Home
I want my MTV, and I want it now!
by Laura Preble
One mom’s argument as to why you should demand On-Demand.
I’ll admit it: We are one of those families for whom digital cable TV is not only a luxury, but a necessity. It’s our decompression after a long day of work. It’s our way of catching up on shows we’ve missed. It’s even, heaven help us, a respite for a half hour from the hamster-wheel energy of our intensely creative preschooler.
Until about six months ago, I was sort of ignorant about one particular feature of our digital cable called “On Demand”. I’d seen it advertised here and there, but figured it would cost me more, so I wanted nothing to do with it since our cable bill seemed to creep up every month anyway. One day I called the cable company to inquire about a billing issue, and had a nice conversation with Satan. He told me all about the Freezone, a place on my cable menu where movies, kid’s shows, even episodes of my favorite series, could be viewed anytime I wanted. And it didn’t cost any more than the already ridiculous fee I was paying every month!
At first it was liberating.
My husband and I, who both tend to work some odd hours here and there, could actually watch episodes of Mad Men, our favorite drama, together without trying to coax the VCR into balky servitude. My teenager found that Mythbusters, one of his favorite shows, was available anytime, and that he could pause it here and there to go fetch another pound of Skittles from the kitchen. And our preschooler was elated to discover that he could pick and choose from dozens of kids’ channels and shows any time he wanted to watch television.
We were excited too; it seemed that this would give us much more control over what our kids could watch, and when. It also automatically limited the amount of viewing time to one segment of one show for our preschooler. (Without monitoring, though, the teenager could sit on the couch for hours and slip into a Skittle coma while watching yet again how Coke and Mentos really will explode a pig’s stomach. I just hope he doesn’t feel the need to try it at home.)
The new and exciting world of On Demand television viewing has made instant gratification available to the nanosecond. The label, “On Demand”, is quite appropriate; now that we’ve let that genie out of the remote control, my 4-year-old demands it pretty much any time he has TV privileges. Why be at the whim of some out-of-touch middle-aged programmer when you can simply pick from a dazzling menu of every show ever made?
There was something to be said for those three original network stations and getting off the couch to change the channel. I recall that most of the time, I decided nothing good was on, and I’d go to my room and write, or go outside and weave my way into my own fantastic drama carved from real life. But having the option of choosing the time, place, and duration of viewing with On-Demand is a boon too; no more (or very few) commercials, and an amazing array of choices. When it comes down to it, we now ultimately have the real decisions to make on TV-watching, and the On-Demand option truly gives us control. We just have to be sure we use it wisely.
Laura Preble is the author of the popular young adult novels, The Queen Geek Social Club, and Queen Geeks in Love. Go to her website, www.queengeeksocialclub.com, to read the first chapters of the novels and check out her blog.
Filed under General
