Along the Way: Infomercials, digital TV bring out grouch in me

Paid programming fills every need. . .

Fat? Get slim.

Slim? Get fat.

And, by the way, no need to scrub and clean any more. Just order some of this stuff, pour it on any surface and ZAP!

What was dirty now glistens.

Light up the darkest room. Or try these eyeshades. What a deal. Pick up the phone right now, and we’ll double the offer.

Wanna open a can or seal up a jar? This is for you. Have your credit card ready. Operators are standing by.

Lost out in sin? Get salvation.

Confused? Buy this explanation, gold leaf edition.

Fix your car, your stove, your stomach. . . justlikethat!

Can’t sleep? No problem. Turn your TV on. Stay up all night ordering stuff.

Let paid programming fill your every need. Remember: Call now, and we’ll double the offer.

Today I’m releasing the inner grouch, folks.

My television was loaded — make that overloaded — with infomercials one recent morning. There were more sales pitches than I had ever seen before. The TV menu on Channel 68, the place that tells you what’s showing, scrolled down the screen so quickly I couldn’t begin to count the number of lines posted as “paid programming.”

From Channel 35 through Channel 40, there were six consecutive infomercials.

So I punched up Channel 42 on the remote to my favorite spot, Turner Classic Movies. No commercials. Just great old movies. Introduced and moderated by a talented actor and film historian, Robert Osborne (a graduate of the University of Washington School of Journalism), telling us about great old movies.

TCM has it all — Chaplin, Keaton, Garbo, Gable, Tracy and Hepburn, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, the “Wizard of Oz,” “King Kong,” “High Noon,” “Sound of Music,” “Sounder”. . .you name it. Including the gifted Mr. Osborne.

Day or night, you can always count on good old TCM.

But what was this? A strange message on Channel 42 where an old movie should be?

“Turner Classic Movies will be moving to Channel 199 on our Cox Digital Lineup,” the cryptic memo read. “If you would like to continue viewing Turner Classic Movies, you will need a digital receiver.”

Getouttahere! You gotta be kidding!

They took away the Hallmark Channel a year or so ago and my wife complained. She could live without Turner Classic Movies. I couldn’t.

So I picked up the phone and called Cox, my friend in the digital age. I dutifully pressed “one” for English, then took some time deciding whether to use my personal identification number — I didn’t know I had one until the recorded voice told me — and listened closely to more possibilities regarding whom I might confront with my complaint.

I waited and waited for a representative to join me at the other end of the line.

It turned out to be a very pleasant person by the name of Georgia.

Sorry, she said, but she just didn’t know why Cox took Turner Classic Movies off the basic menu and put it where you can access it only at a premium price.

“Periodically they move things around,” Georgia said. “But we have had a lot of calls like yours.”

I’ll bet.

And I took a wild stab at the reason my friend in the digital age moved TCM. M-o-n-e-y.

Georgia didn’t know, but she said there were some really neat things about installing digital service.

Other than watching my favorite old movies, I forget what the advantages were. The advantage to Cox is $11.95 a month beyond what we’re already paying. Plus a $9.95 installation charge. Georgia said they could waive the installation fee. She couldn’t tell me whether they’d be willing to waive that infuriating “paid programming,” but she did say the first month would only cost us $6 rather than $11.95.

Fine, but why take away Channel 42 from the regular lineup?

Why couldn’t Cox deprive us of one of those paid programming channels instead, since those things are so obnoxious and since there are so many of them?

Georgia couldn’t answer.

Why not switch one of the several Spanish language channels, for the benefit of those of us who don’t speak Spanish?

Or how about discarding something useless, like CNN?

Television hasn’t always been so complicated. Or frustrating. Or expensive.

Does anyone out there remember when you first brought television into your life? You went to the appliance store, bought a Zenith or an RCA or a General Electric. Then you bought an antenna and some wires.

Then you bought a six-pack to give your neighbor for helping you install the antenna on top of your house.

After that, you plugged in the TV set and watched “Arthur Godfrey,” “Howdy Doody” or “Hopalong Cassidy,” “Tom Corbett Space Cadet” or “Armstrong Circle Theater,” “Edward R. Murrow,” “Lowell Thomas” or Douglas Edwards with the news, George Burns and Gracie Allen, the “Red Skelton Show,” “Texaco Star Theater” or “Mr. District Attorney.”

You watched them all for free. No “expanded packages.” No “digital tiers.” No digital anything.

Yeah, I know. Times have changed.

Today, you not only pay to watch, you pay extra to watch that which is worth watching.

Even when you’re watching something other than snake-oil salesmen and televangelists, if it’s on cable TV it’s paid programming to begin with. They just don’t call it that.

I mean, if you’re a cable subscriber, you’re paying for the programming you’re watching, right?

Well, my inner grouch concedes that if you want to watch Turner Classic Movies you must move into the digital age. Be Cox’s friend. Georgia the Cox representative, bless her heart, says they’ll waive the installation fee.

Maybe so. But I’d rather they waive Digital Television — and along with it, those invasive, infernal infomercials — and just leave us the heck alone.

But we’re stuck with paid programming.

Both kinds.

Former Tucson Citizen columnist Corky Simpson writes Fridays for the Green Valley News. Comment on this column at www.gvnews.com.