What’s wrong with being demanding?
By Beth Teitell
Wednesday, November 16, 2005

I’m becoming accustomed, if not emboldened, by on-demand TV and radio, which lets me watch and listen to programs whenever I want, regardless of ”scheduled showtimes.” It was in this spirit of wholesale instant gratification that I called my mom to discuss Thanksgiving.

”Next Thursday’s not good for me,” I said. ”The following Monday would be better, after the kids go to bed and I finish the new New Yorker, let’s say about 9 or so.”

She started to make some argument about ”tradition” and ”Thursday’s when the Steins are coming over,” but I stopped her. The days of such pre-TiVo logic are gone.

But it’s not just TiVo anymore. Within the past few weeks, facing Internet piracy of their top shows, NBC, CBS and ABC announced plans to offer on demand such programs as ”Law & Order,” ”The Office,” ”Desperate Housewives” and ”Lost” for a nominal fee (99 cents or $1.99, depending on the network). And as for radio, listening in real time has become a thing of the past.

It’s a brave new world, all right. But also an asynchronous one. ”It’s tearing at the social fabric,” one of my friends noted. ”We won’t be able to discuss what we saw the night before on TV. You’ll want to discuss ’Lost,’ but everyone will be shushing you because they haven’t seen the episode yet. What will we all talk about?” she asked.

I could hear her toddler crying in the background, and her mood was spiraling downward. ”In a way all this on-demand is a shame,” she said. ”If I know I can watch a program anytime, it doesn’t carry the same weight. I think they should play a little hard to get. It makes me want to watch less. It’s like on-demand movies. I’m like ’Why did I want to see ”Spanglish” in the first place?’ ”

”I should let you go,” I said, looking for an exit. ”It’s dinnertime.”

Not in her house, she said. ”We all eat whenever we want.”

I heard more cries. Her 2-year-old wanted a cookie, now. Talk about on-demand. ”The whole country is going to be like he is,” she said. ”Demanding what they want when they want. This is bad for our national character.”

Oh, that.

I would have loved to continue our discussion, but I was running a little late. It was already 6 p.m., and I was meeting a friend for brunch.