The free streaming sites are great for niche content, though, especially sports and vintage TV series, along with newscasts from stations across the nation. Also very good for nature and history programming (although the latter category is cluttered with way too many channels of "supernatural" hokum -- haunted houses and such). Plex is my favorite.
I watch Jon Stewart's and Jimmy Kimmel's monologues exclusively on YouTube. Same with the many country music acts I like that get booked onto Fallon's show and occasionally Kimmel's. I can't remember the last time I watched any late night show from beginning to end, probably before I ditched cable in 2011. I've had YouTube TV since 2021 but still haven't watched a complete show. It's monologues and musical guests on YT or not at all. I'm 70. I should be among the traditional crowd, the fuddy-duddies. I can only imagine what the numbers are like among the 18-49s.
I also watch Kimmel's monologues exclusively on YT although I get very tired of the constant anti-Trump rants (even though I can't stand that SOB) so lately I tend to cut it off about halfway through. I don't watch Stewart or Colbert. Even in the heyday of late night talk I was never a watcher although I do, from time to time, catch an old Carson show depending upon the guest(s).
Do you guys watch St. Denis Medical on NBC or High Potential on ABC?
If you have Hulu, Peacock and Paramount+, you have all the major network scripted shows and several that are done by the networks but not offered on OTA television. You can get Paramount+ added cheap with Amazon Prime, so in our home we have all of them and Netflix for about $30 less than cable cost. And no commercials if you get the "premium" services.
how many are even watching sports? students leave FB games early even at Alabama
You forget that interest among students is more in the tailgating and partying before and after than actually watching the whole bloated-for-TV game. Alabama games get big audiences throughout the SEC and nationally, most of whom never attended the university, And, of course, gamblers are usually tuned in to end of the game if any of their bets are coming right down to the end -- prop bets like player statistics or number of field goals made, etc., along with the standard money line, spread, and over/unders.
You've described my parents in their 80+ years almost perfectly. They had CNN on most of the day, then Judge Judy, Peoples Court, Local News, CBS Evening News, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, various prime time shows, Local News, Tonight. Dad usually made the prime time choice, and only the Red Sox and Patriots were must sports viewing. I wonder how many of today's 40-somethings through 50-somethings -- most of whom are already used to the endless variety available on demand at any time online -- will become like my mom and dad. I'm thinking most of them will not be anything like that and will find more and more alternatives to what linear network TV is offering at any particular time.
Almost by definition, you're on this board so you're an outlier. We all are.
No argument there. But we're not going to be part of television's future for more than a decade or two more, for the most part. So I try to put myself in the shoes (and eyes) of someone at least 20 years my junior and imagine how that person is watching video programming these days, and from what I think they're doing now, I can't see them becoming every-day-the-same viewers.
Wifey watches High Potential but I don't watch either program.
St. denis Medical is funny, you two should check it out! David Alan Grier is a riot.
