Network Decay, or, more channels =/= more good programming

Zeiss Manifold wrote:

Delcat wrote:

Zeiss, I have never been so unsurprised about anything in my life. Just an F-Y-I.

Are you saying that you don't find it SHOCKING?

GET A ROOM, YOU TWO! :lolinsane:

Hey, they're only talkin' 'bout Shad.

Indeed, we can... dig it?

I can't really add to the conversation, mostly because I pick up channels via antenna, only pick up 14 at most at any given time, and half of them are in Spanish, three of them are doomsday Christian channels that would make Pat Robertson flip his shit, and two are "buy this stupid piece of shit with only two payments of 19.98!" but out of those 14 channels, PBS is boring maybe 75 percent of the time, and The Big Bang Theory can go fuck itself with a rake.

But...

[15:35:56 14/08/13] Somath Cegem : I am so lost right now
[15:36:02 14/08/13] Lurv : hmm, maybe sex surrounded by bubbles could be fun
[15:38:28 14/08/13] Somath Cegem : until they get in your mouth, or eyes, or other places, and start to sting like fuck
[15:39:02 14/08/13] * Somath Cegem lost his glasses due to a foam machine at a club one time and isn't still bitter nooooo
[15:39:22 14/08/13] TheHedonist : the thread about the chatbox inspired me to come

*Shakes cobwebs from hair and coughs up dust*

I can remember when we had two channels in the UK. And you really had to 'touch that dial' to tune them in. They didn't start until mid afternoon and went off air at midnight, (Later at weekends).

What crapped it all away? Firstly, soaps. Once TV companies realised that folk would tune in to crap every week, they thought, why not twice a week? Three times? So soaps like Emmerdale, Corornation Street and Eastenders stopped trying to be good and became prolific and shoddy. But people still watch. And every now and then, when the ratings fall, there's another huge explosion, fire, murder, whatever, to get people interested again. Boring, repetitive, and people watch.

Then Kids TV. Swap Shop, Newsround, Byker Grove, Grange Hill, Tiswas, Number 73. Decimated by the health freeks who insisted that showing 'junk food' ads in Kids TV time was making them obese. So it was banned. There is no kids TV being made at all now. ITV has shuffled off it's endless US cartoon imports to CITV and BBC has endless reruns of In the Night Garden, Teletubbies, Tweenies and so on on it's two channels for kids, CBBC and CBeebies. Chris Tarrant, Sandi Toksvig, Lenny Henry, John Craven, Ant and Dec. All got their breaks on Kids TV. Won't happen anymore.

Then ITV. Once a group of local companies that vied with each other to fill the channel with their programmes, now it's one company. A bloated, Londoncentric monolith that fills itself with reality TV shows. Because they get the viewers and viewers who vote with their phones, in their millions, meaning the shows are cheap to make and are in profit before you take in the ad money. Oh ITV will produce some quality, Downton Abbey for example. But ask anyone who watches how aggravating the number of adverts are in that programme. An hour long programme used to have three ad breaks, now it's five. And the ad breaks used to be three minutes, now it's five. The programmes that ITV used to produce to compete, Survival, Credo, World in Action, all gone.

It took the need to compete away from the BBC. So it too fills the Saturday evening schedules with reality dreck. You still get more quality from the BBC, Sherlock, Dr.Who, New Tricks, Prof. Brian Cox's Wonders series. You still get Blue Peter and Newsround, though dumbed down to hell, and BBC still produces Horizon, Panorama, and a large number of good, quality science or history documentaries. But, withal, BBC One is a sad shadow of what it was. When prime time TV has repeats of Only Fools and Horses and Dad's Army, that's pathetic.

Most of the multi channels simply repeat the repeats. And they change the channel name and do it again. UKTV Gold became Gold, then G.O.L.D. and the programmes don't change. What's 'New to G.O.L.D.) was aired on Gold a few weeks ago. Yesterday is showing what the History channel used to show. Dave is every panel show on BBC, Have I Got News For You, Mock the Week, Russell Howard's Good News, repeated ad infinitum. And Suits. Which I like. In fact, considering Dave is meant to be a channel for men I watch that a lot.

