Who Killed Broadcast TV
An interesting thing is happening in my hometown of Denver, a several of the cities big broadcast TV stations are literally begging the public for support in their efforts to build a new digital TV tower on Lookout Mountain west of the city.
It seems some local homeowners don’t like the idea of a monstrous broadcast tower in their backyard and the local politicians are paying more attention to them than the TV stations. They’re actually running hysterical ads reminiscent of political campaign propaganda that scream people will loose free over the air broadcast TV. This is an interesting state of affairs, a medium that was once the most arguably influential force in American life literally begging for its life in the court of public opinion.
So we have to ask who killed Broadcast TV? Or more importantly when did it die and does anybody care? I found myself asking that because the only thing I watch on broadcast TV is the morning newscast as I make breakfast because I want the day’s weather to see how I should dress for work. In the evenings I still watch a lot of TV but it’s almost all DVDs, since I don’t have cable at the moment, the DVDs are of old movies, classic TV shows, cartoons and cable shows in other words the stuff I like. Interestingly enough the only contemporary TV shows I watch on DVD are cable shows such as “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Sopranos,” “Deadwood,” “The Shield” and “Sleeper Cell.” The rest of the stuff I watch is old classics “The Rockford Files,” “Wiseguy,” “The Avengers,” “The Prisoner,” “Dr. Who” and all manner of old movies.
Could the real reason that people are not watching broadcast TV is that there is little on it worth watching and there’s plenty of other stuff to watch? After all the alternatives are cheap, you can order cable or satellite TV for about $50 a month, you can buy a decent DVD player for $30 if you shop the sales. Netflix will ship virtually any DVD to your door for a few bucks, and if you’re a real cheapskate like me you can find ninety percent of them at the public library for free.
Why would anybody in their right mind watch “Dancing With the Stars” when you’ve got “The Sopranos” on HBO and “The Rockford Files” and “Casablanca” on DVD? That’s the question the public is asking and guess what their answer is. I recently tried to reserve “The Sopranos” from the Denver Public Library every DVD of it was checked out. Want to reserve a DVD of a thirty year old episode of the classic British science fiction show Dr. Who, you have a long wait.
Don’t believe me, watch a DVD of “The Sopranos” then watch a new network show especially something truly embarrassing like “Bones” and compare. A five year old “Sopranos” has me on the edge of my seat, twenty minutes of “Bones” I yawn and feel like checking my e-mail. “Bones”(a completely brainless revival of Quincy) is especially horrifying because it stars David Boreanas a great actor who formally appeared in truly entertaining shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” which were broadcast TV’s last dying gasp at anything truly original.
The only things keeping broadcast TV going are sports and local news. CNN and Fox took national and international news away from the networks ten years ago. The rest of the programming on local TV looks like something for the brain dead, reruns of two year old sitcoms nobody watched when they were first on, reality shows, infomercials and the freak shows put on by Jerry Springer & company. Today, the only time the average person watches his local broadcast station is to catch the game or the local news.
The minute the game’s over they switch right over to the History Channel, TCM or HBO or reach for the video game or the DVD collection. And why not, today’s broadcast TV is largely an abomination is there anything on it as good as there was twenty years ago. Back then classics like “Cheers,” “The Cosby Show,” “Newhart, “Star Trek: the Next Generation,” “Wiseguy,” “The A Team,” “Crime Story” and “Hill Street Blues” populated the airwaves. These were prime time network or syndicated shows and they were better than anything on Fox today. Yes there’s “24” but has “24” done anything that “The Sopranos” wasn’t doing six years ago?
To make matters worse, classic television has largely disappeared from broadcast TV. My generation loves TV because we grew up with the best of it, not just what the networks were showing at the moment but the good old stuff. When I was a kid in Colorado in the 1970s and 80s our local independent station Channel 2 broadcast seven or eight hours of classic TV a day. We got to watch it all “McHale’s Navy,” “Superman,” “I Love Lucy,” “The Honeymooners,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Leave It To Beaver,” “The Wild Wild West,” “The Rockford Files,” “Bonanza,” “It Takes A Thief” (the only time Robert Wagner ever acted), “Star Trek,”(ask any kid who grew up in the seventies he or she can probably tell you what time the local station showed the Star Trek reruns when they were in school in Denver it was 3:00 p.m. on Channel 4) “the Avengers” and we loved it. When I was a kid what Channel 2 was showing when we got home was a big topic of discussion in the hallways of my school.
