2015 American television is such a joke

[kkt]

Agreed, Roadman.  Though cutting the shows to make more time for ads isn't a new problem.  Original series Star Trek was made with six minutes of ads per hour.  By the 70s, 10 minutes was common.  Back then, the shows were distributed on film and there came to be a black market among trekkies for film cut from the episodes by local stations.

[triplemultiplex]

I watched in horror as stupid, stupid reality shows turned all of my favorite channels into 24/7 unwatchable garbage.
Discovery, History and National Geographic.
This trio made up a huge portion of my television viewing 15 years ago.  They were loaded with decent documentary programming covering nature, history, space, huge construction projects around the world; the nerdy aspects of human endeavor.

Then "Deadliest Catch" happened.  It became super popular and those dipshits who ran those channels said, "Yes!  More of this!  All this!"  And that's what we have now.  I don't watch those channels any more.  The scant few shows they do I might want to watch are done so stupidly, with an eye toward the sensational.  Take History's "The Universe".  Great concept; they cover a lot of cool astronomical concepts.  But the execution is terrible.  It's all, "Ooh, this might destroy the Earth any day now!"
And don't even get me started on all of their pseudo-science garbage.

[briantroutman]

I watched in horror as stupid, stupid reality shows turned all of my favorite channels into 24/7 unwatchable garbage.
Discovery, History and National Geographic...

I have a theory on this phenomenon, and I think it's part of a greater overall trend–a growing divide between cheap TV and expensive TV.

On one hand, you have high-end, expensive shows...big-name dramas like Mad Men, Orange Is the New Black, and Game of Thrones. These shows are destinations. Either you've blocked out the day and time on your schedule to watch these must-see programs, or (more commonly) you've signed up for HBO GO, Amazon Prime, etc., to watch them on-demand. And they tend to skew toward a more affluent group that's busier and has little time for TV, so the few shows these people follow are selected more discriminatingly.

Then on the other other hand, cheap shows are getting cheaper. They're reality shows of various types–shows with blatant product placement ("Promotional consideration provided by..." ). Almost nobody plans to watch them. They're strictly filler. Picture the not-so-bright, unemployed, unattractive young woman who turns on Bravo for some Real Housewives-flavored background noise while she's contemplating the "What '90s Celebrity Are You?"  quiz on Facebook. So to her, it's OK that they've stretched 10 minutes of brain-deadening schlock into a 30-minute show...she's barely paying attention anyway.

[texaskdog]

Brian I think you're on to something.   The "in" shows that "everyone talks about" and then there is everything else that is just pumped out boring that people still watch, much like pro wrestling is awful now but the hardcores still watch it.

[SignGeek101]

There's a reason old people are cranky; they believe that things are getting worse.  Even things that beyond question are getting better, like modern cars, are looked down on.

Ohh how I've heard that a lot. Especially with my grandparents and my dad.

[nexus73]

There's a reason old people are cranky; they believe that things are getting worse.  Even things that beyond question are getting better, like modern cars, are looked down on.

Ohh how I've heard that a lot. Especially with my grandparents and my dad.

"That's not a Buick!"

Whenever I see that commercial I agree with the old lady saying that phrase.  Little does Buick know they're running their name in the ground with people who remember what a Buick was.  You can't even buy a LeSabre anymore let alone a Roadmaster, Riviera, Electra, Wildcat, Park Avenue, Invicta, Century, Special, Skylark or Estate Wagon.  Only the Regal name remains and the car is not distinctive at all like Buicks used to be.  They're appliancemobiles with names that have no provenance. 

Today more Buicks are sold in China than the USA. 

Talk about standing tradition on it's ear for one of GM's greatest marques!

Rick

[roadman]

Agreed, Roadman.  Though cutting the shows to make more time for ads isn't a new problem.  Original series Star Trek was made with six minutes of ads per hour.  By the 70s, 10 minutes was common.  Back then, the shows were distributed on film and there came to be a black market among trekkies for film cut from the episodes by local stations.

