the most annoying aspect of modern television

[Maine-i-ac]

I don't honesty remember back when they first began the practice, that programs didn't actually "have" closing credits... as they (for the most part) don't have anymore. Every show runs tight to the top of the hour, so it's a quick close/promo, then the start of the next show, or news... etc.

Interesting that you would bring that up today. I was watching the first episode of "How I Met Your Mother" last night in syndication and there at the end were actual closing credits over theme music. I'd never seen that before thanks to CBS' way of running squeezed, fast credits along the bottom while promoting some other show. It took me a minute to get used to it.

Also, for those who did point out that "Lucy" would run more than once a day back in the day. OK, I'll admit that. My point was that it didn't happen with every show, especially with those that only had a 100 or so episodes.

 

[nightfly61]

Used to be great to see "My Three Sons" on at 7pm, All In the Family at 1am, Jeffersons at 2am, Three's Company at 3am. When I still had cable, seemed all I ever saw at night was "Scrubs", "Seinfeld" & infomercials...which brings another annoying aspect of modern t.v- infomercials that not only last from 1am 'til 9am (like on RTV) but infomercials that star folks like Montel Williams, tricking first time viewers into thinking they're watching Montel(until the disclaimer pops up) :. Curious, does TBS in Atlanta still run cool old shows at night?

 

[onairb]

Used to be great to see "My Three Sons" on at 7pm, All In the Family at 1am, Jeffersons at 2am, Three's Company at 3am. When I still had cable, seemed all I ever saw at night was "Scrubs", "Seinfeld" & infomercials...which brings another annoying aspect of modern t.v- infomercials that not only last from 1am 'til 9am (like on RTV) but infomercials that star folks like Montel Williams, tricking first time viewers into thinking they're watching Montel(until the disclaimer pops up) :. Curious, does TBS in Atlanta still run cool old shows at night?

No, just..I dunno, 'Scrubs' and 'Seinfeld' and infomercials. :
Nobody runs 'cool old shows' anymore...or at least, no channels that are actually avaialble to more than five people.
If anybody did, there wouldn't be so many threads wanting to see 'cool old shows' again

 

[RBW]

Curious, does TBS in Atlanta still run cool old shows at night?

Noooo... maybe TV Land, but that would be it. Incidentally... TBS is now "cable only". Its original Atlanta channel, (still on 17?) is now called "Peachtree TV" and runs a completely different schedule than the TBS most of the nation sees. (((Cable in Canada has Peachtree)))

 

[firepoint525]

Infomercials with disclaimers like "results not typical" or "your results may vary." These are usually seen with weight-loss and money-making ("get rich quick") infomercials. What they don't tell you is that 99% of the people out there DON'T make that kind of money selling real estate, or lose 100 pounds in a week (or whatever). :

 

[Obtuse1]

Copyright flags/HDCP.

 

[azumanga]

Infomercials with disclaimers like "results not typical" or "your results may vary." These are usually seen with weight-loss and money-making ("get rich quick") infomercials. What they don't tell you is that 99% of the people out there DON'T make that kind of money selling real estate, or lose 100 pounds in a week (or whatever). :

And for weight loss quackery, they cover themselves by saying if, for example, they'll refund the money if they don't lose up to 10 pounds in 30 days. In other words, if you've lost only half a pound, it "worked".

 

[LKellerIII]

Infomercials with disclaimers like "results not typical" or "your results may vary." These are usually seen with weight-loss and money-making ("get rich quick") infomercials. What they don't tell you is that 99% of the people out there DON'T make that kind of money selling real estate, or lose 100 pounds in a week (or whatever). :

And for weight loss quackery, they cover themselves by saying if, for example, they'll refund the money if they don't lose up to 10 pounds in 30 days. In other words, if you've lost only half a pound, it "worked".

I've always figured that the secret to those "money back if not satisfied" guarantees is pure psychology. People hear that guarantee, so they think that the product must really work - so they buy it. But I'd guess that very few dissatisfied customers ever go to the trouble to send it back - they just throw it away.

Generally, you have to "return the unused portion" to get your money back, which means you have to take the time to box it up, take it to the post office, stand in line, and pay postage. Most people don't bother.

So even if the quack medicine manufacturers have to return money to one of of every ten customers, they've still made a big profit considering how cheap their quack meds are to produce.

 

[searadiofreak]

I would like to personally thank TVLand for bringing back All In The Family to primetime. I understand that TV land, as well as other cable nets tend to "rest" programs occasionally, but this show is one of the best, especially 1971-1975. Thanks. Younger viewers should watch to see how TV changed with this show, it truely was a change in TV culture.

 

[landtuna]

Younger viewers should watch to see how TV changed with this show, it truely was a change in TV culture.

Younger viewers would first have to understand what TV culture was like prior to AITF before they could understand the changes.

 

[MattParker]

I am a Tivo user: I hate shows getting clipped because they start early or late, end early or late and the actual shows runs wall to wall with no station break, opening or closing. The shows keep running over the credits and then gets cut off.

I also hate actor credits being run over the first segment of the show with no indication of who plays who. If I see a character who looks sort of familiar, no way to look at the end and find where else I've seen him (if I remember I go to IMDB).

 

[FreddyE1977]

and I found a new one.......CMT, now that they've brought back The Dukes of Hazzard, I notice that they scroll a dark red
band across the top of the screen to promote upcoming shows several times an hour. It is either in a particularly bad place or is a particularly annoying color, because it is very distracting. Really scrunches down the viewable portion of the picture, especially in 480i. Some of the goofball animated ones used by TBS, USA, etc. are no better.

 

[LKellerIII]

I am a Tivo user: I hate shows getting clipped because they start early or late, end early or late and the actual shows runs wall to wall with no station break, opening or closing. The shows keep running over the credits and then gets cut off.

I'm also a heavy DVR user. You can set preferences for starting and ending times. I always program it to start the shows 1 minute early, and end 1 minute late. That usually solves the problem.

 

[MattParker]

I'm also a heavy DVR user. You can set preferences for starting and ending times. I always program it to start the shows 1 minute early, and end 1 minute late. That usually solves the problem.
[/quote]

True enough. Except when I want to pad the 9pm show and there are two shows at 10 I want to record. This doesn't happen all the time but happens enough to be an irritant. Then there are certain cable channels, like TV Land, which are so far off schedule I don't even bother trying to record them anymore.

Public Television is even worse. They schedule their pledge week specials and they build in time for their begommercials. But the phones are ringing, the host is on a roll, so they keep ranting for dollars. As they keep going through the day, shows get pushed further and further off schedule. Usually I add an hour and sometimes that's not even enough. A time or two they decided to drop something and the show I wanted to watch actually started more than a half hour early. Once upon a time, except for sports and national emergencies, the schedule was sacred.

 

[WPPCProductions]

I remember the 5 minutes late on tbs.I always pad my tapings 2 to 3 minutes start time and leave a 5 to 10 minute at the tail on timed recorded shows.also If I know if sports programming is running before the show I want to see ,I will give the timer about 1 to 2 hours extra to record.I see tv is not as bad as radio is on programs start times I see on local radio some show will start 5 minutes before the hour or 5 to 10 minutes after the hour.{No news on the hour and this is live radio ,not web streams}.

 

[imhomerjay]

When does someone shout "Hey you kids, get off my lawn?"