They probably have the "watch" on an automated system for me. A real person would be delusional from boredom. Can you imagine the office weasels in the "watch shops" fighting to get assigned to someone with a personality?

One apparent/possible result of our US Do Not Call listing has been extreme proliferation of "paid commercial programming" on local TV. Those who used to have herds of marketers making phone calls now buy time and run hour long sales pitches. It used to be mostly late night stuff, but now its common to find them in prime times. Without cable, I can pick up *5 local channels, and on many days they now average 5 to 7 hours of this stuff daily on each channel. Often the same pitch will be on 3 or 4 channels at the same time.

Of course it seems to be profitable, so it might have happened without the no-call thing.

And of course, what's left on regular programming is so bad I probably won't miss anything when the system goes digital and my set won't get anything in a few months.

*That's 5 channels of semi-reality, with another 4 channels of 100 per cent Fundie religious programming that I've blocked on my remote channel selector. The remaining 5 channels only broadcast 20 or so hours of "church" per week.

John