You are correct that it's hardly a new problem.  However, it has gotten significantly worse in the past decade or so - lately, it seems like the time allocations are actually changing more than once a season.  And the fact that ads are getting shorter, so they can cram even more of them into the same time allocation, makes it all the worse,

Also, I cringe when I hear news like when the management for stations like TBS and TNT has publically stated that, in order to attract viewers back to their networks (a direct quote from one news story I heard), they have started speeding up shows, and cutting additional time from them, so they can subject viewers to provide even more commercials.  Classic 1980s business school grad-think going on here, and a classic recipe for eventual failure.

And your comment about film is one of the reasons we'll never see full length studio releases of the 1970s show Movin' On on DVD.  The story goes that Universal never saved any copies of the original films, and those few films that are still extant - mostly from old independent UHF TV stations that have since allied with networks like UPN (Utterly Pathetic Network), the WB (Why Bother), and CW (Completely Worthless) have been subjected to the "syndication edit" syndrome (as I like to call it).  There's a Canadian company out there on eBay that periodically offers DVDs of the show, but the content is taken straight from old on-air broadcasts of the syndicated copies (at least they are minus the commercials)

[thenetwork]

If any of you get Cozi-TV, then you know they are notorious for butchered versions of old reruns -- even going so far as to cutting out the closing credits altogether.

Then again, there was an independent station back in the 70s in Detroit that did the same thing (WXON-TV-20).  They may have even been the evil station that would butcher old Warner Brothers cartoons -- taking a 7:30 cartoon and cutting it down to 4 or 5 minutes.

Any Detroiters remember???

[roadman]

If any of you get Cozi-TV, then you know they are notorious for butchered versions of old reruns -- even going so far as to cutting out the closing credits altogether.

Then again, there was an independent station back in the 70s in Detroit that did the same thing (WXON-TV-20).  They may have even been the evil station that would butcher old Warner Brothers cartoons -- taking a 7:30 cartoon and cutting it down to 4 or 5 minutes.

Any Detroiters remember???

TV Land (which I haven't watched in ages since they went to their silly "original production shows" that have nothing to do with classic TV), has been airing butchered versions of old TV shows for at least a decade now.  What always irritated me was when they would promote a "XX Anniversary" marathon of a particular show, and then still show the same butchered versions of the episodes.

And this incorporating the closing credits into the ending scene of the episode, which is almost never the original epilogue scene, is another example of pure idiocy.

As for cutting down Warner Brother's cartoons, by the late 1970s ABC was actively doing that on Saturday mornings with the remnants of the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show, as a combination of extending ad time and misguided "political correctness".

[nexus73]

From roadman: You are correct that it's hardly a new problem.  However, it has gotten significantly worse in the past decade or so - lately, it seems like the time allocations are actually changing more than once a season.  And the fact that ads are getting shorter, so they can cram even more of them into the same time allocation, makes it all the worse,

Blipverts are coming!  Watch the movie "Max Headroom" if you do not know what I refer to.  They were speeded up commercials ran by Network XXIII that caused viewers to spontaneously combust!  It is a much darker version of what became the TV show "Max Headroom".

Rick

[Billy F 1988]

It's horrible.  Sitcoms aren't funny anymore.  Fake reality shows are not real.  It's like they've run out of ideas and keep rehashing the same crap.

I wish there was a damn LIKE button for this response! That sums up what I think about American TV in 2015.

[texaskdog]

If any of you get Cozi-TV, then you know they are notorious for butchered versions of old reruns -- even going so far as to cutting out the closing credits altogether.

Then again, there was an independent station back in the 70s in Detroit that did the same thing (WXON-TV-20).  They may have even been the evil station that would butcher old Warner Brothers cartoons -- taking a 7:30 cartoon and cutting it down to 4 or 5 minutes.

