ABC, CBS, FOX & NBC Have Lost More Than 77% Of Their Market Share

[vdeane]

Did you not have access to a TV guide and programmable VCR?

I did then; not so much now, and most people who have DVRs get them through their cable provider.  With TiVo gone, I'm not entirely sure if it's possible to get one standalone.  I haven't checked too much, because my reception is still janky enough to not entirely trust such a thing.

And kids today wouldn't even be familiar with VCRs.

[JayhawkCO]

You seem to be really nostalgic for what my generation and especially Gen Z refer to as "appointment TV", which is considered really inconvenient and outdated by younger people these days.  Nobody wants to have to schedule their life around TV any more - watching on demand is where it's at.

This is the reason I've stopped following the NFL as closely as I had in the past. Needing to block out 3 hours in the middle of a precious weekend day prohibits you from doing anything cool. I watch a lot more soccer since I can largely watch that first thing in the morning and then I still have most of the rest of the day to do what I need to do.

[kphoger]

You seem to be really nostalgic for what my generation and especially Gen Z refer to as "appointment TV", which is considered really inconvenient and outdated by younger people these days.  Nobody wants to have to schedule their life around TV any more - watching on demand is where it's at.

Yeah, I have zero interest in having to learn what time certain shows are on.

Local TV should be free.

The only local TV programs where it matters if you watch them live are news programs, and most of their stories end up on YouTube of Facebook or whatever as well, so they're already free.

[Molandfreak]

And then came Netflix, and the C-word "pandemic".  The networks panicked.  OK, a relative handful of people were satisfied with just Netflix.  OK,  Enjoy.  Do without.

Mods. This is the exact type of shit I know you're trying to eliminate by banning discussion about this. He knows the rules and willfully ignored them anyway.

You can say covid. You can't put pandemic in quotation marks.

[Max Rockatansky]

Did you not have access to a TV guide and programmable VCR?

I did then; not so much now, and most people who have DVRs get them through their cable provider.  With TiVo gone, I'm not entirely sure if it's possible to get one standalone.  I haven't checked too much, because my reception is still janky enough to not entirely trust such a thing.

And kids today wouldn't even be familiar with VCRs.

A standalone programmable DVR?  Considering how many options there are for coaxial based security DVRs exist I'd image you can get something just record off a TV at a specific time.

[kphoger]

You can't put pandemic in quotation marks.

Since when?

[Max Rockatansky]

You can't put pandemic in quotation marks.

Since when?

When was the last COVID even a problem topic?  I want to say maybe 2021? 

[Scott5114]

WHALE ACKTUWHALHALAWLHALLWHUHALLY

[The_Ginger]

And kids today wouldn't even be familiar with VCRs.

I really hate to say this, but although I have a faint idea of what a VCR is, I've never used one.

So that statement is accurate.

[kphoger]

And kids today wouldn't even be familiar with VCRs.

I really hate to say this, but although I have a faint idea of what a VCR is, I've never used one.

So that statement is accurate.

And you are a kid today, correct?

Hey, class, raise your hand if you've cleaned the heads with alcohol on a cotton ball!

[The_Ginger]

And kids today wouldn't even be familiar with VCRs.

I really hate to say this, but although I have a faint idea of what a VCR is, I've never used one.

So that statement is accurate.

And you are a kid today, correct?

Yes. That's correct.

Hey, class, raise your hand if you've cleaned the heads with alcohol on a cotton ball!

sits in silence with hand on desk, not raised

[ZLoth]

As previously stated, ages ago, I stopped watching television for various personal reasons. From my perspective, there isn't that much new "compelling content" to watch anymore. I don't have my television on "just for noise. While I have a television in my office, most of the time it's off, and occasionally it's on as a monitor for a secondary computer that I usually access via VNC. I much prefer the audiobooks.

If we look at media landscape from the 1920s onward, you will see constant changes in what media was available, but also the methods of how we got it and when we got it. If you told me in 1976 that I would be watching movies and television on my phone fifty years, I would have either stared at my rotary-dial phone and go "huh?" or the images of a Jetson's-style video phone.

