CST – even the stuff that comes on at 7 is not suitable for kids. We love Chuck, but we wait until the kids are in bed (all under 5). We’d watch even less without the TiVo. You can probably pick one up cheaply on Ebay/Craigslist. The Series 2 TiVo’s even support the new converter boxes.

People are wishing for cleaner entertainment and you point out dozens of channels where people can watch educational documentaries, tv shows about children and science-minded reality shows.

Your big blind spot here is that you are assuming all the cultural conservatives want is clean entertainment for their kids. I can tell you, my parents are retirement age and they wish they could find some cleaner entertainment for themselves beyond reruns of sitcoms from the 1970s and early 1980s. They also wish they could go to movies without waiting for the inevitable “F-word” in almost anything that isn’t made by Pixar!

Son: “Daaeee?”
Dad: “Yes Son”
Son: “Bahhmann”
Dad: Smiling with head nods: “High Five”….(High Five each other) “Yess…Bahhhmannn it is”

Bahhhman time.

Interesting. We turned off our cable for financial reasons – 900 channels of crap programing and music channels that never played good music (really, what is the difference between Hip-Hop, Soul, R&B and why does it have to be on every channel not listed as “Classical”?)

We had “The Bundle” but my kids are little and we never used the digital phone because our Cells are much more convenient. We only have the cable modem which is networked throughout our house and we use Magic-Jack as a phone (12x cheaper).

I do miss the History Channel, Disney(s), Learning Chanel, Fox News, but we can get most of that programing right off their respective websites, including our local news.

ONE MORE THING
I didn’t only find the programs offensive to my intelligence and morals, but the COMMERCIALS were also demeaning to Husbands, Fathers and men in general.

On Discovery alone, my 7 year old is interested in Myth Busters, Storm Chasers, How It’s Made, Survivorman, Man vs Wild, Time Warp and Dirty Jobs. The only thing he’s not allowed to watch there is Destroyed in Seconds, which has some pretty gruesome stuff.

If parents are at all involved in setting viewing parameters, there’s a world of kid-friendly programming.

The only thing I worry about is the commercials.

For those on the coasts, ask yourselves a question. When do you put the kids to bed? 9-10 pm? For you, prime time has just started at 8 pm, and you are in the “family hour” till 9 pm. A show that is violent or overly sexual in the third hour of primetime can be avoided easily because your kids are in bed. For us in the Central Time Zone, primetime starts at 7 pm, so a show in the third hour is still on when our kids would be up and awake. Likely its on when the family has returned from Soccer practice or Scouts and want to turn on the TV for a bit to unwind before bed.

For you, this show will come on after your kids go to bed, for us, its on before they go to bed.

The point, is that the schedule plays differently in Chicago or Omaha than it does in NY or LA. A lot of people in the middle of the country get labeled as “out of touch” or “religious nuts” simply because they are tired of playing TV cop. The people in the middle of the country do this more, have it impact on their lives more, and so get more angry about it.

The author’s first point, that there is a lot of good TV out in the cable channels is valid, but only for people that have full cable access.

If you can’t afford it, your kid is stuck with network TV and the “rape of the week” on Law and Order SVU. Consider last night’s CBS lineup: At 7pm, we saw a naval officer disemboweled on NCIS. At 8 pm, we saw a gruesome slaughter on “Without a Trace”. So parents in the middle of the country got to play TV cop all night long.

If you live in the CST, you get to go through this EVERY bleeping night. Which makes for a lot of people who are well primed for some politician to use TV to score easy points.

Want the complaints to stop? Pretend you live in Chicago instead of NY or LA. Think about how much you and your spouse would enjoy a nice evening of playing “TV Cop” instead of relaxing with a little TV. Then fix the schedule.