TiVo and Other Investments in Quality Family TV

We don't watch a lot of TV in our house. Not that we're anti-TV so to speak, but we choose to find other things to fill our evenings before reaching for the remote. When I do watch TV, however, I want to be entertained with quality programming without spending too much time channel surfing or watching commercials. For that reason, we've made the necessary investments (yes, investments) in our TV viewing by paying a premium for digital cable, HBO and TiVo.

I'm probably not the only parent that has noticed the proliferation of drug commercials on television these days. Until recently my reactions to these ranged from ignoring them to rolling my eyes at the embarrassing nature of the maladies addressed. That is until one day, while watching a Seahawks game with my boys, a commercial for a drug for prostate health called Flomax. As the commercial ticked off the various symptoms that would indicate your need for this drug, my son TJ (8) turned to me and said "Daddy, I think I need that medicine. "

Talk about a wake up call. The days of worry about exposing your kids to the bikini wearing pitch girls on the beer commercials are long gone. I'm as concerned about fast food and other faux food products (Hamburger Helper? mmm...) soft drinks and now various legal chemicals aimed at the plumbing of male and female baby boomers.

As I mentioned, we are not a family that schedules it's day around the boob tube. The boys get to unwind with 30 minutes of watching each weeknight, assuming their homework and chores have been completed. My wife and I may or may not do the same after the kids go to bed. Most of our other TV viewing is through more controlled means of DVD viewing and On-Demand cable TV. Notice that I didn't specify that it was "commercial free" viewing. As there are still various commercials squeezed into these TV alternatives. And it's not uncommon for the TV to stay off for a day or two at a time.

Watching sports is one of the only broadcast TV events that we watch as a family. Mariners Baseball starts our spring and summer, which is sandwiched around the Tour de France in July. Tennis caps our summer as we watch the drama of the US Open. The NFL and NBA weave together in the fall and winter with a time out for the NCAA tournament in March. I'm a believer in spectator sports as entertainment. I do my best to keep things in perspective for the kids when it comes to the athletes. They're a bit young to notice the off the field fantasy lives of the pro athletes, but I will deal with than when the time comes.

Back to the point at hand. I wanted to take control of our sports TV viewing, so decided to take the plunge with a TiVo purchase. Now we can watch our favorite sporting events and gloriously skip the commercials with a few flicks of a button (if you are a TiVo owner and don't know about the hack for 30-second skip, see the bottom of this post.) We just installed our TiVo this week and put it through its paces during the Superbowl. What a pleasure. We chose to watch some of the adds, but passed by most of them (including the Flomax add in the third quarter!) We also paused to have dinner, then watched Prince for our after-dinner entertainment before finishing the game.
We're now in complete control of our TV watching. That is of course, until the boys reach their teens...


30 -second skip for TiVo

While viewing a recorded program or live TV enter the following sequence on your remote:

Select, Play, Select, 3, 0, Select

If your TiVo plays three Thumbs Up "blings" in a row, the Advance button is now reprogrammed to skip forward by 30 seconds. This bit of reprogramming is not permanent--you'll have to redo it if your TiVo reboots.

Watching sports w/ the boys
Drug ads
Take control
Free TV is an ad infested commodity, pay for the good stuff and use wisely.