[Max Rockatansky]

And kids today wouldn't even be familiar with VCRs.

I really hate to say this, but although I have a faint idea of what a VCR is, I've never used one.

So that statement is accurate.

And you are a kid today, correct?

Hey, class, raise your hand if you've cleaned the heads with alcohol on a cotton ball!

I would disassemble the VCR completely and clean them up.  I had six backup security VCRs ready to go and a couple parts units sitting around.

[Max Rockatansky]

If you told me in 1976 that I would be watching movies and television on my phone fifty years, I would have either stared at my rotary-dial phone and go "huh?" or the images of a Jetson's-style video phone.

What would you have said about that phone being the only thing in modern society resembling tech something from the Jetsons?

[SEWIGuy]

OK boomer

Actually, the people who, once again, wish to regale me with how much money they saved by not watching TV, during, of all things, discussions about what is on TV, tend to be older than me.

From the regulatory capture of the FCC in the 1950s to the Congressional overturning of the very logical Fortnightly case and "retransmission consent", to all the litigation over keeping network TV off satellite and "local into local", which cost billions for no purpose, the networks have had one goal.  Make getting TV as hard as possible on an OTA basis, so people will pay cable, later satellite, and now linear streaming (which, is NOT cord cutting, BTW).  And then, with cable in place, moving shows to cable channels and making you buy all of them, just to get the few you wanted.

And then came Netflix, and the C-word "pandemic".  The networks panicked.  OK, a relative handful of people were satisfied with just Netflix.  OK,  Enjoy.  Do without.

If they had been dumb enough to offer just HBO, without making you get cable first, 25 years earlier, same result.  They weren't. 

But they panicked.  Every one launched a streamer, with access to all their shows, both sports and filmed entertainment.  And all lose money.  All lose money.  And, there isn't some guy trying to decide whether or not to get it.   Everyone who wants it, has it.  And its just not enough to make a profit. 

Because they reversed 70 plus years of a business plan that worked.  Let 5 old men sit around and tell us all, once again, how much money they saved watching only Netflix and let some kids talk about how they steal content from Canadian websites.

The game is on CBS.  Don't have CBS?  Do without.

Worked for almost a century.

The model stopped working long before Covid.

[ZLoth]

What would you have said about that phone being the only thing in modern society resembling tech something from the Jetsons?

The Jetsons ran from 1962-1963, and I was looking at it from the perspective of 1976 when I was a young child. The problem with any show set in the future is figuring out which direction technology development takes us based upon existing technology. In many cases, what we thought was "the future" turned out quite differently.

[GaryV]

And kids today wouldn't even be familiar with VCRs.

I really hate to say this, but although I have a faint idea of what a VCR is, I've never used one.

So that statement is accurate.

And you are a kid today, correct?

Hey, class, raise your hand if you've cleaned the heads with alcohol on a cotton ball!

How about threading the film through the movie projector, because the teacher somehow just never figured it out.

[Molandfreak]

You seem to be really nostalgic for what my generation and especially Gen Z refer to as "appointment TV", which is considered really inconvenient and outdated by younger people these days.  Nobody wants to have to schedule their life around TV any more - watching on demand is where it's at.

To be completely honest, usually I just don't feel like bingeing an entire season or series just to be in the loop of what folks are talking about. That's where the appeal of at least having a set schedule of releases comes in. Netflix dumps the entire season in one go, so you'd better hope you are far enough along in the season to understand the references. That wasn't a problem with earlier serialized shows since you would only get one episode per week, and you could just record it onto a tape or DVR to watch later if you knew you were going to miss it.

[Molandfreak]

What would you have said about that phone being the only thing in modern society resembling tech something from the Jetsons?

The Jetsons ran from 1962-1963, and I was looking at it from the perspective of 1976 when I was a young child. The problem with any show set in the future is figuring out which direction technology development takes us based upon existing technology. In many cases, what we thought was "the future" turned out quite differently.

