How good is TV in different countries? / Do lots of channels make TV better?

[on:]

Just out of interest, I was wondering how many channels everyone gets, to see how lucky or unlucky we are in Britain:
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(terrestrial)
1 = BBC1
2 = BBC2
3 = ITV
4 = Channel 4
5 = Channel Five

Then on satellite:
(Sky Digital satellite = monthly subscription, about 300 channels, although only 70 have anything good on)
(cable = less, not sure how many)
(Freeview = non-subscription, about 50 channels)
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Also, do other countries have to pay for a TV licence? In the UK it's about £120 a month and it all goes to the BBC, who in return don't show adverts, but lots of their programming is still crap like Eastenders, and badly-acted dramas.

[Reply #1 on:]

Well, I'm in the US, and have cable television. In total, we probably get around 100 different channels (keep in mind, though, we aren't subscribed to any "premium" movie channesl). It costs about $35 US a month. In my local area, if you don't have cable, you can get about 8 or so channels that are locally broadcast. As far as TV licenses, we don't have one. Which goes to show you, though, why we are constantly bombarded with adverts at every moment.

[Reply #2 on:]

I get the normal 5 channels, plus I also get the Welsh version of Channel 4, which is good as they usually show films a few days after they aired on C4 

[Reply #3 on:]

I just have BBC1, BBC2, ITV, C4 and a rather poor picture on C5.

[Reply #4 on:]

Channel 5 doesn't count as a channel, IMHO  . I have not yet lived anywhere (North Wales, Wiltshire, Reading) and been able to get any kind of signal (let alone a poor one) out of it. The only way I could watch it (if I wanted to) would be through NTL/Sky/Freeview.

NTL probably have about the same number of channels as Sky, BTW (but NTL's channels are slightly different; for example, you don't get Sky One Mix).

[Reply #5 on:]

Practically everybody in my part of the country has cable television.

There are 2 non-commercial channels, owned by the state, 3 commercial channels, and 1 local channel.
I also get Dutch, French, English, German, Spanish and Italian channels.
The last two are piss poor, when it comes to image  quality and content. Italian tv (Raiuno) surely must be the lowest of the lowest.

Recently, the state owned cable network was privatised. Now we don't have to pay taxes on that anymore.
Two new channels were added: Cartoon Network (not sure about that one) and Turner Classic Movies.

Pay-TV is also available: Canal +

[Reply #6 on:]

I'm with Telewest Blueyonder (the other UK cable provider), only because I had broadband installed at the same time, making my TV cheaper than Sky. I'm on the cheapest subscription package, and get BBC1-4, ITV1-2, C4, C5, FTN, Several music channels, several of the "UK GOLD" channels, about a dozen shopping channels, and loads of digital radio stations - pay TV is also available.

But I still find the decent stuff is on the standard TV stations (and Sky One).

[Reply #7 on:]

I've got Cablevision of New Jersey... we've got about 90 channels, including HBO, Starz, Showtime, Encore, and Flix.

[Reply #8 on:]

Where I live in the USA, I get about 70 channels through my cable company.  More are available, but at a price I'm not willing to pay.

Lots of channels does provide you with many choices, but that doesn't mean that the choices are quality programming.  Television is still in many ways a "vast cultural wasteland".

[Reply #9 on:]

here in australia we get:
50 channels of pure boredom on cable
and on free to air we get:

ABC: Australian Broadcasting, government funded, virtually the british channel

Prime / 7: Our channel that supplies futurama, since they've only recently started playing it again, for me they've had nothing but livestyle and reality programs. Tries sometimes with big name movies, but this is rare.

NINE / WIN: The biggest channel, has a little for everyone, owned by the Packer Consortium. Big news channel, but also blockbuster movies.

TEN: Our Entertainment channel, aimed at young to young adult demographic, has the simpsons, and law and order... also has some decent movies occassionally too.

SBS: Our gov. funded multi-language/multi-cultural channel, its one some awards for this. Biggest shows, south park and Pizza. Chances are if its anything else, its got subtitles.

Some cities have local free access stations- here in brisbane we have bris31. If the show isnt shot badly on a handy cam, its something in black and white, like the Dick Van Dyke show or ancient episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies, sometimes even Bonanza! most of the times is taken up by powerpoint slide style ads.

[Reply #10 on:]

Are the American channels HBO, UPN and Comedy Central good? There 's probably no way I could get them, but I 'd still like to know.

[Reply #11 on:]

Live in the UK, so i get the 5 anolouge (SP?) terrestrial channels. Got crystal clear reception on all channels! That's what living on a hill in London does to your TV reception.

Just before christmas, Dad got a Digi-Box, so we've got freeview. Most of the channels suck, especially BBC 3 and BBC 4.

[Reply #12 on:]

 

Originally posted by ZombieJesus:
Are the American channels HBO, UPN and Comedy Central good? There 's probably no way I could get them, but I 'd still like to know.

HBO has "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under," and "Real Time with Bill Maher." All great programming. Plus, late at night, they show "documentaries" on sex. Like all the time. Oh, and they show some movies, too.

