The Fox Website Episode Streaming

Our access to entertainment is just plain astounding.  When I was a kid, I remember having to watch shows when they were actually on tv.  In general, I don't think we appreciate just how great our entertainment feeding tubes are nowadays.  I sat here and watched three episodes of a show on the internet, and it wasn't even illegal!  Fox is kind enough to provide recent episodes of their shows on their website for free streaming.*  

When I say it's free, I mean that you don't have to pay them anything.  You do, however, have to sacrifice brain cells and time.  I had to watch just as many commercials as if I had watched the show during its television airing, and I'm okay with that.  I'll pay the price of watching the ads to see the show.  What I don't care for is the use of the same four commercials at each commercial break.  Mind you, I watched three one hour shows.  I should have counted how many times I heard the three commercials for University of Phoenix.  Also, people watching tv on the internet are apparently in desperate need of lotion, particularly the St. Ives brand.  A little bit of variety would be appreciated.  As it is, I will avoid the services/products from those commercials out of principle.

I wouldn't substitute watching shows on studio sites over my DVR.  Quality is another big issue.  While the majority of the show looked good, the quality dropped at the end of each episode.  On the third episode I watched, it happened a good fifteen minutes before the end of the show.  

I decided to refresh the page, taking note of where I was in the show.  While trying to get back to my spot, I had to watch over five minutes of commercials.  They hit me with the initial thirty second commercial, and when I clicked to skip ahead to where I had been, I had another two and a half minutes of ads I had to view.  I realized I wasn't far enough in, and they treated me to two more minutes worth of commercials after I made the adjustment.  I understand that they have agreed to run those ads.  I also understand that they could have a better system.

While it is amazing that you can watch your favorite** shows on a free website, there is a price to pay.  If you watch shows on the Fox website, you are going to watch close to fifteen minutes of repetitive commercials, and you risk the video quality dropping drastically by the end of your viewing experience.  I appreciate the additional venue, but it isn't very kind to the consumer.  When possible, stick with your DVR.

*As I'm sure you realize, most stations offer this awesome service.  Of course, not all websites are created equally.

**I wouldn't say that I was watching a favorite shows.  The shows I like are set to record with the DVR.  This was more like one of those shows that I wanted to check on, to see if it was still going steadily downhill.  It was.