During the night when there wasn’t a game they’d show classic movies (real classics with guys like John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart) in prime time, imagine a local commercial broadcast TV station showing a Bogart festival in black and white Channel 2 did that in the early 1980s. Another local station Channel Four showed classic movies like Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” as afternoon filler fare. I first saw “Casablanca,” “High Sierra” and “The African Queen” on Channel 2 and concluded that Bogie was the greatest actor in the universe. Today I still live in Denver and I can’t remember the last time I watched Channel 2. Of course Bogie hasn’t appeared on Channel 2 since I was in junior high interesting coincidence.
Our local Public TV station, Channel Six added to the fun by pumping out a lot of the classic British stuff, “Dr. Who,” “The Prisoner,” (I remember staying up late on Friday nights just to watch it), “Blake’s Seven,” “Fawlty Towers,” “Monty Python,” “Good Neighbors,” “Yes Minister,” and lots of classic British miniseries like “I Claudius,” Jeremy Britt’s “Sherlock Holmes,” and “Private Schultz” under its “Mystery” and “Masterpiece Theater” labels. In those days PBS hadn’t yet become a medium for leftist propaganda and many of its programmers still felt their duty was to show quality programming.
I have to ask is anybody twenty or thirty years from now going to look nostalgically back on “American Idol” and “Deal or No Deal?” Maybe these things will be answers to Trivial Pursuit Questions that’s about it Although I imagine people will still be watching “The Sopranos,” “The Rockford Files” and “I Love Lucy” at that time. Of course by then there will be no such thing as broadcast TV and the digital TV towers will be of interest only to scrap dealers.
So who killed broadcast TV we did because we were given a choice? And broadcast TV did by forcing us to turn elsewhere for something to watch.
It seems some local homeowners don’t like the idea of a monstrous broadcast tower in their backyard and the local politicians are paying more attention to them than the TV stations. They’re actually running hysterical ads reminiscent of political campaign propaganda that scream people will loose free over the air broadcast TV. This is an interesting state of affairs, a medium that was once the most arguably influential force in American life literally begging for its life in the court of public opinion.
So we have to ask who killed Broadcast TV? Or more importantly when did it die and does anybody care? I found myself asking that because the only thing I watch on broadcast TV is the morning newscast as I make breakfast because I want the day’s weather to see how I should dress for work. In the evenings I still watch a lot of TV but it’s almost all DVDs, since I don’t have cable at the moment, the DVDs are of old movies, classic TV shows, cartoons and cable shows in other words the stuff I like. Interestingly enough the only contemporary TV shows I watch on DVD are cable shows such as “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Sopranos,” “Deadwood,” “The Shield” and “Sleeper Cell.” The rest of the stuff I watch is old classics “The Rockford Files,” “Wiseguy,” “The Avengers,” “The Prisoner,” “Dr. Who” and all manner of old movies.
Could the real reason that people are not watching broadcast TV is that there is little on it worth watching and there’s plenty of other stuff to watch? After all the alternatives are cheap, you can order cable or satellite TV for about $50 a month, you can buy a decent DVD player for $30 if you shop the sales. Netflix will ship virtually any DVD to your door for a few bucks, and if you’re a real cheapskate like me you can find ninety percent of them at the public library for free.
Why would anybody in their right mind watch “Dancing With the Stars” when you’ve got “The Sopranos” on HBO and “The Rockford Files” and “Casablanca” on DVD? That’s the question the public is asking and guess what their answer is. I recently tried to reserve “The Sopranos” from the Denver Public Library every DVD of it was checked out. Want to reserve a DVD of a thirty year old episode of the classic British science fiction show Dr. Who, you have a long wait.