UPN is crap. Unless you really can't live without the WWF Smackdown!, then ignore it.

Comedy Central has "The Daily Show" and "South Park." Both really good shows. However, I think like half of its programming is repeats of old "Saturday Night Lives".

[Reply #13 on:]

Our cable provider only gets 28 channels (plus HBO, which costs extra).  I REALLY need a Dish!

Without cable, I only get PBS, ABC, CBS, and NBC, and a local channel that shows local town events that no one is interested in blocky text across 12 different ugly looking backgrounds.

[Reply #14 on:]

Ireland only has 4 TV channels:
RTE 1
Network 2 (or RTE 2)
TV3
TG4 (Gaeilge)
The rest we get from Britain or Europe depending what cable company you have:
BBC 1 & 2
Channel 4
ITV
Sky One and Sky News
MTV
Cartoon Network
Eurosport

I've heard tell of people having Bravo and TV5(?) from Franceland.
Channels I would like to have are Sci-Fi, the main Movie ones, TechTV or whatever that computers one is called and of course, some good old fashioned porn.

[Reply #15 on:]

 

Originally posted by CyberKnight:
(North Wales, Wiltshire, Reading)

Two questions:
1) How long ago did you live in Reading?
2) What area (exactly)?

I live in Charvil, which is about 4 miles East of Reading Town Centre and get a perfect Channel 5 picture. We have it on digital now aswell which gives perfect picture too, but before it was only a slight bit worse than the other TV stations.

All the channels do a fair mix of good programmes, even Channel 5. It has The Wright Stuff which is the best morning TV ever. Digital has a wide selection of crappy channels, but the fact is I don't watch TV that much anyway.

[Reply #16 on:]

Actually, I live in Reading at the moment. University student  .

I live in Earley, just (and I do mean just) outside the Reading limits.

To be honest, all of our analogue reception is rubbish. Chalk it up to a bad aerial. But Channel 5 is by far the worst of the worst (in terms of reception  ). Doesn't matter anyway because we only have one TV and NTL hooked up to that anyway.

BTW, to those who live in Ireland and recieve the BBC channels : do you also have to pay the license fee, or does your provider do that, or are ya just a bunch of freeloading Irishpeople  ?

[Reply #17 on:]

I get BBC 1&2, ITV1, S4C, and a Sky package with Sky_One, C4, C5, PCC, sports, and hundreds of channels I'll never, ever look at.

[Reply #18 on:]

In my opinion, HBO, UPN, and Comedy Central are all pretty much worthless. True, HBO has the Sopranos, Six Feet Under, etc, but they usually play the repeats of the episodes incessantly. It gets annoying, especially when you remember the days when HBO actually used to play movies. UPN is utter filth, along with the WB channel. It's mostly "lowest common denominator" programming. Comedy Central can be hit or miss. They do have some worthwhile programs, but also a ton of worthless crap and awful stand up shows.

[Reply #19 on:]

I get about 150 channels on our cable package. Theres 500 available, but we don't subscribe to a lot of that crap.

[Reply #20 on:]

Australias cable provider is fox so we basically have 49 fox channels plus MTV.

UPN has buffy which means it at least has one good show.

[Reply #21 on:]

The UK only has 5 brodcast channels? I think that's too few for a industrial country such as yours. I have at least 10 channels where I live:

CBS (2)
NBC (5)
ABC (7)
WGN (9)
PBS (two of them, 11 and 20)
The U, or WCIU (26)
FOX (32)
Pax TV (38)
Spanish - Telemundo (44)
UPN (50)
Spanish - Telefutura (60)
Spanish - Univision (66)

All the Spanish channels air coast to coast BTW.

[edit] There are also two public-access channels that mostly show foreign stuff (mainly Polish and Bollywood videos)

[Reply #22 on:]

 

Originally posted by CyberKnight:
Actually, I live in Reading at the moment. University student    .

I live in Earley, just (and I do mean just) outside the Reading limits.

NTL are a bunch of scabs. They installed two boxes in our house, yet we have six TVs. No problem because we have wires that go upstairs to the other TVs so what is on the box downstairs can be watched upstairs, or you can put up with the rubbish analogue reception if you want to watch something different on one of the non-boxed TVs.

Then we have a problem, an engineer comes along and unplugs our analogue saying it's against the rulkes, so now 5 TVs display the same channel. Well done guys.

We break the rules by plugging analogue back in again. I mean otherwise the other TVs are useless. Scabs.

AND there is a time delay between digital and analogue, so if one TV is showing digital and another showing the same channel on analogue, there is a nasty echo that is more irritating than anything ever imaginable.

Anyway back to Reading talk, since it is the best place in the UK bar none   
You know Primark? Just opposite that is the Gregg's store I work in. Pop in one day and say hi... except my name isn't Archie so you'll get lots of dodgy looks asking for me   
Actually don't. They all think I'm nuts already.

Just next door to Primark though is a music store called Fopp, which is well worth looking in. Cheaper than either HMV or Virgin. And on the Oxford Road is a store called Rusty's Records which deals in cheap CDs aswell as rare collectables. Melllvar would love it.

