我喜欢看电视节目，因为有会动的画面和有声音，为我沉闷的生活添上些许色彩。

However, it has been a long long time since I have sat in front of the big screen. My TV has not been utilised even once this week. This is despite the fact that I prefer watching from the big screen.

I grew up loving local and HK dramas. But these days, I haven’t really watched any of them. The last HK drama I watched for the entire series was 冲上云霄, which was aired on Channel U in 2006. And I don’t remember the last local drama I watched.. Was it 家事, when 陈毓云 was still considered as a 阿姐接班人? Or was 双天至尊 II? Whichever it was, one thing for sure, it’s ages ago. Perhaps, life has caught up with me, leaving me with no luxury for a daily TV fix. That’s not the main reason for I still catch Taiwanese Idol dramas (if they are good enough).

The main reason for me not watching local TV programmes lies in the quality and this is especially true for serials. Why are people willing to sacrifice their time to sit in front of the TV? That’s because they believe they can gain something, be it entertainment, information or different emotions. Thus, for a TV serial to be popular, apart from good actors and excellent filming/shooting and production skills (all of which I don’t think can be found here commonly), it needs either a plot which is really exciting (or maybe controversial) or something which touches people. Past serials, such as 双天至尊 belongs to the former while 家人有约、家事 fall into the latter category. Slapstick humour can do the job once or twice, but not forever. Recently, I caught glimpse of 想握你的手 on buses and I thoroughly emphatise with the complaints made about the show. In my opinion, it’s just plain slapstick humour and it’s disappointing to see that it’s a locally made production which is going to air for more than 100 episodes. However, that cannot be said of all local dramas, and I believe there are still good shows out there, though the numbers, I guess, is dwindling. This applies to the variety shows as well, as I wonder where have the creative juices of Mediacorp gone with the abundance of similar and food related variety shows. These days, with more and more cable TV channels around, audience’s choices have increased and demands for quality TV shows have grown. Though there are still homes without cable, it will still be hard for local TV scene to keep pace with the competition if the quality does not improve. For me, the first channels I switched to (if I turn on the TV) are the overseas channels. It has been n ages since I watched a local channel, except for news. By the way, I did not catch up with HK dramas because of my limited Canto ability and the weird feeling I have when I watched the actors’ mouths moving differently from the dubbed voices. Hahaha…

Besides the lower quality of local TV programs, for me, the ability to skip TV ads plays a part for not watching the TV. TV ads are sometimes a waste of time and can be quite a nuisance when the shows stopped at the exciting part. However, I am actually an ad-lover and I like to look at all kinds of ads (TV ads, newspaper ads, flyers, etc…) as they provide a rich source of information.

Moreover, TV times are fixed and many-a-time, the timings do not fit well into my schedule.

Despite these, there are still some programmes that are irreplaceable on TV. One of them is live sports. I love watching sports, especially team sports from a very young age, though I know I don’t look like one. Hahhaa… Apart from the adrenaline-pulsating action, I like seeing how the tactics are carried out and changed as the match goes on. The teamwork and interaction between teammates within the team and the rivalry between the teams are also highlights for me; they are something which only team sports offer. And a big screen is definitely a must to see everything clearly =)

Hmm… I wonder if there is any way to unsubscribe from Channel 5, 8 and U and the okto, which I have not tuned in before, and Suria channels…