I Hate ABC
ABC has the two best shows on tv right now: Lost and Desperate Housewives. (Oh, and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is good too.) Lost is an incredible bit of storytelling, and Desperate Housewives is strangely compelling for what is basically a comedy.
And that’s all well and good, except that they had to F with my schedule.
Lost is on Wednesday nights at 7:00. This used to mean that the show would start at 7:00 and end at 7:57/58 — giving you a few minutes to change the channel to your next show, grab some water, or go to the bathroom. No longer. Lost starts at 6:58. It doesn’t end until 8:01. The West Wing starts at 8:00 (which means 8:00). So I have two choices: 1) Miss the end of Lost, or 2) Miss the beginning of the West Wing.
So far I have been choosing number 2. If this keeps up, I will have to play my loyalty card. Thus far this season, Lost has been marginally better. But I’ve been watching The West Wing for years now, and NBC doesn’t try and screw me. Tonight The West Wing ended at 8:55, and they had enough time to go to commercial and show scenes from next week’s episode before 9:00.
I can think of a few reasons why ABC is doing this:
1) They don’t get a lot of hit shows. So they’re selling an extra couple of minutes worth of commercials during a popular show.
2) It’s such a good show, they want to be able to show a few extra minutes of it, and don’t think we’ll mind.
3) They think that if I miss the beginning of The West Wing (or some other 8:00 show), I’ll stick around for The Bachelor instead.
4) People tune in at 8:00 to watch The Bachelor, and catch the end of Lost. Thinking “What the hell was that!?”, they might tune in next week to watch it and get hooked.
Or some combination of the above. No matter the reason, I think it’s a losing bet for ABC. This kind of behavior has only strengthened my desire to get a Tivo-like device. And then I won’t watch commercials at all. Is that what ABC wants?
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