Bobby Lewis | Logged 11/02/08

For the most part, Sunday was a typical day in terms of my TV viewing habits. I usually wait to watch TV on the weekend and “live it up” in the land of DVR (where hour-long shows are morphed into 45 minutes of advertisement-free bliss), however I probably watched a tad more TV in one “sitting” than usual on this day. Normally, I do not crash and burn on the couch for four hours of back-to-back programs. The shows that I regularly watch are The Soup and 30 Rock (love the writing for both of these) and as a creature of habit I must confess that I did not watch any new programs nor did I miss any of my favorites. I did not record any shows on this day (to watch at a later time) because we are canceling our cable service on Wednesday (unfortunately, this go-to coping mechanism has to be cut due to the almighty dollar).

I did watch a show on a DVD that was not logged. I watched an episode of Six Feet Under (HBO) that I received via Netflix. I usually watch the above mentioned shows and other movies with my wife. She is actually the DVR pro/Neflix referee and sets up all the programs that we watch. Truth be told, my favorite way to watch TV is with the “mute” button on…channel surfing between bizarre infomercials and creepy religious programming…so my wife keeps me grounded in the mainstream. My “style” of viewing is spontaneous, erratic and unhelpful from a Nielsen journal point of view. On a side note…when we lived in Seattle….my favorite show was on the Public Access Channel (Reverend Bruce Howard). It was a live show where viewers would call and talk to the Reverend and his dog “Buster Love.” There are no words to adequately describe this show...

I have always been curious about the Nielsen journals, so I am glad that I was finally able to “participate” and see what all the fuss is about. There were no surprises from the vantage point of how much TV was watched versus how many times the channel was changed. Since I have been in school, I rarely watch “live” TV and pretty much stick to the DVR recordings or a DVD. I did watch more back-to-back programs than usual this past Sunday, but I knew that this was the case without the help of the journal. My wife is also in school, so we will usually squeeze in one or two programs (at the most) between studying and the rest of life. Personally, I feel that these types of journals open up the possibility for a greater margin for error…especially when you consider less traditional viewing. Varying factors such as unusual programming (10 minute shows on Comedy Central), viewing TV in a bar or airport and/or a lazy journaling ethic will skew the actual results.