Also known as the "Boob Tube", the "Idiot Box", the flickering light of living rooms everywhere, the bringer of advertizing and mass consumerism.

The device which makes you feel like you have friends, when you really have none.  The device which delivers broadcast messages, which by definition are to be heard by all but responded to by none.  The piece of furniture which delivers the self-serving messages of the rich and powerful to hundreds of millions of people every day.  The piece of furniture the average american spends 4 hours a day looking at.

This is relevant to all programmers, as one who is watching television is not programming!  Thus time spent observing the idiot box should be minimized.  I'd call this the Anti-Television Pattern

See also: http://www.whitedot.org

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I prefer the name of IdiotBox more than TeleVision. I spend excessive time on it myself, and the revised name serve better as a reminder to me. If another Wiki regular agrees please change page name. thx  -- dl
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If The Viewers pay to watch it, then why do we get ads on the IdiotBox? There Is A fee that the subscriber pays monthly because you are supposed to get no ads on the subscribers channels, however, we do get ads & We still pay for those channels w/ ads. -- SamDisanto
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I expect current TV broadcasting and cable to go the way of the dinosaur. Future programming will eventually be internet-based enough on a ''wide scale'' to tip the scales such that supporting the old infrastructure won't be financially prudent for companies and they'll quickly abandon it. Conversion boxes will be available to those who want their interface to feel the same. And we won't need Tivo-like devices because the programs will be kept "on the cloud". Dump stock in cable companies now. They wont all die, but other companies have a leg up on them for payment handling already such that the current cable co's will be smaller players or merge away. If they are lucky, they'll become decent-sized ISP's because they already have the "stringing wires" staff and infrastructure. -t (June2013)