Does anyone absolutely hate background music on news, HGTV, all over TV, the background music is so very irritating?

Background music is becoming so obnoxious, I'm actually changing my television watching habits. Tonight I was trying to watch a segment on 20/20 but the background music was so cacaphonic, I had to stop watching. I'll admit, Dateline NBC had just covered the same subject and I already sat through an hour of loud background music.

No way I could tolerate another hour, even though I would have liked to see CBS's version of the same topic. I don't even find the background music to be necessary, much less louder than the narrator or host. Who is responsible for this?

Why has it become foreground music? I have watched shows like Real World where they play songs in the background and it is pleasant and enhances the show without masking the dialogue. I hate this trend and I'm not alone.

If producers don't change, I will. This is just the push I need to curtail my tv watching. It's not enjoyable any more and is in fact downright irritating.

I absolutley agree. I used to love watching nature shows because they were so relaxing, but now I dislike watching them because of the music. It seems that all the tv shows have this distracting aggravating music in the backround through the entire show.

I watch alot less tv because of this. I am almost to a point of leaving TV forever over this issue. All the (formally) great science shows do it too.

While you're looking at a quiet scene in the Arctic, the feeling is totally ruined by out-of-place banging and dumb music. And documentaries and news shows? The effect totally ruins seriousness in shows that purport to be serious.

It seems to be getting louder all the time and I often have to really concentrate to filter through the noise when I would so prefer to just let the words wash over me into my consciousness. I've never met anyone who likes it. One friend said that the person who figures out how come up with a way for the consumer to filter it out, that person would get rich.