Ambient TV minimizes plot and event to enable near-passive consumption

Evidence

Whereas prestige TV required a high degree of attention from viewers for its intricate plots and subtle twists and suspenseful build to dramatic events, ambient TV requires a low degree of attention and minimizes plot and event, cultivating instead tone and consistency. Some viewers thus use it to sleep, and Netflix is even experimenting with a new product it calls a “linear TV channel,” Direct, which resembles the preprogrammed lineup of older models of broadcasting, offering round-the-clock streaming stuff. Monotony, rewatchability, simple story lines, heavy dialogue, placidity, beautiful settings, and the internalization of instagramming and influencing into streaming shows themselves lull spectators into perpetual consumption that is also indistinguishable from other activities: if Emily in Paris is simply about instagramming, then of course you can use your phone while it’s on. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 232

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘ambient TV’ as a named aesthetic category: low attention, minimized plot, tone over event — exactly the kind of feature-list under ‘immediacy’ the reader needs to articulate.
• XREF: Ambient TV as attention-folding sleep-media connects to the reader’s prior thread on silence/Deep Listening — where passive, unmindful consumption is contrasted with engaged listening. — connects to: An ambient film can achieve coherence through non-linear consistency rather than fragmentation — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 497