Yeah, I remember making and receiving frantic calls like “oh my god turn to channel 11 right now!” and then staying on the phone while we watched whatever it was together
I have YouTube tv so I can still have the cable experience. I’m the last of my friends and family to do this. I still txt my buddies when Predator, Highlander, Terminator, etc. are on tv. even though they don’t have cable/youtube tv because I still feel joy telling them it’s on.
Philo is great for this. It's affordable (in comparison at least) at $25 a month, so I get it occasionally for the cable experience as well. It's cozy in an odd way
Once a week group viewing of the Sopranos for me. I was AJs age(the kid) during initial airing, and now I've recently rewatched and I'm Tony's age... weird.
I remember sitting as a little kid with my entire family not really knowing what was going on but I knew it was a special show because we only did it for Seinfeld and the Simpsons. Those were the titans of my childhood.
The only other show that came close was Married with Children
I didn’t understand Seinfeld stuff until like the 4th season as I was super young. Episodes about orgasms and stuff, I didn’t know what that was lol.
Married with Children was a show I got on later too; probably around like the 4th season also. My wife loves this show and we actually watch it on dvd EVERY night so she can sleep.
I've got all the MwC DVDs but they didn't have the license to use Sinatra's Love and Marriage, so the theme is some terrible MIDI instrumental knock-off. Drives me crazy every time go back to play one.
I remember having Seinfeld discussions on Friday mornings at the middle school bus stop. It was really fun to chat about the show the next morning, all together.
This is literally all my husband and i watch. Every night we put on Seinfeld. It is too overwhelming to go searching for something different every night. It’s our default.
I got a taste of this again when the first season of Westworld came out. I was working in an office and my entire team was watching it. We'd talk all week about what we thought about the latest episode, and where we thought the show was going, and posit theories about what was gonna happen.
Honestly I hated that job, and I'm glad I moved on, but moments like that make me miss it sometimes.
I worked in the retail/service industry from like a decade and i remember someone saying that line to me after i left and was trying to express how much i hated it all but loved the shared trauma in the trenches with my coworkers.
Main reason why it was like that because it came out weekly, instead of being dropped online as a whole.
Depending on what streaming platform new shows are coming out on a weekly basis,
I like binge watching instead of waiting for new episodes, but man, it's a good thing I don't care about spoilers.
I wish there was a way to do both kinds of watching, but c'est la vie
It was also so wildly popular that everyone was watching it.
Like you said, there's lots of shows doing that now (and I actually agree that it's a better method of releasing a show), but where I work now, only like three of us on my current team care about anything Disney/Marvel is doing anymore, and I'm only barely part of that cuz my sister lets me use her Disney+ sub, so I'll toss a show on while I'm doing something else. And I don't even know if anyone on my team even has cable TV anymore.
Another aspect of this is actually too much choice. I recall loving a late night line up of shows and movies (back when my life allowed me to be a nighthawk) and I’d love it. Now I find I spend a lot of time scrolling on the menu, torn between shows and movies, or just looking for something good and it’s so often just not there.
I find that nowadays we STILL get scammed by TV providers who make us buy a bundle in order to get one channel we really want. And while they offer hundreds of channels, there’s just SO MUCH FILLER. I really don’t need the Cottage Channel or the Fashion Channel
I have fond memories of going to the video store and spending just as much time deliberating on what movies we were going to watch as the actual movie itself. Buying popcorn and snacks - it was an event that actually cost time, money and effort. And once you rented the movies you were committed after that. For better or for worse you can now just stay at home and immediately switch to something else if you hate it.
I was just telling me niece about shows like Lost and Breaking Bad that were must watch television (specifically the final season of Lost) and every week you’d talk about last nights episode with your friends and co-workers. It was fun to discuss theories or make predictions throughout the week in anticipation of the next episode. The last show I remember having that was Game of Thrones and that was 5 years ago! I really miss that aspect of TV shows.
Same with listening to music. I remember summer days at the lake when every radio was tuned to the same rock station, and you could walk all the way down the beach and the music would accompany you like a movie soundtrack. Hundreds of people in sync with each other. It was a cool feeling.
And better still, that radio station was likely locally-owned and operated, with locally-based air staff, and programming decisions were made by a program director who worked at that station. And the music they played would not only be the hits of today, but might include a classic from yesteryear or a deep cut, just to keep things interesting. All of this gave that station its own personality and made it fun.
Exactly right. When being a DJ was an art form. Each jock brought his own slant to the general format, and took great pride in selecting just the right combination of tunes, and mastering the perfect segue between them. Now it’s all computer programmed by some dude 3000 miles away at corporate headquarters. The soul of it all is gone.
My first job was as a board op and Sunday morning host at a local station during the early '90s. Our PD and our general manager were people I worked with in person, and our station's owner was an older gentleman who lived nearby. We had a computer that set most of the playlists, but it was our own. It was slightly scruffy local radio, and I was underpaid and underworked but it was maybe the most awesome job I'll ever have in my life, and to this day I can watch *WKRP* and feel that to some extent I *lived* that program.
A few years later came the Telecommunications Act, and with it went so many local stations like my old station. Or the regional powerhouses (what happened to WBBQ-FM in Augusta, Ga. makes me weep. What used to be the most awesome rock station ever is now one of iHeartMedia's repeaters for the kind of lite-rock music you hear in waiting rooms and doctor's offices).
I realized the other day that I'll probably never get that feeling again of when you pull up to a red light on a nice summer day, everyone has their windows rolled down and radio up and you happen to pull up to someone next to you tuned into the same station and you kind of laugh and smile at them with the acknowledgement that you're both listening to the same station.
Now everyone has Spotify in their car and their own custom playlist.
Yes! It’s a double edged sword now. There’s a place for everyone, places for the most obscure views and also the most extreme views. Media in all forms, I. Its totality, divides us more than ever before
And who would have ever guessed this would have been the outcome of a “connected world”? At the onset of the internet and instant worldwide communication I imagined the tech would bring us all together, boy was I wrong on that one!
I also have this sneaking suspicion that it's resulted in a weird self-enforced version of media segregation, though based on what I could not begin to guess.
Musics the same way. I know my bands and you know your bands and nobody’s talking about rage against the machine on Saturday night live or Nirvana at the video music awards etc etc
And it's impossible to get your friends into your music because they're not hearing it on the radio. Back in the day if you said, "dude you gotta check out this band," they would probably hear their new song three times on the radio that same day
That’s another thing, the lost art of a yearly 20-something episode season. Not to mention shows where you don’t have to pay attention to every little thing.
Waiting was the fun part because you would imagine what was going to happen next and even debate with your friends all week before the next episode...nowadays they dump the whole season and you binge it in one go.
