Just when we had begun to relax into the routine of the regular non-TV noise aboard Metro busses, TransitTV snuck back in and reëstablished itself over the weekend. What a pipe dream to have thought this nightmare channel would not be exhumed, dusted off and thrust onto busses.
TransitTV boarded Metro busses in 2005. After reporting constant losses throughout 2006, 2007 and 2008, TransitTV declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on February 4th of this year. Canada-based Torstar Corporation, which owned Transit Television Network, LLC, had announced the same week that it was shuttering TransitTV. On Los Angeles Metro busses, TransitTV stopped broadcasting in mid-February.
Now, TransitTV is back to blaring its blather on busses. Whether the ad revenue collected from publishers of melodramatic books, rip-off computer companies and bad bad-credit brush-up companies as well as cloying clever cleaver clutter will be brought back is yet to be seen. At least one more voice-over artist will once again be employed too, which might help stem the hemorrhaging U.S. job market.
-BusTard
(with apologies to lovers of the English language; the last graf was dedicated to the dross that TransitTV transmits)
A small needle nose wire-cutter, in the gap where the cross-pipe hits the bus interior...
Posted by: Erik | 08/10/2009 at 06:38 PM
The Bus Bench does not advocate material sabotage.
Posted by: Randall BusTard | 08/11/2009 at 07:16 AM
I never described what might be done with said tool at said place!
But what I wonder is can we riders swear out a complaint against either the bus operator, Transit TV or Metro management for violating the California Penal Code §640(b)(3) which prohibits "Playing sound equipment on or in a system facility or vehicle."???
Posted by: Erik | 08/11/2009 at 02:54 PM
Ugh yeah I've been noticing this. Not a fan, but at least it's mostly been showing the map full-screen and some ridiculously hard trivia questions. None of the buses I've been on so far have had the sound up, thankfully.
Who do we have to bribe to pass a law requiring them to just show the full-screen map all the time =\
Posted by: Crazy Commuter | 08/11/2009 at 03:34 PM
Ewww! No no no! If there's one pleasant thing about transit, it's the lack of television... I remember a very, very loud version of one of these on the 920 last spring. If I had to deal with these on a daily basis, I think I'd start smashing 'em.
Posted by: Justin N | 08/11/2009 at 11:03 PM
I don't mind the televisions when they have decent content, at some point they had local news reports and weather which I thought was nice and watchable. Some syndicated Seinfeld and Friends would be ideal. It's the really terrible budget ass ads for the harlequin novels and the stop motion fruit animation that needs to go.
Posted by: Fred Camino | 08/12/2009 at 07:57 AM
To be frank—and having done the Cacophony Society Blue Line poetry readings back in 1990 or so—I think that a breakthrough in PR and the entire bus riding experience might be knocked up a few notches by introducing karaoke via TransitTV.
Posted by: Randall BusTard | 08/12/2009 at 10:48 PM
By the way nice blog Crazy Commuter.
Browne
Posted by: browne | 08/12/2009 at 10:54 PM