Any Detroiters remember???

TV Land (which I haven't watched in ages since they went to their silly "original production shows" that have nothing to do with classic TV), has been airing butchered versions of old TV shows for at least a decade now.  What always irritated me was when they would promote a "XX Anniversary" marathon of a particular show, and then still show the same butchered versions of the episodes.

And this incorporating the closing credits into the ending scene of the episode, which is almost never the original epilogue scene, is another example of pure idiocy.

As for cutting down Warner Brother's cartoons, by the late 1970s ABC was actively doing that on Saturday mornings with the remnants of the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show, as a combination of extending ad time and misguided "political correctness".

Now they show the full ones in 36 minute blocks.  yeah, 6 MORE minutes of commericals.

[bandit957]

I'm also disappointed in 'Sesame Street' lately. I watched it one day a few months ago, and it's nothing like what it was in the '70s.

They need to make 'Sesame Street' more like what it was in the '70s. Otherwise they'll keep losing viewers.

[Scott5114]

I think the millenials don't know what good stuff is and the bar has been so lowered.

I assure you the feeling is mutual.

[texaskdog]

I think the millenials don't know what good stuff is and the bar has been so lowered.

I assure you the feeling is mutual.

Sorry, millenial administrator!

[Stephane Dumas]

As for cutting down Warner Brother's cartoons, by the late 1970s ABC was actively doing that on Saturday mornings with the remnants of the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show, as a combination of extending ad time and misguided "political correctness".

Acutally it was CBS who aired Bugs Bunny/Road Runner show, ABC aired the Bugs Bunny/Tweety show.

Also, to think what the 1967-70 Spider-man cartoon aired is classifield politically incorrect by today's standarts of some people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMdh4DkslVk

the British puppet series Captain Scarlet (produced by Gerry Anderson well known for Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, Stingray, UFO and Space 1999) had some violence for a G-rated show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXkPCdAazs0

[roadman]

For most of its Saturday morning run after 1971, the hour long Bugs Bunny/Road Runner show ran on ABC, not CBS (prior to then. the Bugs Bunny show ran on ABC, and the Road Runner Show ran on CBS).  The combined show was not renamed the Bugs Bunny and Tweety show until much later in its run, when the program was cut down to half an hour and featured only two cartoons (heavily edited by then) and a bunch of "bridges and bumpers" per show.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bugs_Bunny_Show

[thenetwork]

Bugs Bunny cartoons were being butchered on Saturday mornings once the parental activists (most of whom were probably exposed to the original full-length cartoons yet were never scarred by them nor became violent criminals as a result) started demanding that they take out all the violent actions (Elmer Fudd shooting Daffy & Bugs, exploding TNT in Wile E. Coyote's hands, etc...) from the cartoons.  Then those activists had enough traction to say that ALL Saturday morning fare should be "educational and informative", which pretty much marked the end of Saturday Morning as the Baby Boomers knew it.   Even the good vs. evil shows (Scooby Doo) or the dozens of cartoons where the main characters sang songs during the show (Josie & The Pussycats, The Archies -- even Fat Albert) were no match for the activists.

Now Saturday Mornings are filled with shows that (last time I surfed them), are such s-l-o-w paced and boring. Those E/I shows of the 70s "Schoolhouse Rock" and "In The News" had more education and excitement in their 3-minute programs than most 30-minute shows today!!  In fact what takes 30 minutes to explain on a Saturday Morning E/I show, you could see on a 10-minute Encyclopedia Britannica or Coronet film seen in a classroom back in the day.

And, BTW, Bugs Bunny cartoons WERE educational -- stay away from cliffs, don't sit on or attach rockets to your body, don't run in the same direction as a falling tree and never EVER buy products from Acme!!!

[bandit957]

Anyone remember 'Self Incorporated' and 'Inside Out'? They were 15-minute educational shows on PBS.

