Monday, June 02, 2008

Why are TV stations only set up for old people?

I don't know about you, but I don't subscribe to a newspaper or own a television set. I do have computers, including a laptop, and a desktop with a huge widescreen LCD panel. I've posted about the TV stations before and their web accessibility, but its been a while... and I am here again to make some observations.

While ABC's player still sucks compared to their old one which used to support Linux, it is feasible to use as long as I keep my old Windows XP running. I can't wait to get rid of Windows, so I hope they get their Linux support working again soon.

But my real gripe today is over The CW. They are supposed to be this new hip channel. Their website looks nice. The person on the home page talks to me, and it works fine. In Linux AND Windows. But I can't get their episodes to play. In ANYTHING. What's the deal? I'm a computer expert, and I can't get it to work. I even checked to make sure I have the latest Java VM installed (God knows why I'd need that!) and Flash Player. Everything is in order but when I go to their site I just get a message telling me "Your video will begin after this brief message" (or something like that) and it sits there, spinning. Forever. Firefox, IE, same thing. On Linux at least I get an error message that tells me my OS won't work.

CW - What DO you support? You are alienating the younger generation, and we aren't going to come back once we get hooked on other shows. I guess I'll never get to know what Reaper is about. Too bad, it sounded like it had potential.