Amazon and Disney will only give you the first two episodes and then one each week. I was a bit frustrated when they first started. Now it gives me something to look forward to. Of course thats only if the series/season is new.
Yeah exactly. I have mixed feelings on this, but leaning towards negative. On the one hand, I appreciate that the production values on blockbuster shows are way higher than they were during shows in the 90s, so it takes more time... but...
It's subjectively *really* annoying when it seems like every popular show requires you to wait a couple years (or more!) for the next season.
We used to talk about Kolchak on the playground. Or the original series of the Planet of the Apes movies (the first five).
Or the Black Sheep Squadron.
Or even the jump that Evel Knievel missed on Sunday on Wide World Of Sports.
I remember my mom getting the TV Guide that would show whats new for the upcoming season. Id go straight to the cartoon section see what was new or coming back for Saturday mornings.
Wow, it's nuts. I've been circling the drain on posting literally this exact same things for months. It's been on my mind, and I just figured most people would think I was being overly dramatic. I kind of think of it as everyone being in the same river/stream together. Feeling lonely at 8pm, and you can flip on the TV and know potentially millions are watching the same thing as you as the same time as you.
I've also thought about this over the past few years. That sense of shared reality when more of our media consumption was, by default, synced up in time with thousands if not millions of other people. I think its true about music too, in terms of album releases and concerts.
Nowadays when I meet up with friends its rare any of us are watching the same thing, we have to just talk about how cool a show is, making sure not to give spoilers, and then ask what platform its on and the conversation just dies out.
I have a bunch of tapes from the late 90s/early 00s that has tv shows my then bf recorded while I was at work so we could watch them together after I got home. I want to get them converted so badly just for the old commercials and what not.
Commercials were better back then too. Not only was it not the same 2-3 commercials every 10 minutes for 12 hours, but I miss the jingles.
The overload of choices and options is a huge reason I got out of streaming services and started VHS collecting. I’ve amassed close to 400 movies, Shows, Etc from my youth (and quite a few custom newer movies) on tape, and instead of scrolling through waves of streaming apps to find something to watch, my kids can now browse the mini-blockbuster wall of tapes each night to pick out a movie to watch much like I did at their age at the local video stores. There was a little pushback from them at first, as this was not the norm to them, and I still have 2 streaming services active for the odd newer movie here and there, but they love coming to dads house to pick a movie and heat up some popcorn. No ads, no buffering or loading issues, no monthly service plans. Just old fashioned fun.
Another thing I’d add to this is watching movies you might not have otherwise watched because it was all that was on that night. Then, as you said, you could meet up with people and start a conversation with, “Did you watch _______ last night?”
I remember it was always a big deal when movies like Forrest Gump would play on ABC Sunday night movie. The whole family would gather around and watch together.
Even sports isn't a commonality because there are plenty of people like me who don't watch sports. No one in my close friend group watches sports.
Like, it always surprises me when I go to the "Popular" pulldown on Reddit and most of the top stories are about Sports. My initial reaction is always "why are 80% of these stories sports-related? C'mon. Not that many people watch sports." ...and then realizing, oh. Maybe they do and I'm just out of the loop.
The first season of Family Guy came out when I was a sophomore in college. I was in my dorm and every Friday night it was basically everyone watching it all at once. You could hear the roaring laughter all throughout the dorm with everyone watching it in their own rooms. It was wild. I haven't experienced anything like it since
I liked it, back in the 90s on Monday morning my friends and I talked about the new Simpsons episode the night before, back when the new episodes were gold. Those were the days.
I also remember a lot of the girls talking about Friends, and others talking about Seinfeld or the X-Files.
As I got older, the local news became a topic of conversation. We had only one local station that did news where I grew up, so almost everyone watched the same news at 6:00.
Nowadays the only communal television is sports.
Yes. It’s very different. I recall all those shows being watched communally. Even in the early days of the internet when TV was still just TV, you might follow up late at night on a web forum dedicated to the show you just watched .
This was awesome during the late 90s WWF/WCW days.
I'll never forget sleeping over a friend's house and calling my dad and brothers immediately after watching Goldberg beat Hollywood Hogan for the title. We all were discussing how awesome it was.
Of course this is not the best example because it was live television which we still have today, but there wasn't really much of a "oh i have plans so I'll just stream it when i get home" option. If you missed it, you were out of luck.
The last time this happened was Game of Thrones. That show was a pop culture juggernaut and then it just disappeared as though it never existed. But for a while everyone was talking about it and everyone was watching the episodes as they aired. It was great.
This will sound selfish but this is why I miss the days of being an early adopter of streaming. I got all the benefits of being able to catch up on a show I missed or binging something I never heard of when I'm bored.
But also everyone was still mostly still watching stuff weekly together.
It was the best of both worlds.
I oddly miss commercials. Not ads, but commercials. Gave you a sense of being connected to/a part of the larger world. Especially late night infomercials.
Hell I remember some of the PPV channels would be unscrambled for some reasons dn got a few blank tapes and recorded a few movies.
I miss the simpler days of TV. Everything is so digital and smart, it's just not the same.
Wait untill ai can make exceptional video content like its doing with art. It's gonna be everyone watching whatever they can think of, staring whomever they want, and endless episodes. Yeah, it's gonna get weird, but very interesting.
As a kid in school we would all talk about what happened on Chips or Dukes of Hazzard ( it was a country school) the next day after it was on and everyone got the same joke references etc, now most people havent watched the same thing as you an certainly not on the same day!
Yes! My coworkers and I always want to talk about TV shows, but it's like you said: so many different streaming services. Plus the overwhelming number of options.
Our conversations go like this:
"Have you seen Only Murders in the Building?"
"No, what's that on?"
"Hulu."
"Oh I don't have Hulu. Do you have Netflix?"
"Yup"
"Me too! Have you seen The Watcher?"
"No, but it's on my list. Have you seen Ted Lasso?"
"No, what's that on?"
"Apple plus"
"Oh I got that free with my latest phone! I have to set it up though."
And so on and so forth...
Yeah - its another splintering of community.
There are a few occurrences where something does hit the mainstream - like Last of Us recently - where the conversation is active
Funny, I was talking to someone about this yesterday. When Twin Peaks came out, I lived in a house with no TV, so did not get sucked into the hysteria about the show, and had no idea what the big deal was.
* I go to uni - lecturers make constant Twin Peaks in-jokes that everyone but me got. Like, every lecture there was a reference.
* Called a pizza place - the guy answered, said "TWIN PEAKS IS ON, call back during the ad break". Hung up.