The goal isn't to accurately predict future technology (which is impossible to do 100 years into the future, as The Jetsons was set anyway), it's to entertain people and generate interesting plot points with vaporware while ignoring the physical or practical limitations which have to be addressed in order to make it possible. Nobody in 1962 was envisioning video phones that operated through digital signals, they were envisioning a scaled-down version of cameras producing live content for TV, but within a booth in your home that you were provided a videophone number for. FaceTime happened through workarounds, a move to digital transmission and encryption, and subsequent advances in multiple other STEM fields which were just developing or hadn't even been explored to a serious extent at that point.

Look at the scene in Back to the Future Part II where Marty Junior turns on the TV and uses voice controls to tune into multiple channels. The concept of multiple tuners/channels was eventually realized through Sony's Picture-In-Picture system, but the concept of simulcasting multiple sources of information (including The Weather Channel) had shifted to being handled by the Internet, so that turned out to not be as big of a deal as it was portrayed in 1989.

[Max Rockatansky]

What would you have said about that phone being the only thing in modern society resembling tech something from the Jetsons?

The Jetsons ran from 1962-1963, and I was looking at it from the perspective of 1976 when I was a young child. The problem with any show set in the future is figuring out which direction technology development takes us based upon existing technology. In many cases, what we thought was "the future" turned out quite differently.

The goal isn't to accurately predict future technology (which is impossible to do 100 years into the future, as The Jetsons was set anyway), it's to entertain people and generate interesting plot points with vaporware while ignoring the physical or practical limitations which have to be addressed in order to make it possible. Nobody in 1962 was envisioning video phones that operated through digital signals, they were envisioning a scaled-down version of cameras producing live content for TV, but within a booth in your home that you were provided a videophone number for. FaceTime happened through workarounds, a move to digital transmission and encryption, and subsequent advances in multiple other STEM fields which were just developing or hadn't even been explored to a serious extent at that point.

Look at the scene in Back to the Future Part II where Marty Junior turns on the TV and uses voice controls to tune into multiple channels. The concept of multiple tuners/channels was eventually realized through Sony's Picture-In-Picture system, but the concept of simulcasting multiple sources of information (including The Weather Channel) had shifted to being handled by the Internet, so that turned out to not be as big of a deal as it was portrayed in 1989.

Implausible or not the present sure ended up pretty fucking lame compared to a lot of these fictional movie/TV show predictions. 

[Scott5114]

Implausible or not the present sure ended up pretty fucking lame compared to a lot of these fictional movie/TV show predictions.

Fiction doesn't have to deal with business idiots trying to squeeze every last dime out of everything ever made.

[Max Rockatansky]

Implausible or not the present sure ended up pretty fucking lame compared to a lot of these fictional movie/TV show predictions.

Fiction doesn't have to deal with business idiots trying to squeeze every last dime out of everything ever made.

Hence one of the many reasons I find the modern world so disappointing.  Certainly didn't live up to the hype when the 1980s portrayed it to be.

[Rothman]

Implausible or not the present sure ended up pretty fucking lame compared to a lot of these fictional movie/TV show predictions.

Fiction doesn't have to deal with business idiots trying to squeeze every last dime out of everything ever made.

Hence one of the many reasons I find the modern world so disappointing.  Certainly didn't live up to the hype when the 1980s portrayed it to be.

It's intriguing to me how much The Fifth Element's predictions about life in 2263 already look quite out of whack only about 30 years after it was released.

[kphoger]

I find the modern world so disappointing.  Certainly didn't live up to the hype when the 1980s portrayed it to be.

If you thought TV and movie portrayals of the future were supposed to be realistic predictions, then you were sorely mistaken about the purpose of entertainment.

This video seems very pertinent to the conversation:

[Max Rockatansky]

I find the modern world so disappointing.  Certainly didn't live up to the hype when the 1980s portrayed it to be.

If you thought TV and movie portrayals of the future were supposed to be realistic predictions, then you were sorely mistaken about the purpose of entertainment.

This video seems very pertinent to the conversation:

In my defense I was barely 7 years when the first Back to Future Part II came out.