Decline of other cable networks

[chris12]

I meant to post this as sepaate, but I thought of some ineresting points in regards to tvland. It's not just TV Land/Nick At Nite whose quality has gone down hill. Just look at Cartoon Network. When it first launched in 1992 and through the 90s there was a ton of classic cartoons on there all day long and now there's crappy originals. Game Show Network had all kinds of great game shows back in the day and now there's newer and modern game shows. As mentioned earlier ABC Family in its days as CBN had a great old-time line-up that helped infuence Nick At Nite as well as game show reruns. USA was once a great station with game show reruns in the day and cartoons like the old Cartoon Express. TBS was once a great station with all kinds of great programming variety, instead of 5 showings each of Friends, Sienfeld, Raymond which you can already watch 5 times a day on local stations. Same for TNT when it first started having all sorts of good cartoons and classic programming. Also, local stations were once great. In Chicago for instance during the mornings and afternoons you had great cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Flintstones, Jetsons, Woody Woodpecker, Popeye, Tom And Jerry and kids shows like Bozo and Romper Room. Now during the day stations like WFLD, WPWR, WGN and WCIU fill it with talk shows or court shows or news shows when during the day they had all sorts of great off net reruns. Heck, I remember in the late 80s WGBO 66 had shows like Flipper, Dennis The Mennace, My Three Sons just to name a few. It seems that these stations forget their roots once they see bigger advertising dollars. I'm only 27 years old yet I feel like an old man reminiscing about how things used to be. I feel fortunate that I was born when I was and ended up being in the last generation of kids to grow up in the good age of television and feel bad for today's young kids who won't get to grow up with the entertainment and variety we had as it seems though there's twice as many channels there's half as many choices

 

[Braves2005]

It is not just The Cartoon Network, Nick at Nite, and TV Land that are going into decline. There are a lot of other networks that are/or are starting to go into decline.

CMT - Used to show country videos 24 hours a day, but now they have to rely on having reality shows, Miss America Pageant(which should have went to Lifetime or Oxygen or WE), disgusting shows such Country's Funniest Home Videos, Trick My Truck, etc. which are copycats of VH1's and MTV's shows such as JackA$$, Pimp My Ride, etc.

MTV - ditto

VH1 - ditto

ABC Family - All they ever show nowadays is Full House, Boy Meets World, Family Matters, Step By Step, and Gilmore Girl. It has gotten as bad as Nick at Nite with them repeating themselves with their shows.

ION - Good channel at first, but the only show I watch now on there is Green Acres. They dropped a bunch of good shows as well like Amen without a moment's notice at all. They seem to promote Growing Pains like it was something special. Kirk Cameron must have something to do with that, same way with his sister Candance Cameron with Full House.

 

[therealjm12]

[I'm only 27 years old yet I feel like an old man reminiscing about how things used to be. I feel fortunate that I was born when I was and ended up being in the last generation of kids to grow up in the good age of television and feel bad for today's young kids who won't get to grow up with the entertainment and variety we had as it seems though there's twice as many channels there's half as many choices

Many years ago I lived in a community that pioneered cable TV because the over the air reception was so bad. We only had the 12 channels available. Yes, it does seem like there was a lot more on to watch. We had the three major networks, PBS, the three New York indies (the Odd Couple, The Honeymooners, Twighlight Zone) one Canadian (CBC) station, one ESPN and one HBO. It cost $8 dollars a month then was raised to $11. I think HBO was $6. That's all I wanted then and now. Pretty much every sporting event I want to watch is on the major nets or ESPN. Back then the Yankees were on WPIX and the Mets were on WOR. I don't want or need any religious, shopping, gardening, heatlh, soccer from Luxenburg channels. I guess the only thing I desire from my cable company (other than the very overpriced Roadrunner) are quality show reruns, funny cartoons and the Three Stooges. I don't get that now and am paying a lot more than $11 a month. I especially resent the fact that my local cable company is raising my rates again because the cost of programing has gone up. They used the Soprano's on A&E as an example. I used to get HBO (turned it off to save $$) and didn't watch the Sopranos then. Why would I possibly want to watch it on A&E, edited and filled with commercials?

