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Comment by benihana | Hacker News Reader

>but sometimes things just get worse. (Look at television as an example.) You can't just write it off every time when someone notices the decline.

What decline are you talking about? You don't mention anything specific - just saying "look at television" isn't very convincing. There is fantastic content available on television - something for everyone. But it's hard to make a point when you don't provide any examples of the decline.

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I haven't watched TV in more than a decade. Nobody I know watches it. It had been almost entirely superseded by cable channels, which are being superseded by streaming now. I though this is self-evident and does not require an elaborate explanation.

What does require some explanation in the order of events. At some point television had decent TV programs. People still stream and torrent them. They are classics. Than the overall quality declined. Only then cable sort of "stepped in", became more prominent and got good content. (In the process, however, news programs became what they are right now.)

Interestingly, the shift to streaming is quite different.

You have failed to demonstrate that the quality of television shows has declined over time. There are many excellent current television shows, along with lots of bad shows. But this has always been the case. The difference is that the only old shows that people remember are the good ones; all the old dross is forgotten, whereas with current TV it's there for all to see.

He never complained about the quality of television shows, just about television. And I concur. The quality of television has gone down a lot. Too many ads, too many channels filled with rubbish. I stopped watching too, and turned to Netflix instead.

Yes he did. "At one point TV had decent programs."

As far as too many channels, it's not like you have to constantly look at those channels.

This seems like an argument that's easily quantifiable. When was television still good? How much quality programming was available to watch then vs now? How much advertising did one sit through to watch ye olde quality shows of yore?

Personally, I wouldn't say television has declined. I'd say my tolerance for crap has.

I never intended to "demonstrate" what you're demanding.

http://www.nbc.com/schedule

This is what over-the-air TV program looks like these days. What percentage of its broadcast time consists of quality TV shows? (Don't forget to factor in all the ads.) How much of it would you watch, honestly?

If you watch broadcast TV on a regular basis, you get to know the times when it's going to be decent and the times when you might find nothing remotely interesting. It's all on a schedule, and that schedule puts better and more expensive entertainment at a time when more people will be watching.

I would say your complaint about quality shows as a percentage of broadcast time is a valid argument for moving TV to more on-demand media (watching a show on Netflix or Hulu vs being on the couch at 9PM on a Thursday). There's still some decent stuff out there. The only thing this doesn't solve is sports programming, which is practically worthless if it's not live and from which NBC makes a fortune as a "premium" football channel.

"I haven't watched TV in more than a decade."

So it seems like you would be the worst possible person to ask if TV has objectively gotten "worse".

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