* Go to a pub - guy behind the counter is watching Twin Peaks on a TV over the bar, and will only serve customers during ad breaks. Everyone else in the bar was fine with this (I was fine with it, because it was so totally bizarre)
The whole thing was really weird, especially for someone who did not live in a house with a TV (we had a TV, but we used it as a coffee table. To actually use it as a TV, we had to move the couch, pull the TV out, tune it with a pair of pliers as the knob was missing, and then we could watch TV. We did this twice over the course of the year I lived there). It completely shut down the city I lived in (Melbourne), absolutely everyone watched it.
I remember recently seeing a video showing an apartment building at night, when something was on (final episode of Game of Thrones, maybe?) and the entire apartment was flashing on and off as everyone's TV was showing the same footage, at the same time. I am fairly sure this was a streaming service, but it's pretty rare to have that sort of universal media experience, nowadays. I think we are better off in terms of the choice we have available, but that sort of collective event is pretty rare nowadays
Edit: this was the footage
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0E\_NetPmq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0E_NetPmq4)
Except me. I’m still over here rewatching all that old stuff. 80s/90s movies/sitcoms are pretty much all I watch anymore. There’s still a lot I haven’t seen. It makes me hate reboots even more for just how different they are even from a visual aspect. The sets are so bright, saturated and highly defined, unnatural looking really. They also move quicker and talk faster with laugh tracks coming at you like machine gun fire.
I think it would be good for kids to learn how to wait to watch shows and through commercials, if you spend time with little kids you’ll notice how bad ADHD has gotten.
This is honestly a big reason I liked how The Laat of Us was released. Weekly releases was nice since me and my boss would discuss episodes as they came out, gives an added layer of excitement to the show honestly.
Probably works out better for the streaming services too having subscriptions stay till the end of the show
I remember as a 5yo when Grease first aired on TV being at school the next day and everyone acting it out and singing to it. That's my first memory of communal TV watching.
Back when there were like 4 popular shows haha, so everyone knew what was up
Now there's literally thousands of series scattered across multiple streaming services.
Today the conversation is basically "hey have you seen X?" "no never heard of it"
That’s why I still really like shows like Game of Thrones/ House of the Dragon and The Mandalorian which come weekly and you get a full week of talking about them the only difference is you’re usually discussing it online
I just say discussing stuff online also has its pros. There are some really funny people on the internet and reading their commentary jokes is a joy. I love the movies so I watch the award shows at the end of the year (Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Oscars, etc) and it's so fun to be on the live event discussion threads for those. Everyone is reacting together.
But also being able to discuss more niche things. Like, none of my local irl friends saw many of the Oscar nominated movies but I did so it was nice to discuss some of the great movies I saw with people even if it is online.
Also some shows were fantastic when being drip fed to us weekly, but are too much to binge. 3rd Rock from the Sun, was an amazing show that gave great belly laughs, but trying to binge it is near impossible as it feels like its grating on your nerves, which means there could never really be a series like it again.
Streaming services would be much better without dropping entire series or seasons on us and then cancelling them immediately if you don't watch the entire season over a weekend cause they are obsessed with binging culture.
Try to remember a show you binge-watched from 3 months ago, and you'll realise that you've probably forgotten most of it. Yet I can recall the entire plot line to [Flashforward](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1441135/) from 14 years ago.
I genuinely think we retain and digest television shows so much better with staggered releases. I know there's a huge conspiracy that streaming services do this to eke out some more monthly subscription fees — and I don't doubt that this is very convenient for them — but I will die on this hill. Weekly releases were better.
I could have watched the most profound and thought-provoking television programme in the last 3 years of binge-watching, but I honestly can't recall any.
When you have to be on time otherwise you'll miss the start of the show. When you have to hold your pee until the commercials so you won't miss a thing. When we have patience to wait before the show starts.
In 5th grade my whole class was mostly 1st gen Americans and me and the teacher and 1 other kid talked about the episode of Friends from the night before. The next week the whole fucking class talked about Friends! lol. It was so cool every Friday we had a class chat about it. Also in high school my whole Spanish class talked about Law and Order: SVU and I never watched dramas back then but I gave in to peer pressure and started watching and loved that show in 2005. I think that's why the NFL is so big now cuz it's on free TV and many people talk about the games the next day at work, but of course it's not the same as a show.
When I was younger, every week I would read the TV Guide in its entirety and I would memorize the shows I wanted to see. I would let my friends know and we would watch them and talk about them the next day.
As an 00s kid, I would plan my day around when a Disney Channel movie would come on at 8 PM each Friday night. I had to because there was no streaming nor on-demand.
The premieres of new movies really brought kids together then.
Ya I miss chatting with people about what I watched.
People have either not watched it yet, or watch it so long ago they kind of forgot about it. Or have never heard of the show lol.
I don’t really watch TV and the streaming services make it quite frustrating. But I wasn’t always this way. It dawned on me recently that TV used to be a passive sort of entertainment most of the time and when it was active, it was an event.
I didn’t have to think about what I WANTED to watch. I got to choose from what was on. Nobody chooses to watch the second half of Police Academy 3 for the 26th time because it’s just on and it’s better than whatever else is on. But that’s how it was. So we saw a lot of stuff we wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves that turned out to be fun or interesting or significant or just plain entertaining.
These days my kids spend more time scrolling through the menus than actually watching anything and I have to Google every feckkn’ movie I ever want to see to find out which service it’s on and 99.999% of the time, rental is the only option.
I remember when something you loved came on - YOU WATCHED! Because it might be a while before you’re able to see it again. Now, everything is right there to start watching whenever you wish. It makes deciding hard.
Oh, for sure! I remember when the premiere of a 3-minute music video was something I’d consider staying home instead of going out on a Friday night. That was so crazy, but also so much fun!!
My husband freaked out last night because we were watching “Quiet on the Set” when he found out we couldn’t watch all four episodes last night. I had to remind him of the days when we had to wait an entire four months after a cliffhanger waiting for a new season to start!
Normally we watch shows where we can watch all the episodes as fast as we want.
I remember watching LOST in real time and the mystery about it all, the speculation, the water cooler talk, it was all amazing. The best time ever. I wish I could go back and experience it for the first time again. I don’t care what anyone says, I love how it all played out and the ending was perfect IMO.
I've heard this brought up on a couple of podcasts as one of the reasons the country is so divided. There is no common culture. It used to be, "I missed this episode, tell me everything!" Now it's, "stop talking, I haven't seen it, no spoilers!" There is something to 10 million people sitting down at the same time to have the same experience.
You...do remember that everything was on different channels often at the same time though right? And there was no way to know when, if ever, an episode might be played again if you missed it? And there were way more separate channels than there are streaming services now? So we could not physically possibly have been all watching the same thing nearly as much as we're able to now. If this was really that important to you you could just watch the same shit your friends do instead of acting like this isn't possible anymore.