 

[pqgeorge]

How about fX! Now that was a excellent general entertainment channel during it's first 5 years of operation. And it wasn't just the evergreens they aired that made the station great. It was what was on between the shows and the commercials from the "fX Apartment". I loved Jane Wallace's nightly show. The fX news updates. "Backchat" et.al.. I really pushed my cable company to consider adding fX to our channel lineup. They finally did but it was just before fX changed it's format to "FX: FOX Gone Cable" on April 1, 1997. Gone were the great shows like "Mission: Impossible", "Batman", "Green Hornet" and more. It was all replaced with FOX retreads like "21 Jump Street", "Beverly Hills 90210" and endless reruns of "M*A*S*H". I haven't watched FX ever since.

 

[zman]

I rmember when discovery channel used to actually show science programming.

 

[LKellerIII]

"Gone were the great shows like "Mission: Impossible", "Batman", "Green Hornet" and more. It was all replaced with FOX retreads like "21 Jump Street", "Beverly Hills 90210" and endless reruns of "M*A*S*H". I haven't watched FX ever since."

Uh....except that FX has run some great original series these past few years, like The Shield (final season starting soon), Rescue Me, and Nip/Tuck. They just premiered a new series called The Riches, with Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver. I haven't checked it out yet, but it's worth at least one look just for Izzard alone.

Sorry you're not getting your Mission Impossible reruns, but I would say that FX ranks second only to HBO for producing critically acclaimed original series. And it's FREE! Compared to all the disappointing cable channels out there, FX is one of the best. Look at what A&E and Bravo have become.

 

[kirkiefan]

Clear Channel Radio-styled cutbacks (and corporate arrogance)crosses over into television...thus mega-media mediocrity.

"I am gross and perverted
I'm obsessed and deranged
I have existed for years
But very little had changed
I am the tool of the government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you...


...you will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't go for help....no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold..... :'("

Frank Zappa 1974
(from: "I'm The Slime")

From the same people who brought you The 80/20 Principle and The Kaizen Revolution.
Less (for us the viewers) is more (for the corporate elite).

 

[bhayes1016]

It's about demographics. Classic = "old". When I was a kid, Classic TV was Lucy, Andy Griffith and Dick Van Dyke. To kids of today, it's Growing Pains, Full House and Roseanne,

 

[mleach]

It's about demographics. Classic = "old". When I was a kid, Classic TV was Lucy, Andy Griffith and Dick Van dyke. To kids of today, it's Growing Pains, Full House and Roseanne,

It really is demographics. Also to a degree it is actualy changing attiutdes too. I myself know many, many adults who rather watch stuff on TV today instead of shows they grew up with. Just the other day in the paper here there was a story about a man in his 40s whose wife ( also in her 40s ) left him because he enjoyed watching for hours DVDs of such old shows like Leave It To Beaver and I Married Joan and listening to music from the 50s. She felt her husband was "living in the past". Interesting just about everyone I heard commenting about this story sided with the wife and felt that the husband should "grow up". And many of these same people are in their 50s and even 60s.

 

[LKellerIII]

"She felt her husband was "living in the past". Interesting just about everyone I heard commenting about this story sided with the wife and felt that the husband should "grow up". And many of these same people are in their 50s and even 60s."

An interesting analogy - and I agree with the wife, too. I'm in my 50s, and I think TV - drama in particular - is much better than it was in the 60s and 70s - better produced, better written, better acted. And I don't care if people in their 20s and 30s want to watch Growing Pains, Who's the Boss, or whatever. Those comedies may not have been better than those of the 50s and 60s, but they were no worse than most either - the possible exceptions being classics like Andy Griffith, or Lucy.

What bugs me is the endless repetition of only a few shows - Sanford and Son. Murder She Wrote, Law and Order, etc. With all the hours to fill, it seems like they could run some other - probably less famous - dramas and comedies from the 70s and 80s. But I guess they are assuming that people only want to see "hit" shows. They may be right.

