Sky+ has really totally changed the way we watch television. We spend a lot of time on the computers, and that meant we used to not watch much TV. We taped a few things we really wanted to see (like Buffy), but even when we had Cable we only really watched a few programs, most of the stuff on TV just passed us by. We moved house, and ended up with Sky, and I started catching an hour of CSI or something before bed, because on Sky you can be sure that at least one channel is playing some form of CSI around 11pm, but we still didn’t really watch much TV.
And then we got Sky+ and honestly, it totally changed how we watch TV. I’m sure any good PVR with a scheduler built in will do the same. We watch CSI (all 3), Criminal Minds, Without a Trace, Grete watches a whole bunch of other stuff like Moonlight, Heroes, soaps. I record stuff I love like Time Team and Michael Pailin stuff and just catch up with them when I can. It’s just so useful being able to record good television and watch it when you want, rather than trying to arrange your life around a TV slot.
Which brings me to good television, I’m sure that I miss loads of quality TV, afterall we don’t have time to watch everything. But we do love our crime drama, CSI (Vegas is still the best, New York is ok, Miama is almost like a pantomime), Without a Trace, Criminal Minds (sometimes it’s hard to watch, but rewarding), Bones. We finished the season two DVD of Without a Trace, I think we’re watching season three on Sky at the moment, but we’ll probably get the boxed set and catch up. I’d love to get all the CSI’s but there’s so many of them, and since we’ve seen them all it’s harder to justify compared to Without a Trace where we hadn’t seen a full season until we got the boxed sets.
I don’t have Sky, but I do a Freeview PVR and that has changed the way we watch our TV too. It’s quite rare (except in the morning over a bowl of cornflakes) for me to watch TV now.
And I also have to agree about CSI. We’ve only ever watched the Las Vegas version, as there’s only so many hours in the day 😉
I, too, have recently acquired a Freeview PVR but it hasn’t changed the way I watch TV (since I always recorded everything anyway) but it has made things a whole lot easier. Of course there is also a great deal more variety which means that I’m watching more now than when I just had the normal five channels but I’m prepared to live with that inconvenience.
You win with Sky One though.