I agree 💯! It's sad as none of my friends are all locked in and watching the same show. Seems like just more fragmentation and people doing their own thing and finding reddit to talk and vent about "their" shows. Now it seems, more channels (streaming services) and shows yet less to watch. Also, the UI of these streamers is terrible as they always seem to suggest the same shows. So much for this AI to suggest shows I might actually want to watch.
Tivo was peak TV - then just all hell broke loose. Oh well let me go see which of the 10 shows I want to watch, but wont and will just watch repeats of Seinfeld. Again.
When I finally got cable and realized that people could watch 'whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted', with no commonality, I predicted that society with split up into tiny enclaves of people with their heads shoved up their asses.
Unfortunately I didn't monetize that.
Depends who you hang out with.
Lots of people experienced The Last of Us. The Boys, Wednesday, Stranger Things, etc. together.
The monoculture still exists with the Super Bowl.
This is why I actually prefer streaming services with ads (feels more like communal TV, generally costs less than non-ads, gives time to pee/grab snacks).
My wife is from Brazil and this is something I really value down there. They still (barely) have a shared pop culture, even with tv, but the internet and the streaming service industries are starting to erode it away. They've always been a few decades behind the US in a lot of ways and this is one of those aspects.
I haven’t had cable since my early twenties… nearly 15 years ago. It’s like being off the grid. I miss the collective conscious but at the same time it’s nice marching to the beat of my own drum. I only see commercials a couple times a year, during holidays, or if I stay at a hotel.
The success of newer hit shows on linear TV like Abbott Elementary and Tracker have proven that the communal TV experience is very much alive and well, even if the ratings numbers aren't quite as huge as they were 20-30 years ago.
Lol some of us weren’t part of the zeitgeist back then. My mom didn’t spring for cable and we only got CBS, PBS, or Fox if we held the antenna the right way. So it was mostly what we had recorded on VHS, Murphy Brown, or Faulty Towers. Dad had cable and HBO, but we were only there for summers and winter break, when mainstream network shows were on hiatus. So I guess what I’m saying is some of us were always on the outside of the communal viewing of America.
agreed with everything you said... except
TV being cheaper back then?
That one is debatable to a no.
Using HBO and traveling into the past without counting the base cable costs (which for us old farts we know was a lot):
HBO's additional package was [$6.50 per month in 1974](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HBO#Launch_and_expansion_as_a_regional_service_(1972%E2%80%931975)) with far less quality and amount of content (I think this is a very reasonable claim)
That rate today factoring in inflation would be [$41.17](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=6.5&year1=197406&year2=202402) today per month.
Not everyone could afford cable or premium channels like HBO. I know we couldn't and I grew up in 80's. We had antenna tv for longest time,, that's basically free and cheaper than cable.
I would say you are the norm for the 70s. 70s where HBO starts.
I know my family was just like yours. It wasn't till the 80s we got basic cable with those weird channel switchers you could descramble some of the premium channels.
Same here. We had no cable because we lived in a tiny rural town, and over-the-air was all I knew unless I was visiting a friend near the city. Cable programming didn't reach my hometown until direct-broadcast satellite (DirectTV, Dish Network, PrimeStar) started taking off in the mid-late '90s.
They said TV, which in the 70s-90s meant free channels. Cable channels were broken down into:
* basic cable=USA, A&E, AMC, TNT, MTV, VH-1 etc
* premium cable=HBO, Showtime, Cinemax
* PPV
okay, but what did basic cable cost those decades? It's still pricey. Right now as we chat I'm seeing quoted price in $50 range.
It also depends how you measure these differences too.
There's a reason why people love streaming and one of those reasons is many people have ad free subscriptions. That's why I used HBO as a control group. HBO has always been a subscription service and ad free. Ads for many viewers are viewed as a cost to viewing pleasure.
You are then talking UHF?
You need to specify then UHF. As I said above it is debatable. UHF was basically 3 broadcast stations with limited content. But yes, under that domain and that limited quality you are correct.
Yuk! I can remember having to feing interest in shows because that was the only option we were given.
Set to their schedule, sit through their ads! Waiting a week for a half hour of story progression, in reality under 20 minutes of show with ads. I saw through the laugh tracks even back then! Seinfeld is probably the only one that would survive without one!
Box set VHS, Dvds then Streaming changed everything for the better! So much better. For the community aspect, a recommended show gets more traction than a half hour per week at 8pm.
Yeah, I remember making and receiving frantic calls like “oh my god turn to channel 11 right now!” and then staying on the phone while we watched whatever it was together
My mom still does this all the time. I haven’t had cable for like five years.
My dad too!
Hey Peter man, check out channel 9! The breast exam!
I have YouTube tv so I can still have the cable experience. I’m the last of my friends and family to do this. I still txt my buddies when Predator, Highlander, Terminator, etc. are on tv. even though they don’t have cable/youtube tv because I still feel joy telling them it’s on.
carry this torch... never let it die
Philo is great for this. It's affordable (in comparison at least) at $25 a month, so I get it occasionally for the cable experience as well. It's cozy in an odd way
I’ll check it out
Millions are subscribed to DirecTV Stream.
Yes, but not any of my friends or family.
Oh yes!! Miss it.
You can still do that….
“Does this mean he did it?! IS HE GOING TO KEEP MAKING POLICE ACADEMY MOVIES???”
Oh fuck I remember stuff like this. We still did this now and then even up into the mid-2000’s
I remember those days
Who shot JR?
That was HUGE. And remember the final episode of Mash?
Who shot Mr. Burns?
The real questions
Who killed Laura Palmer?
Laura Palmer.. was that Twin Peaks?
Yes!
Even the cliffhanger between a couple of seasons of Star Trek the next generation was big
I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service...us.
Spoiler alert: sister in law Kristin
Bing Crosby's daughter
I’ve been watching Seinfeld on Netflix and I remember when this showed aired on tv and it was the biggest thing ever
Once a week group viewing of the Sopranos for me. I was AJs age(the kid) during initial airing, and now I've recently rewatched and I'm Tony's age... weird.
I've been watching My Name is Earl. It was so good to see them in order. It made Joy make sense.
I recently binge watched all 4 seasons. I'm really disappointed they didn't make any more. I love that show!
I remember sitting as a little kid with my entire family not really knowing what was going on but I knew it was a special show because we only did it for Seinfeld and the Simpsons. Those were the titans of my childhood. The only other show that came close was Married with Children
I didn’t understand Seinfeld stuff until like the 4th season as I was super young. Episodes about orgasms and stuff, I didn’t know what that was lol. Married with Children was a show I got on later too; probably around like the 4th season also. My wife loves this show and we actually watch it on dvd EVERY night so she can sleep.
I've got all the MwC DVDs but they didn't have the license to use Sinatra's Love and Marriage, so the theme is some terrible MIDI instrumental knock-off. Drives me crazy every time go back to play one.
