For a guy who shows little to no interest in reality shows, you seem to know a hell of a lot. :D
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The words 'reality' and 'television' should not be in the same sentence ;)
I was watching the footy on the weekend and when the camera panned over the crowd they all just went feral. It's amazing how differently people act when they're on TV.
I channel surf a lot, because there are so many programs now that I avoid... and I have to sit through their advertisements in just about every ad break. :(
And when I set the machine to record evening programs, most of them will have in their description, a "sneak peek" at something.... and that something is months away, which gets really annoying seeing over and over and over again.
Or I could just stop watching TV altogether...... Naah. :p
It's why everything I've watched this year has been streamed or torrented, except for infomercials on Extra1+2. They're funny.
I find both Australian and Japanese TVs have their strengths and weaknesses. I prefer scifi shows that we get on AU TV, although imported from the UK (e.g. Doctor Who, Humans). But AU TV has all these rubbish reality shows. The thing that I don't like about Japanese TV are all the 'housewife' programmes, which seems to be a lot more prevalent now. On the plus side, Japanese TV has animé. And I personally find that they have far superior game shows too which I find a lot more intellectually challenging than any Australian game show. The most intellectually challenging show we have atm is The Great Australian Spelling Bee, which is challenging for kids (and to be fair, the contestants are aged 8-13), but aside from the odd obscure word here and there, it's generally not terribly challenging for the average adult. I've seen Japanese game shows that pitch students in a "Kanji bee." And it's no secret that Kanji is a lot harder than spelling! They play all sorts of interesting games with various Kanji compounds that they have limited time to construct etc.
I find that AU TV has generally better docos on nature, animals & Western history etc., but Japanese docos are better on Asian history, anthropology etc. Oh yeah, Japanese TV totally has better commercials too! :D
But ultimately I can't watch TV for too long. Thankfully I have my TF toys to entertain me! :)
I am intimately familiar with most of the edaytime shows on ABC Kids. The Wiggles, Small Potatoes, In the Night Garden, Curious George, Chuggington, etc. But that is because I have a baby that will only eat solid food whilst distracted by the television.
Other than that, I can honestly say that I haven't watched TV in over 6 months. Can't say my life is any worse off. I just make up for it by spending more time on the internet.
The housewife programmes drive me nuts, which is why I only really watch the occasional comedy show, scary shows and Hajimete no otsukai (coz it's cute and only on once or twice a year. I always manage to miss the anime on free TV :(
While the wife enjoys watching the TV, I myself read books/play with toys/do some work on the computer/nothing.
When I first got here, I didn't have a TV for a month, When I did get one, I didn't have a working aerial cable, so I just used it for video games. Then eventually I got around to setting it up and realised I preferred it when it was off/showing my video game skillzsz. Regret.
Could happily live without.
On the 'reality' TV side of things, I always despised them. They are just cheapass lazy ways for channels to fill in time when they can't be bothered producing anything. No need for script writers, or much planning and they can just use excess footage as much as they like. Pffah! Humbug! Humbug I say!