Channel surfing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Channel surfing is the practice of quickly scanning through different television channels or radio frequencies in order to find something interesting to watch or listen to. Modern viewers, who may have cable or satellite services beaming down dozens if not hundreds of channels, are frequently caught channel surfing. It is common for people to scan channels when commercial broadcasters switch from a show over to running advertisements.
The term is most commonly associated with television, where the practice became common with the wide availability of the remote control. As of 2002, the Oxford English Dictionary dates the first published use of the term to a November 1986 article in the Wall Street Journal.
The term has some connotations relating to laziness, inattentiveness, and hyperactivity. Channel surfing has been parodied on TV shows and in film, such as in the movie Toy Story 2, and several times on The Simpsons. It has also been noted that men tend to channel surf more than women, although that is not to say that women don't channel surf.[citation needed]
Viewers' propensity to channel surf was apparently a factor leading toward the current ATSC standard for terrestrial digital television in North America. An ATSC signal can be locked onto and start being decoded within about one second, while it can take several seconds to begin decoding a DVB signal.
