Not a day goes by when you are not dazzled by a billboard or commercial or magazine insert or newspaper wrap-around promoting the show-biz joys of the pay TV and video channels.
From Stan and Foxtel, Netflix and Presto, the services are growing in number, offering more, and charging less. The new season's shows and movies are dangled at us, the magazines filled with gossip about the stars, the release dates of shows, the romantic entanglements - it's all full-on.
The choice is overwhelming. So many programs, these days featuring stars you would have only seen at the movies, like Kevin Spacey or Danny de Vito, or Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. In fact the new season of House of Cards has just been released on Netflix, available complete - so you could binge on it all in one session. Better make that a long weekend, though, there are 13 episodes.
Actually the thought of watching a whole series in one go makes my tummy twitch. Too rich, too rich.
However, this is a growing trend in the US which is now becoming available here with the advent of new broadcasters.
The TV folks are clever, though. They watched on the sidelines as the music industry was torn apart by piracy and failed attempts to control it. Millions were spent in the law courts against Napster and the multitude of pirates, yet the industry is still crippled and artists too poorly compensated.
Piracy is rife in TV as well of course. But for the most part, the broadcasters have played it smartly. They looked at their customers. What do they want, rather than what do we want to give them?
They want to see the TV shows here at the same time as in the US. OK that can be done. They want to be able to binge. All right, that's the way it is moving now. They do appreciate that content must be paid for - the actors have to eat - but at affordable prices.
This is why you are now seeing Stan at $10 a month, Foxtel offering bargain basement deals, Netflix putting out high quality, freshly minted shows with star actors for $8.99.
Pay TV has changed considerably in recent times. No longer do you have a score of channels with nothing worth watching. You don't just have The Brady Bunch and M.A.S.H (though they're still there) but fresh new content that people actually watch and in classic TV-speak, "talk about around the water cooler".
Of course there is a reason why they have lifted their game. Last week saw Parliament pass its anti-piracy law, forcing the eventual blockage of the popular pirating sites like Pirate Bay and KickAss Torrents. ISPs like Telstra and iiNet will be stopped from allowing their customers to access the sites.
As, gradually, more pirate doors are shut, the broadcasters are waiting with open arms for the customers to turn to them. And the sharp programming and affordable pricing should make it a painless conversion.
Of course, not having much faith in our regulators, I expect that some sites will be excluded which are perfectly legitimate and there will be lots of shouting over the borderline cases.
But I do believe our creative industries should be protected, and like the ad says at the start of the DVD movies, our actors and program makers deserve to be paid for what they produce.