Don’t believe me, watch a DVD of “The Sopranos” then watch a new network show especially something truly embarrassing like “Bones” and compare. A five year old “Sopranos” has me on the edge of my seat, twenty minutes of “Bones” I yawn and feel like checking my e-mail. “Bones”(a completely brainless revival of Quincy) is especially horrifying because it stars David Boreanas a great actor who formally appeared in truly entertaining shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” which were broadcast TV’s last dying gasp at anything truly original.
The only things keeping broadcast TV going are sports and local news. CNN and Fox took national and international news away from the networks ten years ago. The rest of the programming on local TV looks like something for the brain dead, reruns of two year old sitcoms nobody watched when they were first on, reality shows, infomercials and the freak shows put on by Jerry Springer & company. Today, the only time the average person watches his local broadcast station is to catch the game or the local news.
The minute the game’s over they switch right over to the History Channel, TCM or HBO or reach for the video game or the DVD collection. And why not, today’s broadcast TV is largely an abomination is there anything on it as good as there was twenty years ago. Back then classics like “Cheers,” “The Cosby Show,” “Newhart, “Star Trek: the Next Generation,” “Wiseguy,” “The A Team,” “Crime Story” and “Hill Street Blues” populated the airwaves. These were prime time network or syndicated shows and they were better than anything on Fox today. Yes there’s “24” but has “24” done anything that “The Sopranos” wasn’t doing six years ago?
To make matters worse, classic television has largely disappeared from broadcast TV. My generation loves TV because we grew up with the best of it, not just what the networks were showing at the moment but the good old stuff. When I was a kid in Colorado in the 1970s and 80s our local independent station Channel 2 broadcast seven or eight hours of classic TV a day. We got to watch it all “McHale’s Navy,” “Superman,” “I Love Lucy,” “The Honeymooners,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Leave It To Beaver,” “The Wild Wild West,” “The Rockford Files,” “Bonanza,” “It Takes A Thief” (the only time Robert Wagner ever acted), “Star Trek,”(ask any kid who grew up in the seventies he or she can probably tell you what time the local station showed the Star Trek reruns when they were in school in Denver it was 3:00 p.m. on Channel 4) “the Avengers” and we loved it. When I was a kid what Channel 2 was showing when we got home was a big topic of discussion in the hallways of my school.
During the night when there wasn’t a game they’d show classic movies (real classics with guys like John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart) in prime time, imagine a local commercial broadcast TV station showing a Bogart festival in black and white Channel 2 did that in the early 1980s. Another local station Channel Four showed classic movies like Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” as afternoon filler fare. I first saw “Casablanca,” “High Sierra” and “The African Queen” on Channel 2 and concluded that Bogie was the greatest actor in the universe. Today I still live in Denver and I can’t remember the last time I watched Channel 2. Of course Bogie hasn’t appeared on Channel 2 since I was in junior high interesting coincidence.
Our local Public TV station, Channel Six added to the fun by pumping out a lot of the classic British stuff, “Dr. Who,” “The Prisoner,” (I remember staying up late on Friday nights just to watch it), “Blake’s Seven,” “Fawlty Towers,” “Monty Python,” “Good Neighbors,” “Yes Minister,” and lots of classic British miniseries like “I Claudius,” Jeremy Britt’s “Sherlock Holmes,” and “Private Schultz” under its “Mystery” and “Masterpiece Theater” labels. In those days PBS hadn’t yet become a medium for leftist propaganda and many of its programmers still felt their duty was to show quality programming.
I have to ask is anybody twenty or thirty years from now going to look nostalgically back on “American Idol” and “Deal or No Deal?” Maybe these things will be answers to Trivial Pursuit Questions that’s about it Although I imagine people will still be watching “The Sopranos,” “The Rockford Files” and “I Love Lucy” at that time. Of course by then there will be no such thing as broadcast TV and the digital TV towers will be of interest only to scrap dealers.
So who killed broadcast TV we did because we were given a choice? And broadcast TV did by forcing us to turn elsewhere for something to watch.
posted by great one at 8:19 AM
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