Rubbish programmes on many channels: why?

Voyager2002

It is a long time since I watched TV, but I have good memories of "Play for Today" and the Dennis Potter dramas, and some great documentaries that really made you think...

Now with this new digital TV, all I can get is the most brain-numbing 'entertainment'. Designed to snuff out any thought processes in the viewer, and deliver us properly sedated to the advertisers.

Is this a problem with the technology? Or maybe it is a way to find the money to pay for the technology?

What do I have to do to get high quality TV of the kind that used to be available in the 1970s?

Mobeer

The problem is choice - now there are many channels, splitting the audience up into smaller numbers, giving less revenue, giving less to spend on programme making whilst still making a nice profit margin.

But if we did not have choice, then we would all stuck with just the big audience programmes like Big Brother, Strictly Come Dancing, Eastenders and other junk TV.

To get high quality TV, the answer to me is:
1 - record such good programmes that are on at awkward times (e.g., the BBC4 Japan series) and watch at normal times
2 - buy DVDs of the few shows shows that are actually good but need a Sky subscription

Inactive

I agree with the OP, we now have a huge choice of cheap tat programmes that really are not worth watching, most of them dumbed down to cater to almost kindergarten levels.

It is getting almost as bad as American TV, the adverts are now dominating the programmes and almost taking the same amount of airtime.:(

weegie.geek

Voyager2002 wrote: »

What do I have to do to get high quality TV of the kind that used to be available in the 1970s?

There were three channels then, which didn't even run 24/7. Now there are hundreds, most of which do. They need to fill the timeslots with something, and it just so happens that the masses love the cheapest stuff. Unfortunately, the stuff that IMO constitutes good TV isn't cheap.

There are those of us who don't like most of it, but we don't have to watch it. There's still more watchable stuff on these days than there were then, there's just a higher proportion of crap. Then there were things you weren't interested in, and things you were. Now there's godawful stuff as well.

http://tvlistings.thetvroomplus.com/listing-2215.html - seriously? Synchronised swimming, wimbledon, cricket and a few American imports. Proportionally more of them than you'd get on BBC1 these days, in fact.

The other side was no better. http://tvlistings.thetvroomplus.com/listing-2221.html

These days we're spoiled for choice, with the added bonus that with two button presses we can record things to watch at our leisure, and we can easily fast forward past the annoying adverts.

Good luck with your rose tinted glasses, but telly-wise we've never had it so good. Channels devoted to news and documentaries, channels just for sport, just for kids, just for comedy... There are quirky minority interest shows that would never have been greenlit back then, because everything had to appeal to the masses. The same is true with the main channels today to a degree, it's just that "the masses" now are a very different beast.

Like you say, you've been out of the loop, but there's lots of good stuff out there, it might just not be on the flagship stations, at prime time.

Fifer

As with everything, our memory of TV from decades ago is filtered by time and we remember (to state the obvious) only that which is memorable. We forget the dross and, believe me, dross there was in abundance.

The big difference is that then (as weegie.geek has pointed out) we had three channels operating for 8 hours each a day. Now we have hundreds of channels operating 24 hours a day, with not much more funding from the licence fee or from advertising revenue. It's therefore hardly surprising that much of the extra capacity has consits of cheap filler and the surprise is that there's actually some very good stuff in there.

I'd argue that there is just as much quality television as there ever was ( and possibly even more) but the much greater growth in not so good TV (filling most of the extra capacity) makes the situation appear different. The overall quantity of good TV is no worse than it was. It's the good:bad ratio which has deteriorated.

Trollfever

I guess that the OP has never watched TV in the USA.

Inactive

Trollfever wrote: »

I guess that the OP has never watched TV in the USA.

It is getting almost as bad here as it is in the US.

aloiseb

I don't like the long long ad breaks, especially when I've only got a small amount of video tape left to tape something which is purportedly an hour long but which I know will only be 45 - 50 minutes plus ads!
However, there seems to be a trend to make them less frequent but longer - I've noticed this in "Lewis" for example - which at least leaves time to make a cup of tea!

prowla

I mainly watch recorded programmes on the Sky+ box.
I get to pick and choose what and when I watch.
It's especially handy when there are two things on at the same time; you don't have to choose either/or, but can have both.
You can also skip the adverts.

I mentioned Sky+, but there are freeview recorders available, so the facility is there too.

debtworrier

aloiseb wrote: »

I don't like the long long ad breaks, especially when I've only got a small amount of video tape left to tape something which is purportedly an hour long but which I know will only be 45 - 50 minutes plus ads!
However, there seems to be a trend to make them less frequent but longer - I've noticed this in "Lewis" for example - which at least leaves time to make a cup of tea!

I've actually given up trying to watch films on commercial channels because (1) the new habit of jumping suddenly to commercial without a title-screen makes them annoyingly intrusive, and (2) because the breaks themselves are now so long that I get bored and go off to do something else.

I appreciate that the increase in available ad-slots has meant that the income per advert has gone down, but from my perspective as a viewer, you can only dilute a product so much before it becomes not worth having. So rather than having squeezed more "eyeball-ad-seconds" (or whatever they call it) out of me, they've lost my attention completely.

I look forward to being able to record TV, but at the moment I just can't find the money for a DVD recorder. ("Mummy, what are shoes?" "Just shut up and keep polishing your toes, darling.")

ninky_2

Voyager2002 wrote: »

It is a long time since I watched TV, but I have good memories of "Play for Today" and the Dennis Potter dramas, and some great documentaries that really made you think...

Now with this new digital TV, all I can get is the most brain-numbing 'entertainment'. Designed to snuff out any thought processes in the viewer, and deliver us properly sedated to the advertisers.

Is this a problem with the technology? Or maybe it is a way to find the money to pay for the technology?

What do I have to do to get high quality TV of the kind that used to be available in the 1970s?

it's because the profit motive is king in television these days. television is completely commodified - hence the appetite for long-running reality formats that are cheap to produce and easy to sell on. plus there is less social mobility into jobs in television as most people can only get to work in telly after considerable amounts of unpaid work experience or low paid work that doesn't fund living in london so they need to come from a rich background.