Monday, January 09, 2012

Hotel TVs

I stay in hotels a lot.  In the first 9 days of this year I have been in hotel rooms for a third of them.   But as time has gone on I am less likely to turn on the TV.   There are a couple of reasons.   Most hotels now have some form of WIFI so when I get back to my room I am often more interested in using my laptop than in watching the TV - even though most hotel TVs are flatscreen and high resolution.   Second, most hotel TVs have a set of options most of which I do not find appealing.  They include some relatively recent movies (I carry a half dozen movies a want to watch on my iPad); a soft porn channel; a set of games (have them on my laptop or my iPad); and regular TV channels.  Even though many have a guide somewhere in the room - it is always a hassle to flip through the 30 or so channels that are a mix of local and national (CNN, ESPN 1-7, Fox, etc) that quite frankly I do not watch at home.  SO when I get back to my room the TV does not go on because it is not worth the hassle.  I wonder what percentage of hotel guests never turn on their TV.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hotel TVs are ubiquitous. I use the sort of tv available as a reference of quality. If a hotel advertises 42 inch flat screens with ipod and mp3 players, I feel better. Bedbugs hate flatscreens. Now if the television is an analog chained on the upper wall, well I tend to stay away.

I never watch the tv either and somehow I always feel ripped off when I leave since I never got to see the tv that I paid for.

sigh.