[Reply #23 on:]

In Norway, we have

NRK 1 and NRK 2 (license = €240 a year)
TV2 (the best channel in my opinion)
TVN (a lot of crappy American series and reality shows)
TV3 (only on cable; a Scandinavian network)

And then there's a lot of local TV stations, like LTV/TBN and TVH. Never anything good on those channels. So I guess we can conclude that Norwegian TV sucks. When we had el-cheapo cable tv, we had about 25 channels. With a digital satellite dish we had about 85 channels (I think), including all the major European networks.

[Reply #24 on:]

I have:
TPT (public television)
ABC
CBS
UPN
WB
FOX
NBC
PAX
Univision
and about 80 other cable channels

Comedy Central is much better than others here say. They have Chapelle's Show, Trigger Happy TV, South Park, The Daily Show, reruns of The Critic, Duckman, Undergrads and Dilbert late nights, reruns of Conan and SNL at earlier times (so you arn't up late when you watch them) other original shows are okay like the Man Show and Insomniac but those arn't really my types of humor. Plus they finally cancelled Battlebots. Also, I wish they brought back the Myster Science Theater 3k episodes that aired on Comedy Central.

[Reply #25 on:]

Does nbc allow them to show reruns of conan?

[Reply #26 on:]

I have these channels:

Tv1
Tv2
Mtv3
Nelonen

Tv1 and Tv2 really sucks  So only two barely good channels...

[Reply #27 on:]

NORWAY Aigen

- Nrk 1  (It`s most older people that watch it. They got shows like "The West Wing" and "The Sopranos" ).
- Nrk 2  (This channel is the worst. They have "The Practice" ).
- TV 2   (This is a good channel. They have: Friends, Everybody loves raymond, King of queens, Judging Amy (boring), Frasier, and of course FUTURAMA.
- TV Norge (I like this allso. They have: Fastlane, Smallville, Boston Public, Gilmore Girls, Norwegen Big Brother, Norwegen Temptation Island, and a cool norwegen program called "Judas".
- TV 3 Norge   (Allso good. Alias, Sex and The City, and The Simpsons).
- ZTV Norge    (Boring. They have allot of Music.)

TV3 and ZTV are cable channels, and these are the Norwegen versions.
The winner is TV2 and TvNorge.

[Reply #28 on:]

All the UK Terrestrial Channels, and from this weekend I re-connect to Digital Satellite with Sky.  Loads of ents channels like Sky One, UKGold, E4, and PCC.  Then we've got the 20 (count 'em) music channels.

[Reply #29 on:]

 

Originally posted by Melllvar:
 Then we've got the 20 (count 'em) music channels.

But they're never showing the video you want...well, maybe only I think that...

[Reply #30 on:]

 

Originally posted by Grim:
SBS: Our gov. funded multi-language/multi-cultural channel, its one some awards for this. Biggest shows, south park and Pizza. Chances are if its anything else, its got subtitles.

You forgot The Movie Show, one of the best things on TV.

[Reply #31 on:]

Plus, it used to have "Bubblegum Crisis 2040" which aired on Saturday nights. I watched every episode, right up 'til the very last one. Which they never aired. Curse you, SBS!

 

Originally posted by Grim:
Some cities have local free access stations- here in brisbane we have bris31. If the show isnt shot badly on a handy cam, its something in black and white, like the Dick Van Dyke show or ancient episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies, sometimes even Bonanza! most of the times is taken up by powerpoint slide style ads.

Ah yes, Bris 31. You gotta love those ads- complete with some of the crappiest music you'll ever hear..

[Reply #32 on:]

Bris tv?

Sounds.. painful.

Hmm not many people will get this one.

[Reply #33 on:]

I actually have the channel and I dont get it...

[Reply #34 on:]

 

Originally posted by sheep555:
 But they're never showing the video you want...well, maybe only I think that...

Only sometimes.  Sometimes I have watched MusicTV whereby it's almost like they know you're watching, so they play all the videos you wanna see. 

[Reply #35 on:]

 

Originally posted by Stuart:

Also, do other countries have to pay for a TV licence? In the UK it's about £120 a month ...

£120 a month for the TV licence!?! Someone's ripping you off.

 

Originally posted by aslate:
Most of the channels suck, especially BBC 3 and BBC 4.

What about Curb Your Enthusiasm?

 

Originally posted by ZombieJesus:
Bris tv?

Sounds.. painful.

Hmm not many people will get this one.

I got it, and I'm not even Jewish!

[Reply #36 on:]

ahh, Bris as in circumcision, got it now... too bad its pronounced "briz"

[Reply #37 on:]

$340 a month to watch television..?!

[Reply #38 on:]

 

Originally posted by Grim:
ahh, Bris as in circumcision, got it now... too bad its pronounced "briz"

Yeah, but it's spelt "bris"!

[Reply #39 on:]

I'm talking about Bris31 being pronounced "Briz"31, its in Brisbane or "Briz-bane"