In which I can’t figure out why TV still sucks so much when there are technologies available that could easily make it suck less.

Last night, while sitting at the brew pub eating a Gardenburger and idly gazing at the cable commercial showing on the glass teat hanging above the bar, I, who am really not much of a television watcher anyway, wondered why the television industry hasn’t yet invented TV that doesn’t suck.

Consider the following:

– If you shop at Amazon, the site will track what you’ve bought, what you’ve looked at, and what people like you have bought, and make intelligent suggestions.

– If you listen to Pandora, the site will build you an entire radio station based on of the single track or artist you enter, and tailor it to your preferences over time as you click “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to the songs it offers on your station. The more you listen to Pandora, the better it gets at only playing stuff you like.

– Apple’s Genius algorithm (or music genome database or whatever it is) totally works and is awesome, and it collects anonymous information from its users.

– Desktop computers offer profiles, allowing multiple users to store multiple personal settings on the same machine.

– A 1.5 terabyte hard drive only costs $120.

Since all of these things are true, I want to know why my television (or closely attached DVR-like device) doesn’t already do all of the following:

– Keep separate profiles for all users and groups of users in a house, and offer different programming based on who’s watching and when. (“Bob” might want to see football on Sunday afternoon and Debbie Does Dallas when he’s watching at two in the morning by himself.)

– Show me what I most want to watch based on the date and time I turn it on. (If I always watch Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares on Wednesday nights, why doesn’t it just show me that the minute I turn it on? Why must I touch the remote at all?)

– Have me fill out a brief demographic survey (age, sex, orientation, income, favorite channels, least favorite channels, favorite programs, hobbies) when I first buy and install my television or closely attached DVR-like device that enables it to target me for advertisements. Ideally there would be no advertisements, but since we’re adults here and realize that we cannot escape commercials we should be able to influence what we have to see.

Targeted advertising would theoretically enable small companies to pay smaller amounts to get ads to a smaller demographic. For example, my favorite yarn store could never afford television ads now, but they could probably cough up a few grand to show only people like me that their new yarn line is in for the summer. I would love to see an ad from them, and I’d probably drop by their site and buy more superfine alpaca if I saw them on telly every so often.

A lot of people are paranoid freaks and would absolutely wet themselves if they thought they were being targeted, but I know from using Google that I prefer targeted ads to random ones and from using iTunes’ Genius function that allowing a company to gather my data can actually benefit me. I hate seeing commercials for SUVs because I don’t have kids and I’ll never, ever fucking buy an SUV, ever. I hate commercials for housecleaning chemicals because I’m not a housewife. I don’t want to see ads for investment firms because I’m poor and I don’t have investments. But if I could turn on my TV and see only ads for things I’m actually interested in – yarn, iPods, Caribbean vacation packages, Neutrogena facial products, jewelry, low-priced eco cars, web hosting, photography, cooking, and related items – I’d be happier about the fact that I’m paying for television in the first place.

They say we self-select for advertisements by the channels we choose, but take KJ as an example. He watches both the Today show (a habit he learned from his family) and the golf channel (because he plays golf), but he’s neither a stay-at-home-mom nor a 60-year-old white male in the $100 per annum bracket. The commercials he sees – tampons and air fresheners or expensive cars and investment services – are still badly targeted.

My television should, whenever I turn it on, ask me who I am and then immediately show me what I am most likely to want to be watching just then. If I don’t like what it’s chosen, it should then show me the second most likely show, and so on through a list that contains only things I like and none of the crap I don’t: in other words, I should never be confronted with the speed channel or a hunting show or that Criss Angel crap unless I specifically go searching for it.

My television should occasionally offer me new stuff to like. If I’ve watched ER for twelve years, it should offer me something else to watch during that slot based on my known and recorded preferences.

My television should have a profile for me alone, and the ability to make another profile for me and my boyfriend together, since we will be likely to watch together different shows than we would separately.

My television should offer me ALL programing on demand, not just the occasional pay-per-view movie. The only live TV should be sporting events, politics, weather, and news; literally everything else should be on-demand because bandwidth and storage are so cheap.

My television should push me all the sci-fi, cooking, travel, history, and comedy I can stand, and protect me from car shows, bad buddy movies, shows about fishing, ghost and psychic phenomena bullshit, and HSN. It should tell me when my favorite old movies are on, it should introduce me to new series, and it should only play ads that I might care about. Other than to turn my TV on and off and to answer the occasional query, I should never have to touch my remote again unless I’m in a weird mood and want to watch something unusual.

Modern TV is completely archaic compared to the intelligence of all our other media, and it’s way past time for somebody to do something about it. Too bad I’m in the wrong industry, or I’d totally invent SmartTV and change the world!

Or the worlds of a bunch of couch potatoes, that is.