[roadman65]

If any of you get Cozi-TV, then you know they are notorious for butchered versions of old reruns -- even going so far as to cutting out the closing credits altogether.

Then again, there was an independent station back in the 70s in Detroit that did the same thing (WXON-TV-20).  They may have even been the evil station that would butcher old Warner Brothers cartoons -- taking a 7:30 cartoon and cutting it down to 4 or 5 minutes.

Any Detroiters remember???

TV Land (which I haven't watched in ages since they went to their silly "original production shows" that have nothing to do with classic TV), has been airing butchered versions of old TV shows for at least a decade now.  What always irritated me was when they would promote a "XX Anniversary" marathon of a particular show, and then still show the same butchered versions of the episodes.

And this incorporating the closing credits into the ending scene of the episode, which is almost never the original epilogue scene, is another example of pure idiocy.

As for cutting down Warner Brother's cartoons, by the late 1970s ABC was actively doing that on Saturday mornings with the remnants of the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show, as a combination of extending ad time and misguided "political correctness".

You are right about TV Land as it changed from when it first came out.  No more retro commercials, no more Peticoat Junction, no more Family Affair, and some other shows that they aired when they first started.   Then the cutting out scenes of classic episodes. not airing some shows full seasons in some syndications.  Its not like it used to be for sure.  And yes, irritating to say the most, that the closing themes with credits are now gone to what the present networks are doing is cramming them into the final scene in a black bar at the bottom of the screen flashing them so fast one could hardly read.  Its terrible.

That is why I watch MeTV its true to the shows and shows Peticoat Junction.

[texaskdog]

Petticoat Junction is awesome

[roadman]

And, BTW, Bugs Bunny cartoons WERE educational -- stay away from cliffs, don't sit on or attach rockets to your body, don't run in the same direction as a falling tree and never EVER buy products from Acme!!!

You forgot one very important lesson - when you walk off a cliff, gravity doesn't take hold until you look down.

Seriously though, with the possible exception of the Coyote/Road Runner and the Ralph Wolf (aka Coyote in drag)/Sam Sheepdog series, most of the older Warner Brothers cartoons were indeed educational in one sense - they had loads of historical and cultural references you seldom find in cartoons today.

[Pete from Boston]

And, BTW, Bugs Bunny cartoons WERE educational -- stay away from cliffs, don't sit on or attach rockets to your body, don't run in the same direction as a falling tree and never EVER buy products from Acme!!!

You forgot one very important lesson - when you walk off a cliff, gravity doesn't take hold until you look down.

Seriously though, with the possible exception of the Coyote/Road Runner and the Ralph Wolf (aka Coyote in drag)/Sam Sheepdog series, most of the older Warner Brothers cartoons were indeed educational in one sense - they had loads of historical and cultural references you seldom find in cartoons today.

Not to mention, they catalogued our most humorous geographic names, such as Hackensack, Waxahachie, Albuquerque, and Walla Walla, Washington.

[roadman]

Actually, the Three Stooges put Walla Walla on the map long before Warner Brothers did.

[PHLBOS]

Seriously though, with the possible exception of the Coyote/Road Runner and the Ralph Wolf (aka Coyote in drag)/Sam Sheepdog series, most of the older Warner Brothers cartoons were indeed educational in one sense - they had loads of historical and cultural references you seldom find in cartoons today.

That's largely because those cartoons (like the The 3 Stooges and the older Popeye shows) originally aired as movie shorts that were geared towards a much wider audience than kids.

Albuquerque

You should've taken that left turn over there. 

That is why I watch MeTV its true to the shows

Unfortunately, shows that air on MeTV (and its AntennaTV rival) don't show the full episodes of those either.  Those stations inherited the syndicated (read cut) versions that UHF channels used to air.  As an example, once I got all the M*A*S*H episodes on DVD; I have no reason to watch it on a TV station anymore.  The ones that air on the MeTV channel are indeed the cut versions.