrial channels. So, I’d watch TV maybe twice a week at most. There were only a few shows that I watched and that was that, plenty of time to do other things. Now, with SKY+ and specifically multi-channel TV I find that I record a lot more shows, films etc… which slowly fills up the box. So, in the olden days (so to speak) where there’d be some great times where I had nothing to watch and would then read a book, play a game, play some music or do something else… well, that just never occurs. With SKY+ (as their ads state), there’s always something to watch…. very very true. I hate that, I really do because when I’m faced with the option of reading a book or sitting like a lump and watching TV, generally the TV will win. Of course, I now have a  lot less free time than I did, I’ve got kids now for a start, I work longer hours etc… So, in general I watch one to two hours of TV a day and I only have about 2 hours of free time anyway. I wonder how PVRs have affected other people’s lives…

Incidentally, SKY are using Ross Kemp to advertise their SKY+ PVR. I don’t quite understand why. I know he’s one of their ‘talents’, i.e. his Gangs programme on SKY One but really, does the fact that Ross Kemp uses SKY+ make anyone else want to buy it? A man that comes across as a neanderthal who is (or was) married to the editor of the News of the World? WOW.. what a glowing reference for SKY+ that is. At least if they used the tagline, SKY+ – Even a caveman can use it… well, at least that would have been funny.