Space, Time and DVR Mechanics/ 3-30-20

Reading Summary

In this article, Klosterman discusses the idea of how pre-recorded sports is not as exciting as watching a live event. There are many reasons he gives to explain this theory by listing rational and irrational explanations. One reason was that when you have a pre-recorded show, you can skip through commercials, but the author argues that removing these commercials take away the build up tension between showtime. Another reason is that if the viewer watches the show later on, they are missing out on similar emotions that other viewers would originally have while watching the show live. Similarly, if someone records a sporting event they ultimately control the speed and it could be argued that the viewer wasn’t as invested in the show compared to watching it live. Overall, a recorded sports event is not the same as watching them live and the author makes good and bad points as to why this difference makes or breaks an audience’s experience.

Outside Connection

I can relate to this source because when my roommate and I watched The Bachelor every Monday night, we would always try and watch it at the scheduled airing time. The Bachelor/Bachelorette is a dating and relationship reality television show that goes into the lives of single people and their journey to find their husband or wife. It is a drama filled show that is very popular and can cause tensions to escalate, especially during the finale of this year’s bachelor.

Reading Connection

My roommate and I preferred watching the live Bachelor show because of the dramatic build up. It is definitely not the same as watching the recorded version where there was no room for dramatic effect. In this finale, the tensions were definitely high and watching the two hour live show was worth it. I didn’t mind the commercial breaks because it allowed my roommate and I to become more invested in the show and made us eager for the commercial break to end. The show definitely knows how to keep their audiences on their toes by keeping them captivated even during the commercial break which shows that the experience is different when watching a live show or even a sporting event because you can’t get the same effect if you are watching a recorded show or event.