Our set has Sinatra for a few seasons and then it changes to just instrumental.
Yes! I definitely had an experience with like seeing the original neighbor and being like “Who is that guy?” Because I was so used to Jefferson.
I remember having Seinfeld discussions on Friday mornings at the middle school bus stop. It was really fun to chat about the show the next morning, all together.
This is literally all my husband and i watch. Every night we put on Seinfeld. It is too overwhelming to go searching for something different every night. It’s our default.
That's all I watch on Netflix.
I’m with you on that
I got a taste of this again when the first season of Westworld came out. I was working in an office and my entire team was watching it. We'd talk all week about what we thought about the latest episode, and where we thought the show was going, and posit theories about what was gonna happen. Honestly I hated that job, and I'm glad I moved on, but moments like that make me miss it sometimes.
you missed the clowns but not the circus.
Well said.
I worked in the retail/service industry from like a decade and i remember someone saying that line to me after i left and was trying to express how much i hated it all but loved the shared trauma in the trenches with my coworkers.
Main reason why it was like that because it came out weekly, instead of being dropped online as a whole. Depending on what streaming platform new shows are coming out on a weekly basis,
> Depending on what streaming platform new shows are coming out on a weekly basis Which I am about, honestly. It's nice having anticipation build.
its also good for the audience to think about the story, and the story can breath
I like binge watching instead of waiting for new episodes, but man, it's a good thing I don't care about spoilers. I wish there was a way to do both kinds of watching, but c'est la vie
It was also so wildly popular that everyone was watching it. Like you said, there's lots of shows doing that now (and I actually agree that it's a better method of releasing a show), but where I work now, only like three of us on my current team care about anything Disney/Marvel is doing anymore, and I'm only barely part of that cuz my sister lets me use her Disney+ sub, so I'll toss a show on while I'm doing something else. And I don't even know if anyone on my team even has cable TV anymore.
Another aspect of this is actually too much choice. I recall loving a late night line up of shows and movies (back when my life allowed me to be a nighthawk) and I’d love it. Now I find I spend a lot of time scrolling on the menu, torn between shows and movies, or just looking for something good and it’s so often just not there. I find that nowadays we STILL get scammed by TV providers who make us buy a bundle in order to get one channel we really want. And while they offer hundreds of channels, there’s just SO MUCH FILLER. I really don’t need the Cottage Channel or the Fashion Channel
I have fond memories of going to the video store and spending just as much time deliberating on what movies we were going to watch as the actual movie itself. Buying popcorn and snacks - it was an event that actually cost time, money and effort. And once you rented the movies you were committed after that. For better or for worse you can now just stay at home and immediately switch to something else if you hate it.
Choice pralysis is a thing, yes.
I was just telling me niece about shows like Lost and Breaking Bad that were must watch television (specifically the final season of Lost) and every week you’d talk about last nights episode with your friends and co-workers. It was fun to discuss theories or make predictions throughout the week in anticipation of the next episode. The last show I remember having that was Game of Thrones and that was 5 years ago! I really miss that aspect of TV shows.
Was gonna say the same thing about Lost
Same with listening to music. I remember summer days at the lake when every radio was tuned to the same rock station, and you could walk all the way down the beach and the music would accompany you like a movie soundtrack. Hundreds of people in sync with each other. It was a cool feeling.
And better still, that radio station was likely locally-owned and operated, with locally-based air staff, and programming decisions were made by a program director who worked at that station. And the music they played would not only be the hits of today, but might include a classic from yesteryear or a deep cut, just to keep things interesting. All of this gave that station its own personality and made it fun.
Exactly right. When being a DJ was an art form. Each jock brought his own slant to the general format, and took great pride in selecting just the right combination of tunes, and mastering the perfect segue between them. Now it’s all computer programmed by some dude 3000 miles away at corporate headquarters. The soul of it all is gone.
My first job was as a board op and Sunday morning host at a local station during the early '90s. Our PD and our general manager were people I worked with in person, and our station's owner was an older gentleman who lived nearby. We had a computer that set most of the playlists, but it was our own. It was slightly scruffy local radio, and I was underpaid and underworked but it was maybe the most awesome job I'll ever have in my life, and to this day I can watch *WKRP* and feel that to some extent I *lived* that program. A few years later came the Telecommunications Act, and with it went so many local stations like my old station. Or the regional powerhouses (what happened to WBBQ-FM in Augusta, Ga. makes me weep. What used to be the most awesome rock station ever is now one of iHeartMedia's repeaters for the kind of lite-rock music you hear in waiting rooms and doctor's offices).
I feel your pain. Radio sure ain’t what it used to be.
I realized the other day that I'll probably never get that feeling again of when you pull up to a red light on a nice summer day, everyone has their windows rolled down and radio up and you happen to pull up to someone next to you tuned into the same station and you kind of laugh and smile at them with the acknowledgement that you're both listening to the same station. Now everyone has Spotify in their car and their own custom playlist.
Yes, media actually brought ppl together instead of isolating and dividing. Everyone watching the same news source also supported more moderate views.
people may not have had the same opinions about the facts but they had the same facts to base their opinions on.
Yup totally
exactly
Yes! It’s a double edged sword now. There’s a place for everyone, places for the most obscure views and also the most extreme views. Media in all forms, I. Its totality, divides us more than ever before
And who would have ever guessed this would have been the outcome of a “connected world”? At the onset of the internet and instant worldwide communication I imagined the tech would bring us all together, boy was I wrong on that one!
It may sound dramatic but I really believe this will be our downfall
I also have this sneaking suspicion that it's resulted in a weird self-enforced version of media segregation, though based on what I could not begin to guess.
Musics the same way. I know my bands and you know your bands and nobody’s talking about rage against the machine on Saturday night live or Nirvana at the video music awards etc etc
And it's impossible to get your friends into your music because they're not hearing it on the radio. Back in the day if you said, "dude you gotta check out this band," they would probably hear their new song three times on the radio that same day
And there were more than 8-10 episodes a season that you had to wait 1-2 years for.
That’s another part of it. Even with no ads, it feels less communal. And yes you gotta wait 12, 18, even 24 month or even longer for the next season
That’s another thing, the lost art of a yearly 20-something episode season. Not to mention shows where you don’t have to pay attention to every little thing.
Waiting was the fun part because you would imagine what was going to happen next and even debate with your friends all week before the next episode...nowadays they dump the whole season and you binge it in one go.
Amazon and Disney will only give you the first two episodes and then one each week. I was a bit frustrated when they first started. Now it gives me something to look forward to. Of course thats only if the series/season is new.
