My dentist has TV’s in the “teeth cleaning rooms”, often running HGTV type shows. (A) those shows irritate me and (B) the Mary Poppins-esque hygienist irritates me, so I am usually in a foul mood and ask for the TV to be turned OFF. When I’m already cranky the last thing I need is a vacuous bimbo flipping homes!
This concludes my old-man rant.
My dentist has a slide show playing of glorious vacation spots and mobiles hanging from the ceiling. Love it!
How about no TV…and just music.
Move to Maine! 
Seriously though, think about what is the purpose of waiting room entertainment. If it’s too quite that can make a lot of people fidgety, watching their watch and increase anxiety as they think about the exam about to happen. Whether it is tv or magazines or music or a radio talk channel or health reels the medical office goal is patient management.
I have sometimes wondered if the tv is set to the channel the front desk person (who has a view of the tv) wants to watch!!!
You need to tune it to the Cornell bird feeder website. Just watch birds. No sound needed.
Mine too!
The waiting room can be an anxiety inducing environment, especially for children. The goal should be to make it as “stress-free” as possible. The TV isn’t necessarily for entertainment, but to set the mood and tone for that experience. As a parent, I wouldn’t want my elementary aged child watching the news while waiting; I don’t care what channel it is. It is way too much info and emotion to process; this weekend alone was murder trials, terrorist attacks, kidnappings…not calming for adults, definitely not calming for kids. Not all families have access to phones and tablets as a distraction. IMO whatever is on the screen should make that room as inviting and anxiety reducing as possible.
I’m in A LOT of pediatric waiting rooms on a regular basis and I’ve yet to see a news station on a tv that I can remember. Usually it’s a DVR Disney movie or PBS kids shows or similar.
The OP said they were an allergy office with pediatric patients.
True - I was talking true pediatric waiting area - hers due to being a specialist has a mixed population.
I will say that more of a problem (to me) than the channel on the tv is the terrible “view” of nearly every soul in a waiting area hunched over with their eyes on their phone screen. I notice this every time I walk through public areas of our hospital and in waiting rooms. Default attention to phone…
Doctors’ offices around here play infomercials or FoxNews (and so does the car dealership where I get my oil changes.) I don’t mind FoxNews so much if it’s just news. It’s the round table discussion or other “shows” that grate on my nerves.
And I laugh at complaining at a 30 minute wait. I’d be doing a happy dance. When I did allergy shots (twice a week for four years), I had to block off two hours for each visit. I would overlap it with lunch, so I’d only lose 2 hours/week of sick time. That did include the 20 min drive time (10 min each way) though. And we only have one ENT in town. My regular female doctor visit tomorrow I expect to be there at least an hour, if not two. And I’ll see the doctor for a whopping 5-10 minutes.
(I haven’t been in a pediatric office in forever! Did TVs even exist back then?!)
I would welcome a TV on any channel that is muted with closed captioning! So easy to ignore. What gripes me is the TV at a high volume. I like to read and have to focus to block out the noise.
Keep it on CNN since you mute it. Don’t cater to one patient. Ask them to bring their own reading material.
I hate that TVs are ubiquitous now. A lot more restaurants have them on every wall. Airports, doctor’s offices, even the gas pumps have TV screens. Even with the sound muted in a doctor’s office, I find myself looking up at the screen, while I try to read.
They could switch it to closed captioning.
Disclaimer, I did not read the entire thread…my 2 cents - no TV news in a waiting room, period. Life is too stressful already, and “waiting” for a doctor’s appointment, or some other appointment (or waiting for someone to come out of their appointment) I’m already on hyper-awareness/anxiety mode - my dentist has HGTV or The Travel Channel on, with subtitles, and I appreciate that. I’m someone who wants the distraction. Not everyone has stuff to keep them occupied while waiting, remember the olden days when it was only magazines? I used to catch up on “reading” People when I’d go to the hair salon or dentist.
Are magazines still an option in Covid days? My dentist had removed them citing Covid. His TV is on whatever one of the local network channels is showing at that hour. It can be news or soap operas or whatever.
I admire those of you who can ignore a tv. I find a playing tv intrusive, with or without sound.
I vote Travel Channel or Weather Channel. Not food. Sometimes they show gross stuff about meat. I would not be interested or offended by HGTV. I think I might be soothed by the Travel Channel if it was pretty. Not interested in animals killing each other, so no Animal Planet. When we got our COVID shots in our mass vaccination site they had big screens playing cute puppy and kitten videos from YouTube. I definitely don’t want to see the news from any network. Too much wrong in the world.
Problem here is that the Travel Channel no longer airs shows about travel—it’s all ghosts, hauntings, demons, monsters, paranormal stuff, death, etc. Not quite what I’d want in a medical office!!