Best channel on TV

double duh.

um......on my TV my choices are FOX, and UPN.
so............UPN i guess.

Word bitch, History Channel like a motherfucker!

And Cartoon Network is good too.

IFC, Sundance, HBO and Showtime

I really can't endorse any channel with commercials. I prefer a channel where I'm the customer.

With commercials, I'm the product. The advertisers are the customer. The channel gives me what they think is the minimum bait necessary to lure me in and expose me to commercials, then sells my presence to the advertisers. The worst part of the deal is that they can't really measure whether I'm being delivered, they just use a crude polling tool to assume I'm the stupidest, lowest denominator type of person. I never really have any input into the situation.

With a premium channel, things get much simpler. The channel produces or presents programming that they think I might like, then I pay for it myself. Notice that these days virtually every single program produced for HBO or Showtime is better than any on the networks or other commercial channels.

That's why I DVR most of the stuff I watch, so I can f.f. through the commercials. Take that Madison Av!

I don't think your grasping what I'm saying. I'm saying this commercial dynamic means their programs are mostly worse, whether you watch the commercials or not.

Actually, I guess I don't. Yes, commercial programming by and large is beholden to its advertisers, but I think that there is a difference between purely entertaining programming, i.e. the providers you listed, and those like sports are education providers, like FoxSportsWorld or Discovery, et al. HBO is more broad-based and therefore by being "independant" and commercial-free, they have the freedom to put out whatever they want. The History Channel, for example, is more of a niche broadcaster and therefore the quality of its program is less dependant on advertisers than say, NBC or WTBS or any of the major players. What this mostly will affect in regards to the HC, is the type. For instance, I'm not big on some of the alien and UFO show they have, but they are well-done and people watch them. That is what I mean, the quality is beyond reproach, but some of the shows are just not my cup of tea, but do appeal to other history geeks. Same with sports channels. A game me be horrible, but that is not the station's fault. That is why you see more and more diversity within programming, people want the good w/out all the dross, so they flee to the little "alternative" channels that offer different stuff. Channels like Discovery and HC and NatGeo aren't the same type; their content is mostly objective, less reliant on the public's, and therefore the sponsor's, whims. Though I will agree that general commercial TV doth sucketh.

I don't know. They have started to come out with premium sports and documentary channels. Have you compared them to their commercial-packed counterparts? I'm not sure since I don't watch these kinds of things, but I would be willing to bet that if there were a channel that stood in relation to the History Channel as HBO stands to NBC, the difference would be almost as huge. I think a lot of niche cable channels now are somewhere in between - they have both commercials and you have to pay for them, but as a portion of a package, not as an individual product.

I can't go along with the notion that documentaries are "objective", even mostly. Although the purported subject matter isn't outright fiction, a documentary is a very slanted means of learning about something. The filmmaker manipulates you in multiple ways - selection of info, images, music, etc... - and your ability to stop, think, question, check references and such is radically reduced when compared to reading.

I have checked out some of the On-Demand stuff on the DigiCable package I have, at least to see what they offer. Much of that is simply what they offer on their regular channels, w/out commercials. The offering of these premium channels in other genres is simply the natural extension of the niche-filling I referred to earlier. You see it in PPV sports and what have you. I suppose that it is the natural evolution of programming. That is why the advert lobby around the country was so up in arms about TiVo and DVR and all those devices because they were afraid of just what I do: skip through commercials.

As for the objectivity of "documentaries," well, I can't speak for those. But the programming that I watch, that of HC and Discovery and Science Channel and Discovery Wings ad infinatum, ad naseum, aren't really what one would call "documentaries." I mainly watch the History Channel and most of what the show is the search for all sides of an historical event or what have you; the
"Warts and All" method. It is my belief that most of the viewers of these particular channels wouldn't stand for that kind of bowlderizing.

Regarding HBO, don't watch it, not interested in what they have to offer. So I won't slag it or defend it, just don't care about it one way or the other. Though I have seen some of the "Real Sex" and that is a hoot.

[Edited on May 15, 2004 by Jabberwok]

History Channel, mostly because I'll never get tired of WWII documentaries and because I served R. Lee Ermey lunch once, so me an' him, we be tight yo. Tied for a close second are Discovery and G4 (which is soon to be G4 Tech TV, yay!).

Yes! This pisses me off! Stupid Comcast!!!

History Channel is good, SciFi, Cartoon Network, and Discovery are aren't bad either.