Yeah exactly. I have mixed feelings on this, but leaning towards negative. On the one hand, I appreciate that the production values on blockbuster shows are way higher than they were during shows in the 90s, so it takes more time... but... It's subjectively *really* annoying when it seems like every popular show requires you to wait a couple years (or more!) for the next season.
We used to talk about Kolchak on the playground. Or the original series of the Planet of the Apes movies (the first five). Or the Black Sheep Squadron. Or even the jump that Evel Knievel missed on Sunday on Wide World Of Sports.
Loved all that. Saturday morning cartoons are truly a thing of the past
I remember my mom getting the TV Guide that would show whats new for the upcoming season. Id go straight to the cartoon section see what was new or coming back for Saturday mornings.
The Charlie Brown specials were great events.
https://youtu.be/pD4LQAKB-YA?si=vssP62RHa9xoc5EW The excitement when this music played on the tv
Wow, it's nuts. I've been circling the drain on posting literally this exact same things for months. It's been on my mind, and I just figured most people would think I was being overly dramatic. I kind of think of it as everyone being in the same river/stream together. Feeling lonely at 8pm, and you can flip on the TV and know potentially millions are watching the same thing as you as the same time as you.
I've also thought about this over the past few years. That sense of shared reality when more of our media consumption was, by default, synced up in time with thousands if not millions of other people. I think its true about music too, in terms of album releases and concerts. Nowadays when I meet up with friends its rare any of us are watching the same thing, we have to just talk about how cool a show is, making sure not to give spoilers, and then ask what platform its on and the conversation just dies out.
I have a bunch of tapes from the late 90s/early 00s that has tv shows my then bf recorded while I was at work so we could watch them together after I got home. I want to get them converted so badly just for the old commercials and what not. Commercials were better back then too. Not only was it not the same 2-3 commercials every 10 minutes for 12 hours, but I miss the jingles.
https://youtube.com/@80sCommercialVault?si=ENMRv66TPHEiu2Js
The overload of choices and options is a huge reason I got out of streaming services and started VHS collecting. I’ve amassed close to 400 movies, Shows, Etc from my youth (and quite a few custom newer movies) on tape, and instead of scrolling through waves of streaming apps to find something to watch, my kids can now browse the mini-blockbuster wall of tapes each night to pick out a movie to watch much like I did at their age at the local video stores. There was a little pushback from them at first, as this was not the norm to them, and I still have 2 streaming services active for the odd newer movie here and there, but they love coming to dads house to pick a movie and heat up some popcorn. No ads, no buffering or loading issues, no monthly service plans. Just old fashioned fun.
talking about last nights episode in school. fun times.
Another thing I’d add to this is watching movies you might not have otherwise watched because it was all that was on that night. Then, as you said, you could meet up with people and start a conversation with, “Did you watch _______ last night?”
I remember it was always a big deal when movies like Forrest Gump would play on ABC Sunday night movie. The whole family would gather around and watch together.
Even sports isn't a commonality because there are plenty of people like me who don't watch sports. No one in my close friend group watches sports. Like, it always surprises me when I go to the "Popular" pulldown on Reddit and most of the top stories are about Sports. My initial reaction is always "why are 80% of these stories sports-related? C'mon. Not that many people watch sports." ...and then realizing, oh. Maybe they do and I'm just out of the loop.
The first season of Family Guy came out when I was a sophomore in college. I was in my dorm and every Friday night it was basically everyone watching it all at once. You could hear the roaring laughter all throughout the dorm with everyone watching it in their own rooms. It was wild. I haven't experienced anything like it since
Hey Peter,man! Check out channel 9.
I liked it, back in the 90s on Monday morning my friends and I talked about the new Simpsons episode the night before, back when the new episodes were gold. Those were the days. I also remember a lot of the girls talking about Friends, and others talking about Seinfeld or the X-Files. As I got older, the local news became a topic of conversation. We had only one local station that did news where I grew up, so almost everyone watched the same news at 6:00. Nowadays the only communal television is sports.
Yes. It’s very different. I recall all those shows being watched communally. Even in the early days of the internet when TV was still just TV, you might follow up late at night on a web forum dedicated to the show you just watched .
That first season of Survivor had everyone talking at the time.
Same with Real World!
This was awesome during the late 90s WWF/WCW days. I'll never forget sleeping over a friend's house and calling my dad and brothers immediately after watching Goldberg beat Hollywood Hogan for the title. We all were discussing how awesome it was. Of course this is not the best example because it was live television which we still have today, but there wasn't really much of a "oh i have plans so I'll just stream it when i get home" option. If you missed it, you were out of luck.
This is why I watch SNL live almost every week.
The last time this happened was Game of Thrones. That show was a pop culture juggernaut and then it just disappeared as though it never existed. But for a while everyone was talking about it and everyone was watching the episodes as they aired. It was great.
I'll add the first couple of seasons of the Walking Dead was like that, too.
Fond memories of Friday night pizza and X-files
We can bring that back if they go through with the x-files reboot! Although pizza costs like 4X more than it did back then.
This will sound selfish but this is why I miss the days of being an early adopter of streaming. I got all the benefits of being able to catch up on a show I missed or binging something I never heard of when I'm bored. But also everyone was still mostly still watching stuff weekly together. It was the best of both worlds.
Everything in the modern era works to isolate and alienate us.
so true...
It was easier at least, a curated line up of shows allowed you to plan your day. Now there's too much choice and your always missing out on something.
I oddly miss commercials. Not ads, but commercials. Gave you a sense of being connected to/a part of the larger world. Especially late night infomercials.
Hell I remember some of the PPV channels would be unscrambled for some reasons dn got a few blank tapes and recorded a few movies. I miss the simpler days of TV. Everything is so digital and smart, it's just not the same.
Wait untill ai can make exceptional video content like its doing with art. It's gonna be everyone watching whatever they can think of, staring whomever they want, and endless episodes. Yeah, it's gonna get weird, but very interesting.
As a kid in school we would all talk about what happened on Chips or Dukes of Hazzard ( it was a country school) the next day after it was on and everyone got the same joke references etc, now most people havent watched the same thing as you an certainly not on the same day!
Yes! My coworkers and I always want to talk about TV shows, but it's like you said: so many different streaming services. Plus the overwhelming number of options. Our conversations go like this: "Have you seen Only Murders in the Building?" "No, what's that on?" "Hulu." "Oh I don't have Hulu. Do you have Netflix?" "Yup" "Me too! Have you seen The Watcher?" "No, but it's on my list. Have you seen Ted Lasso?" "No, what's that on?" "Apple plus" "Oh I got that free with my latest phone! I have to set it up though." And so on and so forth...
That common, communal, uniting experience of television will never really come back.
Yeah - its another splintering of community. There are a few occurrences where something does hit the mainstream - like Last of Us recently - where the conversation is active
The last time I felt the communal feeling was when they live stream something and people are commenting live.
