Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 17, 1995 TAG: 9510170052
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"It is my pleasure to tell you that your household has been chosen to be a 'Nielsen Family' ... for a one week TV survey!" wrote John A. Dimling, president, Nielsen TV Ratings.
Oh, happy, happy, joy, joy. Ever since 1975, when, at age 12, I'd been crestfallen after ABC canceled the excellent monster-of-the-week program, "The Night Stalker," in the face of weak ratings because of the awful-but-dominant "Chico and the Man" on NBC, I'd awaited my chance to have a say in which prime-time shows live and which die.
"Please be assured that we are not attempting to sell anything to you," the porcine-colored card continued in boldface type. "Our only purpose is to learn which TV programs you and your household watch during the week of the survey."
Sigh. Though sorely tempted, I cannot tell a lie.
You see, I have lived these past five years without a television.
In the fall of 1990, I decided I'd had it with awful late-night TV, low-lighted with bad movies from the '70s on cable stations (think of anything with Charles Bronson). I was working nights then and didn't get home until 3 a.m. after hours of chasing ambulances and late-night shootings in the big city. I'd often find myself watching the tube, zombie-like, as the birds chirped in advance of the sun.
So in one of those fits of good old-fashioned self-improvement, I decided to rid television from my life. Nothing so dramatic as tossing my secondhand, Sears-brand TV off the balcony of my Richmond apartment. Instead, I gave it to my girlfriend, who lived 100 miles away. When we later married, I gave it away again.
The benefits became immediately apparent. Suddenly, I had gobs of time to read. I began to go through books like a hungry deer through an unfenced mountain garden. I noticed, too, that my home became strangely quiet, with no more of that annoying increase in volume during commercial breaks.
That's not to say that I didn't notice some disadvantages. For one thing, I completely missed the Gulf War footage of air raids on Baghdad in '91. And I missed both Bill Clinton's and George Bush's '92 convention speeches (on second thought, perhaps no great loss there). I found myself strangely out of the loop on many pop-culture references.
Of course, television is so all-pervasive that I couldn't help watching it from time to time, either when visiting my parents or stopping by friends' homes. So I grew fond of "The Simpsons." And I learned who "Beavis and Butthead" are.
But I still believe most commercial television is a mindless, violent wasteland. One night last winter I watched an entire night of television as an experiment. At the end, I'd seen portrayals of more than three dozen violent deaths, most by gunfire.
I still stop by a neighborhood bar to watch basketball or other sports on TV from time to time. And I watch the 6 o'clock news at the office many evenings. Yet after five years without television, I have no regrets.
Except maybe that now that I have a shot at the Nielsens, it's far too late to save "The Night Stalker."
Brian Kelley covers Montgomery County and local politics when he isn't reading.
by CNB