We bought a TV!  Two months ago, when we signed up for internet service, we were told we also get TV service, (even if we don’t want it).  With our TV connected this week we can finally see what we’ve been missing out on.

70 channels!  We were both surprised at the number.  Albeit some are repeat channels, with just the language or picture definition being different.  Its more TV than we need for sure, and in addition to TV stations, our TV also picks up radio stations, and can be connected to a computer wirelessly to watch Netflix or play solitaire on the big screen.

The listings are set up in the same stupid way Comcast did it in Minnesota.  To figure out which channels you actually get, you have to surf through about 500 channels that say not available, only occasionally finding your select few scattered throughout.

What I’ve found so far is that most of the channels are in French, from networks in France.  There are three German and two Italian stations from Switzerland.  For English there are the BBC and CNN stations, and you also can get English on some of the French stations.  Surfing through I saw some music videos sung in English as well as an episode of Matlock in English with French subtitles.

Besides just entertainment, watching French shows is going to be a big help in our language learning.  This morning we watched a house hunting show and immediately had to turn on the captions to keep up.  The people spoke very quickly, slurred together words I didn’t know you could, and used a big vocabulary, much different than when we speak French around town and the native speakers dumb it down for us.

For everything we’re getting we don’t even have to pay anything extra to the cable company… but Switzerland has a weird system. Instead of paying the cable company, we have to pay a yearly TV and radio tax to the Swiss government.  We haven’t seen the bill yet, but one of Melissa’s colleagues said it’s over 400 francs a year, and you are obliged to pay it even if all you have is a clock radio, smartphone or computer.  The tax along with our internet bill of 45 francs a month means TV and internet is just another thing that we pay more for in Switzerland than in the U.S.