 

[Braves2005]

If you have noticed about TV Land, they have a marathon like That Girl and Star Trek, and for one, they don't show That Girl ever again after that, and then for Star Trek, they shuffled that show around like a deck of cards so basically you can't tell when it is on and I have seen in the listings they have done that at least half a dozen times already.

Yes, it is getting tiredsome of seeing Nick at Nite and TV Land going to pot, but then that is what we buy TV shows on DVD for, so that we don't have to watch their repetitive programming all the time.

 

[jcs]

It really is demographics. Also to a degree it is actualy changing attiutdes too. I myself know many, many adults who rather watch stuff on TV today instead of shows they grew up with. Just the other day in the paper here there was a story about a man in his 40s whose wife ( also in her 40s ) left him because he enjoyed watching for hours DVDs of such old shows like Leave It To Beaver and I Married Joan and listening to music from the 50s. She felt her husband was "living in the past". Interesting just about everyone I heard commenting about this story sided with the wife and felt that the husband should "grow up". And many of these same people are in their 50s and even 60s.

This I find hard to believe, especially with these claims of said husband "living in the past" and comments that the husband should "grow up." I defend this husband for his views. I am in my 30s and, while not that big a DVD collector, I enjoy such shows in place of what is on today. My favorite shows include "The Brady Bunch" (ABC, 1969-74), "Laverne and Shirley" (ABC, 1976-83), "Perfect Strangers" (ABC, 1986-93), "The Waltons" (CBS, 1972-81), and "The Wonder Years" (ABC, 1988-1993). Ask me ten years from now what my favorites are, I'll give you the same answer. (Heck, ask me fifty years from now, you'll get the same response!)

Anyhow, one of the worst days of my life happened in, I think, April 1993 when I learned "The Wonder Years" was going to end without its MILLIONS of fans getting to see Kevin graduate high school or go to college--or even marry since we saw Karen marry. The first place I found out about this was the college newspaper. All of the dailies were covering "Cheers" (or, as I like to call it, "Bronx Cheers" since I thought it was overrated, but I digress...) and giving "TWY" the shaft. I was so attached to "TWY", and to me the cancellation of this wonderful show was like a death in the family and still is fourteen years later. :'( I basically never got into any new shows after this.

I'm sorry, but I had to let it out.

 

[bhayes1016]

It's about demographics. Classic = "old". When I was a kid, Classic TV was Lucy, Andy Griffith and Dick Van dyke. To kids of today, it's Growing Pains, Full House and Roseanne,

It really is demographics. Also to a degree it is actualy changing attiutdes too. I myself know many, many adults who rather watch stuff on TV today instead of shows they grew up with. Just the other day in the paper here there was a story about a man in his 40s whose wife ( also in her 40s ) left him because he enjoyed watching for hours DVDs of such old shows like Leave It To Beaver and I Married Joan and listening to music from the 50s. She felt her husband was "living in the past". Interesting just about everyone I heard commenting about this story sided with the wife and felt that the husband should "grow up". And many of these same people are in their 50s and even 60s.

Yeah, "grow up" and watch mature shows like Grey's Anatomy and American Idol. :

 

[tothedj]

Although many of us are cable television subscribers, i see a very disturbing
trend, especially on channels like "ABC Family", "TNT", "TBS", and a host of
others repeating things over and over, mainly movies, i for one, don't watch
TV much anymore, because the quality of shows are not very good.
In addition, cable rates are going up, again, because programming cost to
carry services like ESPN, ESPN2, and more keep forcing the consumer to
pay for services nobody wants, i can understand why many switch to Direct
TV & Dish Network, but i'm not interested in them.
The only way we are going to see a change is if many cities and towns, who
are in states that allow compeitition, let this take place, which may drive the
price of Cable TV Service down, until then, we have to tolerate with repetitive
broadcasting.

 

[TexasTom]

Sorry you're not getting your Mission Impossible reruns, but I would say that FX ranks second only to HBO for producing critically acclaimed original series. And it's FREE!

Minor correction here: It's not free. FX, like most other basic cable networks, does charge a monthly per-subscriber fee. You don't see it as a separate charge in your cable/satellite bill, but nonetheless, you are paying for it.