There's a lot of talent out there, but it struggles to make an impact. For a start, if you're not in London, forget it. The TV companies just don't want to know about anything beyond the M25. Now BBC has moved to Salford, (big mistake), it might change a bit, but all politics, most arts, all big finance happens in London. There couldn't be a Byker Grove made now. No-one puts that kind of money into kids TV, no-one would think of setting it outside London. And people are afraid of taking chances. TV is expensive to make.

Tl:Dr. Homogenisation, greed and fear all make TV shallow, dumb and boring.

It may be 'decay' to us, because we don't watch things like Big Brother 427, or So-Called Fly On The Wall Documentary About Night Life In Whatever City (even though it's totally scripted), but we have to bear in mind that a lot of people love this stuff. These shows are what gets high viewer ratings (and high ratings = more potential revenue from advertising).

The sad fact is that, when the kerching is at stake, you have to pander to the mass market, and sadly, that seems to be bullshit scripted reality TV crap. It's obvious what most people want to see... I only ever hear Game of Thrones or Firefly talk when I'm at social gatherings with other geeky types, but I just have to walk into any workplace to hear the latest Big Brother gossip. The network heads know this, so that's what they buy.

Occasionally we get something good (Game of Thrones, Red Dwarf, The Office, Blackadder, etc) but they're rare, and I tend to miss them because I don't watch the tele anymore!! Thank god for online TV... *hugs his Netflix subscription*

Quote :

For a start, if you're not in London, forget it. The TV companies just don't want to know about anything beyond the M25.

QFT!! It's no wonder everyone thinks London IS England, and that RP pronunciation (aka "The Queen's English") is "a London accent", and everything beyond Watford is "The North" (which is a strange and scary place).

Cunny wrote:

It may be 'decay' to us, because we don't watch things like Big Brother 427, or So-Called Fly On The Wall Documentary About Night Life In Whatever City (even though it's totally scripted), but we have to bear in mind that a lot of people love this stuff.

We also have to bear is mind that a lot of people are complete goddamn retards. There are people who major in humanities, people who enjoy watching soccer, people who think women's sports is anything more than a parody of itself, people who vote Democrat, people who think John Cena is a particularly good wrestler, people who still don't believe Mikey knows everything about everything, and Chris.

And Xerrofoot.

The point is that because people like it, doesn't mean it's any good. People like McDonald's food, but it's still cheap crap.

Oh geez, I have been rewatching Red Dwarf lately and I cannot get the fuck over the fucking laugh track. I somehow managed to not notice it when I was like 11 or whatever, but now it drives me mad.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Oh geez, I have been rewatching Red Dwarf lately and I cannot get the fuck over the fucking laugh track.  I somehow managed to not notice it when I was like 11 or whatever, but now it drives me mad.

Holy shit same here. Eevee and I tried to watch Titus the other day and I couldn't ignore how often everyone in the show just has to stop what they're doing and hold an emotion/face until the audience shuts up. Opinions on story structure and assumption of viewer ignorance aside, it's such a huge waste of time.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

I somehow managed to not notice it when I was like 11 or whatever, but now it drives me mad.

Probably because laugh tracks were still in common use then.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

We also have to bear is mind that a lot of people are complete goddamn retards.

All people are complete goddamn retards. What they like is subjective all the way. Which is why arguing about taste in any capacity is an absolutely futile thing to do.

Which might explain why most people relish in it.

Hawaiian Shirt wrote:

it's such a huge waste of time.

Which is bound to drive anyone who watches Venture Bros completely nuts since they have every damn second crammed with jokes.

Jay/Cris wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

We also have to bear is mind that a lot of people are complete goddamn retards.

All people are complete goddamn retards. What they like is subjective all the way. Which is why arguing about taste in any capacity is an absolutely futile thing to do.

Which might explain why most people relish in it.

Your taste is bad and you should feel bad. People who put relish on hotdogs should be shot, burned, and buried next to Hitler.  

