Robert Thompson Watching Quotations

New Year's Day was the perfect time for football because you could roll out of bed and you could start watching football, even before you manage to mix your aspirin and water. The second (of January) is just not the same. Some people are going to have to get up. The dynamic gets broken. The whole calculus changes.

Those days are over. Forget leaving your radio off in the car or not watching CNN. Whatever your Internet service is, it's likely to announce all the results.

The good news is that, today, adults can watch programs that were way better than before. We can watch 'The Sopranos' and 'Deadwood' and 'Sex and the City' and other really interesting, emotionally complex shows that I would not in a million years suggest watching with anybody younger than 14.

So when we're watching The Sopranos in reruns ten years from now, on a big-screen, it will still look good.

The biggest thing driving the DVD market is not watching it, but owning it. There's a study that found an overwhelming amount of people buy full series, but have yet to open them or to take the cellophane off. The satisfaction is in owning them.

The music is secondary. The real pull is watching people grab for the brass ring. They're climbing the ladder. This is the great American story.