 

[bk77]

"She felt her husband was "living in the past". Interesting just about everyone I heard commenting about this story sided with the wife and felt that the husband should "grow up". And many of these same people are in their 50s and even 60s."

An interesting analogy - and I agree with the wife, too. I'm in my 50s, and I think TV - drama in particular - is much better than it was in the 60s and 70s - better produced, better written, better acted. And I don't care if people in their 20s and 30s want to watch Growing Pains, Who's the Boss, or whatever. Those comedies may not have been better than those of the 50s and 60s, but they were no worse than most either - the possible exceptions being classics like Andy Griffith, or Lucy.

I dont remember if it was Dear Abby, Ann Landers, maybe even someone else but I do remember reading about some person writing in being "concerned" that their spouse spends hours watching the tape of the same TV show and what should this person do. I would like to say the show the person watched all the time in question was Andy Griffith but that I dont recall but I do remember the repsonse. They felt the person "needed help ASAP" becuase their behavor was not normal and yes they too brought up the "Living in the past" line.

 

[desertv]

I meant to post this as sepaate, but I thought of some ineresting points in regards to tvland. It's not just TV Land/Nick At Nite whose quality has gone down hill. Just look at Cartoon Network. When it first launched in 1992 and through the 90s there was a ton of classic cartoons on there all day long and now there's crappy originals. Game Show Network had all kinds of great game shows back in the day and now there's newer and modern game shows. As mentioned earlier ABC Family in its days as CBN had a great old-time line-up that helped infuence Nick At Nite as well as game show reruns. USA was once a great station with game show reruns in the day and cartoons like the old Cartoon Express. TBS was once a great station with all kinds of great programming variety, instead of 5 showings each of Friends, Sienfeld, Raymond which you can already watch 5 times a day on local stations. Same for TNT when it first started having all sorts of good cartoons and classic programming. Also, local stations were once great. In Chicago for instance during the mornings and afternoons you had great cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Flintstones, Jetsons, Woody Woodpecker, Popeye, Tom And Jerry and kids shows like Bozo and Romper Room. Now during the day stations like WFLD, WPWR, WGN and WCIU fill it with talk shows or court shows or news shows when during the day they had all sorts of great off net reruns. Heck, I remember in the late 80s WGBO 66 had shows like Flipper, Dennis The Mennace, My Three Sons just to name a few. It seems that these stations forget their roots once they see bigger advertising dollars. I'm only 27 years old yet I feel like an old man reminiscing about how things used to be. I feel fortunate that I was born when I was and ended up being in the last generation of kids to grow up in the good age of television and feel bad for today's young kids who won't get to grow up with the entertainment and variety we had as it seems though there's twice as many channels there's half as many choices

All Cartoon Network seems to show is incomprehensible anime dreck, or bug-eyed Ren & Stimpy clones, or anime clones (the only good stuff is ATHF and Harvey Birdman)

 

[jc]

MTV - ditto

VH1 - ditto

And that's unfortunately due music found/moved elsewhere such as MTV Jams, MTV Hits, and VH1 Classic on digital cable/satellite, if you're lucky to have it (which I don't). In my area, Cable One Digital doesn't carriy them but they carry The Tube.

All Cartoon Network seems to show is incomprehensible anime dreck, or bug-eyed Ren & Stimpy clones, or anime clones (the only good stuff is ATHF and Harvey Birdman)

The cartoons that Cartoon Network use to show when they first started are on Boomerang but even they some original CN programs (and probably more moving there) that have nothing to do with what's Boomerang suppoesed to be. I wonder how long it will be before Boomerang becomes CN 2.

 

[Obtuse1]

CN/Boomerang's biggest blunder IMHO...no more Looney Tunes. Wish someone else would step up to the plate and air these again (hopefuly un-sanitized). I do like the Adult Swim lineup (Family Guy, Futurama, ATHF, Harvey Birdman), and the recent re-airing of "Pee Wee's Playhouse". I could have done without "Saved By The Bell", though.

 

[anotherguyTN]

The pre-1948 looney Tunes are back on Boomerang, along with Tom & Jerry and Popeye. Unfortunately, the post-48 LTs are still not being shown anywhere.