A thought dawned on me as I watched my favorite channel, ESPN, and its seemingly never-ending coverage of Tim Tebow: I now hate this channel.

I understand that in today’s 24-hour news cycle, some recycled material is necessary. But the Worldwide Leader’s propensity for taking any moderately interesting story and banging it over the head of the audience for days on end is particularly grating.

There is no better example of this than the coverage of “Tebowmania.” Tebow seems like a great guy with average quarterback skills at best. I believe the media is determined to make me hate him by infiltrating all sports programming with his story. ESPN flocks to anything Tebow related in such a rabid state that they were surely thanking their lucky stars for his recent trade to the Jets, as it allowed them a chance to dust off their video footage of the “Tim Tebow Top 10 Plays of 2011″ and give it another run on SportsCenter.

Next is seemingly the thousandth roundtable debate regarding whether or not he will be an effective quarterback. Turn to ESPN2 and you will see a screen split three ways with Tebow’s introductory press conference with the Jets, resident Tebow fan boy and ESPN employee Skip Bayless at his computer tweeting about the proceedings, and his actual Twitter page being shown live on television. Turn to ESPN3 and you will see a behind-the-scenes documentary as Tebow decides what to wear and eat for breakfast on the morning of his press conference. OK, that last one is fictional, but would it really surprise you if it happened at some point?

I am overwhelmed by the manufactured state of media coverage these days. This is then followed up with a poll question asking, “Does the media provide too much coverage of Tim Tebow?” I think it was the first rhetorical poll question in history.

Just look at another ESPN hot topic: “Linsanity.” Jeremy Lin and his underdog story is an awesome thing, providing a great role model for many kids. Naturally, ESPN then proceeded to beat the story into the ground over and over again. They go so far past the saturation point with these stories that it becomes exhausting.

Quality has been sacrificed in favor of massive amounts of quantity. I would love for ESPN to realize that less is more and adjust accordingly. But considering the stranglehold they have over the market, I’m not holding my breath.