Via Doc Searls, I started reading here (Terry Heaton) and kept going down. From there, I ran across this story on CBS' Sunday night schedule. Paging down, I came across the list of shows, and that's when I had an epiphany: I have no idea which network most of the shows I watch are on. I rarely watch live TV; we cache stuff on the (yes, it's decadent) 4 DVR platforms we have. We then watch whatever matches our mood each night, without regard to the schedule.

The funny thing is, the riff Heaton has on the football schedule wreaking havoc on DVR recordings is something my wife has mentioned more than once: she hates it when sports whacks a show off schedule that way. What she hates even worse though is a practice NBC engages in - starting a show at :59 or at :01, which is specifically designed to screw with DVRs. Here's a tip for the programming geniuses behind that at NBC: It's not making me watch more ER. Rather the opposite, actually. This kind of thing is just anti-viewer, and it's not a way to win friends and influence people. Or, I'll just quote my wife on this practice: "ER just isn't good enough for that".

Ultimately, the schedule screwing is just going to have to stop. An increasing number of people are using DVRs of one sort or another, and they tend to be the people the producers and advertisers want. At the same time, the amount of available bandwidth for sending shows into the home is increasing all the time. I expect to see a couple of things to happen:

• Sports will move off the "main feed" for a network, so as to not interfere with other scheduling
• The kind of idiotic schedule games being played by NBC will come to an end

However, there's going to be an awful lot of whining and fusspotting between here and there. To get an idea of just how much whining, have a look at this from Heaton - if he's right (and I think he is), then the next few years of TV history are going to be extremely disruptive.