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Jay/Cris wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

We also have to bear is mind that a lot of people are complete goddamn retards.

All people are complete goddamn retards. What they like is subjective all the way. Which is why arguing about taste in any capacity is an absolutely futile thing to do.

Which might explain why most people relish in it.

Your taste is bad and you should feel bad.  People who put relish on hotdogs should be shot, burned, and buried next to Hitler.  

Where'd Hitler get buried, anyway?

I rarely eat hot dogs, Mikey. Like, twice a year: once with the gay pride (because that's when it's funny) and once at some other random festival. I don't do the relish, tho': I'll go for the ketchup/mayo combo with them dried onions.

So.

*proud relish eater*

Jay/Cris wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Your taste is bad and you should feel bad.  People who put relish on hotdogs should be shot, burned, and buried next to Hitler.  

Where'd Hitler get buried, anyway?

I just realized that Hitler didn't get a proper burial, what with him committing suicide in a bunker that got demolished and all, didn't he? They never found the body. Just like Elvis. And, anyway, they'd probably not bury him in order to counteract any sort of shrine for his persona, so I'm guessing he'd get cremated even if they did find any body.

the russians claimed to have a bit of his skull i think

also he had himself cremated

I was in Berlin a few years ago and our tour guide showed us the site of Hitler's bunker. There's no marker because they don't want it to become a shrine for Neo-Nazis.

I remember when we had real independent TV stations. My favorite was Channel 56, which showed cartoons in the morning and after school, sitcoms in the early evening, and movies after 8.

Then it became WB, and now CW, and it just hasn't been the same.

We only watch about four shows on regular TV now: NCIS, Criminal Minds, Blue Bloods, and Hawaii 5-0. The rest of the time, we either watch movies on the Retro stations, or reruns on Channel 68, which started out independent, became a Christian programming station showing reruns of Touched by an Angel, and now shows reruns of action shows like Flashpoint and Cold Case.

I refuse to watch reality TV. If I want to see idiots behaving badly, I'll go outside. (Bet you thought I was gonna say "come here," right?  )

Whelp, time to date myself...

I remember two video channels (pre-MTV) that were called V66 (that was a local music channel) and Video Jukebox, in which you could call and get a video played (that was after I got married...1992). When I was 12 or 13 they had Dr. Who and Creature Double Feature on Channel 56 on Saturdays (after cartoons, which ended at noon). One show my whole family loved was "Crime Story" on (ABC?) Tuesdays at 8 with the late Dennis Farina. My Grandfather, who served in WWII, would watch anything war related, but really liked "Hogan's Heroes" and "M.A.S.H.", and my Grandmother would watch the Red Sox (if they were on). After I got married it seemed like good things weren't easy to find; I mean, c'mon, how many times can you watch the same old movies on HBO? My husband's family had cable before mine (he lived the state over from me) and we remember Starcase (it's now Showtime, I believe). I love shows like Downton Abbey, Dr. Who, Elementary and Game of Thrones (I'm going to read the books...I'm sure it'll be quick reading in a 'War and Peace' kind of way).

Arcadia Rose wrote:

Whelp, time to date myself...

I remember two video channels (pre-MTV) that were called V66 (that was a local music channel) and Video Jukebox, in which you could call and get a video played (that was after I got married...1992). When I was 12 or 13 they had Dr. Who and Creature Double Feature on Channel 56 on Saturdays (after cartoons, which ended at noon).

You must live near me, Arcadia. I have fond memories of V66 (which was, on our cable lineup, right next to MTV for a while) and Creature Double Feature (which I think is still on in some capacity. Wasn't Ernie Boch Jr. hosting it or something?)

EileenK98 wrote:

You must live near me, Arcadia. I have fond memories of V66 (which was, on our cable lineup, right next to MTV for a while) and Creature Double Feature (which I think is still on in some capacity. Wasn't Ernie Boch Jr. hosting it or something?)

I most likely do...I'm in Providence, RI., now, but I grew up in Massachusetts. And I don't *think* he did...it was a *loooooong* time ago