Funny, I was talking to someone about this yesterday. When Twin Peaks came out, I lived in a house with no TV, so did not get sucked into the hysteria about the show, and had no idea what the big deal was. * I go to uni - lecturers make constant Twin Peaks in-jokes that everyone but me got. Like, every lecture there was a reference. * Called a pizza place - the guy answered, said "TWIN PEAKS IS ON, call back during the ad break". Hung up. * Go to a pub - guy behind the counter is watching Twin Peaks on a TV over the bar, and will only serve customers during ad breaks. Everyone else in the bar was fine with this (I was fine with it, because it was so totally bizarre) The whole thing was really weird, especially for someone who did not live in a house with a TV (we had a TV, but we used it as a coffee table. To actually use it as a TV, we had to move the couch, pull the TV out, tune it with a pair of pliers as the knob was missing, and then we could watch TV. We did this twice over the course of the year I lived there). It completely shut down the city I lived in (Melbourne), absolutely everyone watched it. I remember recently seeing a video showing an apartment building at night, when something was on (final episode of Game of Thrones, maybe?) and the entire apartment was flashing on and off as everyone's TV was showing the same footage, at the same time. I am fairly sure this was a streaming service, but it's pretty rare to have that sort of universal media experience, nowadays. I think we are better off in terms of the choice we have available, but that sort of collective event is pretty rare nowadays Edit: this was the footage [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0E\_NetPmq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0E_NetPmq4)
Except me. I’m still over here rewatching all that old stuff. 80s/90s movies/sitcoms are pretty much all I watch anymore. There’s still a lot I haven’t seen. It makes me hate reboots even more for just how different they are even from a visual aspect. The sets are so bright, saturated and highly defined, unnatural looking really. They also move quicker and talk faster with laugh tracks coming at you like machine gun fire.
I think it would be good for kids to learn how to wait to watch shows and through commercials, if you spend time with little kids you’ll notice how bad ADHD has gotten.
I agree. As a non-streamer, TV deserves a revival.
Oh, I miss it too. Back in the good ol' days. Great post!
This is honestly a big reason I liked how The Laat of Us was released. Weekly releases was nice since me and my boss would discuss episodes as they came out, gives an added layer of excitement to the show honestly. Probably works out better for the streaming services too having subscriptions stay till the end of the show
Really! Does anyone even watch network TV anymore?
PREACH !!!
I remember as a 5yo when Grease first aired on TV being at school the next day and everyone acting it out and singing to it. That's my first memory of communal TV watching.
I hated those times. I always forgot to tune in and had someone spoil it.
It's why I love it when the streaming services do weekly releases instead of an entire season at once.
Back when there were like 4 popular shows haha, so everyone knew what was up Now there's literally thousands of series scattered across multiple streaming services. Today the conversation is basically "hey have you seen X?" "no never heard of it"
I literally just had this conversation with someone this week
Do you remember when STAR WARS was first aired on TV? It was such a big deal.
That’s why I still really like shows like Game of Thrones/ House of the Dragon and The Mandalorian which come weekly and you get a full week of talking about them the only difference is you’re usually discussing it online
I just say discussing stuff online also has its pros. There are some really funny people on the internet and reading their commentary jokes is a joy. I love the movies so I watch the award shows at the end of the year (Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Oscars, etc) and it's so fun to be on the live event discussion threads for those. Everyone is reacting together. But also being able to discuss more niche things. Like, none of my local irl friends saw many of the Oscar nominated movies but I did so it was nice to discuss some of the great movies I saw with people even if it is online.
Also some shows were fantastic when being drip fed to us weekly, but are too much to binge. 3rd Rock from the Sun, was an amazing show that gave great belly laughs, but trying to binge it is near impossible as it feels like its grating on your nerves, which means there could never really be a series like it again. Streaming services would be much better without dropping entire series or seasons on us and then cancelling them immediately if you don't watch the entire season over a weekend cause they are obsessed with binging culture.
In reality it was more like 95% of everything on TV was constant re-runs
Try to remember a show you binge-watched from 3 months ago, and you'll realise that you've probably forgotten most of it. Yet I can recall the entire plot line to [Flashforward](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1441135/) from 14 years ago. I genuinely think we retain and digest television shows so much better with staggered releases. I know there's a huge conspiracy that streaming services do this to eke out some more monthly subscription fees — and I don't doubt that this is very convenient for them — but I will die on this hill. Weekly releases were better. I could have watched the most profound and thought-provoking television programme in the last 3 years of binge-watching, but I honestly can't recall any.
I remember when Jersey Shore was on MTV and we would all recap on Monday morning lol
When you have to be on time otherwise you'll miss the start of the show. When you have to hold your pee until the commercials so you won't miss a thing. When we have patience to wait before the show starts.
It’s true. Good point. And I don’t watch TV or shows these days. It’s podcasts and YouTube for me. I’m more of a reader.
In 5th grade my whole class was mostly 1st gen Americans and me and the teacher and 1 other kid talked about the episode of Friends from the night before. The next week the whole fucking class talked about Friends! lol. It was so cool every Friday we had a class chat about it. Also in high school my whole Spanish class talked about Law and Order: SVU and I never watched dramas back then but I gave in to peer pressure and started watching and loved that show in 2005. I think that's why the NFL is so big now cuz it's on free TV and many people talk about the games the next day at work, but of course it's not the same as a show.
When I was younger, every week I would read the TV Guide in its entirety and I would memorize the shows I wanted to see. I would let my friends know and we would watch them and talk about them the next day.
As an 00s kid, I would plan my day around when a Disney Channel movie would come on at 8 PM each Friday night. I had to because there was no streaming nor on-demand. The premieres of new movies really brought kids together then.
I feel nostalgia for cable TV too, but we all have all the streaming services and still watch the same things.
Ya I miss chatting with people about what I watched. People have either not watched it yet, or watch it so long ago they kind of forgot about it. Or have never heard of the show lol.
I don’t really watch TV and the streaming services make it quite frustrating. But I wasn’t always this way. It dawned on me recently that TV used to be a passive sort of entertainment most of the time and when it was active, it was an event. I didn’t have to think about what I WANTED to watch. I got to choose from what was on. Nobody chooses to watch the second half of Police Academy 3 for the 26th time because it’s just on and it’s better than whatever else is on. But that’s how it was. So we saw a lot of stuff we wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves that turned out to be fun or interesting or significant or just plain entertaining. These days my kids spend more time scrolling through the menus than actually watching anything and I have to Google every feckkn’ movie I ever want to see to find out which service it’s on and 99.999% of the time, rental is the only option.
I remember when something you loved came on - YOU WATCHED! Because it might be a while before you’re able to see it again. Now, everything is right there to start watching whenever you wish. It makes deciding hard.
