星期五,家住伊利诺伊州的佛莱塔准备度过又一个迷人的夜晚。下午,她去录像带销售点买来一盒《意外的旅游者》的录像带。晚上,等孩子吃完饭后,她给他们洗了澡,把他们送上床睡觉。接下来,就轮到她和她丈夫彼特消遣一番了。佛莱塔说:“边吃夜宵边看录像,这是我们俩人的梦幻时分。”今天,这种情景在美国非常普遍。自从电视席卷全美以来,没有哪种娱乐工具能像录像这样在短短十年里如此普及地渗透到人们的生活之中。八年前,只有4％的美国家庭拥有录像机,如今这个数字已上升到65％。1989年录像带的销售额加上租金已达到105亿美元。大多数租客每月只租几盒,但在拥有录像机的人中,将近15％的人每星期都要去逛录像带商店,平均每次 Friata, who lives in Illinois, prepares another fantastic night on Friday. In the afternoon, she went to a videotape store and bought a box of “Accidental Travelers” videos. At night, she waited for them to take a bath and put them to bed to sleep after their children had finished their meal. Next, she and her husband Peter are having some fun. “It’s a fantastic time for both of us,” Flatlet said. "Today’s scenario is very common in the United States. Since television has swept across the United States, no entertainment tool has been able to infiltrate into people’s lives as popular as video in such a short period of ten years. Eight years ago, only 4% of U.S. households owned video recorders. Today the figure has risen to 65%. The 1989 videotape sales plus rents have reached 10.5 billion U.S. dollars. Most tenants rent only a few boxes a month, but nearly 15% of those who own VCRs visit videotape stores every week, on average each time