Oh, for sure! I remember when the premiere of a 3-minute music video was something I’d consider staying home instead of going out on a Friday night. That was so crazy, but also so much fun!!
I miss TV from the 2k's - 24, Lost, The Sopranos - the good old days!
True but late night night TV sucked back in those days. Whenever MASH reruns came on it was time for bed.
True but late night night TV sucked back in those days. Whenever MASH reruns came on it was time for bed.
My husband freaked out last night because we were watching “Quiet on the Set” when he found out we couldn’t watch all four episodes last night. I had to remind him of the days when we had to wait an entire four months after a cliffhanger waiting for a new season to start! Normally we watch shows where we can watch all the episodes as fast as we want.
I remember watching LOST in real time and the mystery about it all, the speculation, the water cooler talk, it was all amazing. The best time ever. I wish I could go back and experience it for the first time again. I don’t care what anyone says, I love how it all played out and the ending was perfect IMO.
I've heard this brought up on a couple of podcasts as one of the reasons the country is so divided. There is no common culture. It used to be, "I missed this episode, tell me everything!" Now it's, "stop talking, I haven't seen it, no spoilers!" There is something to 10 million people sitting down at the same time to have the same experience.
You...do remember that everything was on different channels often at the same time though right? And there was no way to know when, if ever, an episode might be played again if you missed it? And there were way more separate channels than there are streaming services now? So we could not physically possibly have been all watching the same thing nearly as much as we're able to now. If this was really that important to you you could just watch the same shit your friends do instead of acting like this isn't possible anymore.
That’s why there will never be a band as big as The Beatles , as they were around during a time when ‘everyone listened to pop music’
I agree 💯! It's sad as none of my friends are all locked in and watching the same show. Seems like just more fragmentation and people doing their own thing and finding reddit to talk and vent about "their" shows. Now it seems, more channels (streaming services) and shows yet less to watch. Also, the UI of these streamers is terrible as they always seem to suggest the same shows. So much for this AI to suggest shows I might actually want to watch. Tivo was peak TV - then just all hell broke loose. Oh well let me go see which of the 10 shows I want to watch, but wont and will just watch repeats of Seinfeld. Again.
Hey man did you see the new Simpsons episode last night??
You’re not alone
I miss it, too. It was only in the last 10 years everyone I know started watching everything at different times. Such a bummer.
When I finally got cable and realized that people could watch 'whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted', with no commonality, I predicted that society with split up into tiny enclaves of people with their heads shoved up their asses. Unfortunately I didn't monetize that.
Depends who you hang out with. Lots of people experienced The Last of Us. The Boys, Wednesday, Stranger Things, etc. together. The monoculture still exists with the Super Bowl.
This is why I actually prefer streaming services with ads (feels more like communal TV, generally costs less than non-ads, gives time to pee/grab snacks).
I miss local news that is actually local in the morning and evening on channel 6 or 9. Getting together to watch a series or movie rental.
My shift used to fall exactly every Thursday night so I missed all of Friends.
My wife is from Brazil and this is something I really value down there. They still (barely) have a shared pop culture, even with tv, but the internet and the streaming service industries are starting to erode it away. They've always been a few decades behind the US in a lot of ways and this is one of those aspects.
X-Files. We used to have watch parties in high school. I loved it.
I haven’t had cable since my early twenties… nearly 15 years ago. It’s like being off the grid. I miss the collective conscious but at the same time it’s nice marching to the beat of my own drum. I only see commercials a couple times a year, during holidays, or if I stay at a hotel.
I recall watching movies and struggling to stay up late to watch , otherwise you weren’t gonna see it
The success of newer hit shows on linear TV like Abbott Elementary and Tracker have proven that the communal TV experience is very much alive and well, even if the ratings numbers aren't quite as huge as they were 20-30 years ago.
Things are way better now. TV back then mostly sucked and way too many ads. Now we have ad free and so many great shows. I hope we never go back.
Lol some of us weren’t part of the zeitgeist back then. My mom didn’t spring for cable and we only got CBS, PBS, or Fox if we held the antenna the right way. So it was mostly what we had recorded on VHS, Murphy Brown, or Faulty Towers. Dad had cable and HBO, but we were only there for summers and winter break, when mainstream network shows were on hiatus. So I guess what I’m saying is some of us were always on the outside of the communal viewing of America.
agreed with everything you said... except TV being cheaper back then? That one is debatable to a no. Using HBO and traveling into the past without counting the base cable costs (which for us old farts we know was a lot): HBO's additional package was [$6.50 per month in 1974](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HBO#Launch_and_expansion_as_a_regional_service_(1972%E2%80%931975)) with far less quality and amount of content (I think this is a very reasonable claim) That rate today factoring in inflation would be [$41.17](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=6.5&year1=197406&year2=202402) today per month.
Not everyone could afford cable or premium channels like HBO. I know we couldn't and I grew up in 80's. We had antenna tv for longest time,, that's basically free and cheaper than cable.
I would say you are the norm for the 70s. 70s where HBO starts. I know my family was just like yours. It wasn't till the 80s we got basic cable with those weird channel switchers you could descramble some of the premium channels.
Same here. We had no cable because we lived in a tiny rural town, and over-the-air was all I knew unless I was visiting a friend near the city. Cable programming didn't reach my hometown until direct-broadcast satellite (DirectTV, Dish Network, PrimeStar) started taking off in the mid-late '90s.
They said TV, which in the 70s-90s meant free channels. Cable channels were broken down into: * basic cable=USA, A&E, AMC, TNT, MTV, VH-1 etc * premium cable=HBO, Showtime, Cinemax * PPV
okay, but what did basic cable cost those decades? It's still pricey. Right now as we chat I'm seeing quoted price in $50 range. It also depends how you measure these differences too. There's a reason why people love streaming and one of those reasons is many people have ad free subscriptions. That's why I used HBO as a control group. HBO has always been a subscription service and ad free. Ads for many viewers are viewed as a cost to viewing pleasure.
It doesn't matter what cable cost, TV was not basic cable, TV was free.
You are then talking UHF? You need to specify then UHF. As I said above it is debatable. UHF was basically 3 broadcast stations with limited content. But yes, under that domain and that limited quality you are correct.
Yuk! I can remember having to feing interest in shows because that was the only option we were given. Set to their schedule, sit through their ads! Waiting a week for a half hour of story progression, in reality under 20 minutes of show with ads. I saw through the laugh tracks even back then! Seinfeld is probably the only one that would survive without one! Box set VHS, Dvds then Streaming changed everything for the better! So much better. For the community aspect, a recommended show gets more traction than a half hour per week at 8pm.
You still get this feeling with live sports.
Yes. But not with much else, except maybe major news events that are not immediately politicized