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The silver lining for TV is when the digital bubbles start bursting. Streaming companies are sucking away more content and jacking up the price because of it. Then you have dumpster fires like Bally Sports, where sports teams are bailing out left and right, and in most cases, end up on linear TV once again. But the amount of rehashed content on TV is quite alarming. Who would have thought stalwarts like Judge Judy and Jerry Springer would survive in syndication as reruns after production of shows like these wrapped several years ago? It doesn't help when you have shows like Mathis Court on TV while the OG Judge Mathis is still filling time in repeats....

Well I do agree that a lot of TV and film push the politics of their creators to some degree, like Family Guy is one example. Now, content made just to do little more than shock is about half of what is on TV and film these days. Most shows in the adult animated genre have the same plot/character cliches and social/political statement humor (like inserting "God is just that big monster in the sky" every other week). I'm not very strict or religious, but it's truth that movies and especially TV is gratuitously "risque" lately.

Every generation seems to lament what those newfangled whippersnappers like. Bring back Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan. What the heck are music videos? Who wants to watch kids dance for an hour? What hasn’t changed is the audience dictates the content. What people reject goes away. And while sequels/reboots/rehashes of existing IP are by no means anything new in TV, they seem to get a disproportionate share of “there are no original ideas” when in fact there are many. Of course audiences familiar with whatever brand may gravitate toward checking it out; we’re human and like positive memories. If people stick around and enjoy the show on its own merits, great. But there’s plenty of original ideas and creative twists on older ones (Stranger Things and Wednesday from Netflix come to mind as one example of each). And all kinds of content from music to movies to TV has borrowed, some more blatantly than others, from what came before. Much of the original content from basic cable migrated to streaming as the audience did. Makes sense; follow the money. And it also follows that we’d see a big push early on for original content to give each platform an identity and a reason to pay up. That dust will settle and the investments will become more targeted into what proves to be working. The broadcast model is dying. It’s not dead and won’t be for a while, but it’s on the way. It’s going to need to rely on a changing mix of programs to wring some remaining life out of it, and rely on streaming to pick up some of the lost audience. For now, it’s sustainable with adjustments.

You are right, things change and (get off my lawn ahead) it sucks that that media change is happening in my lifetime. BUT, most people (across several bubbles that I've spoken with ) agree TV sucks now...and subjective statement ahead: the change has largely not been for the better. Viewing habits will evolve, change is a fact of life. I love streaming. The problem is content saturation and de-evolution. Watered down recycled ideas, endless reboots instead of original ideas, heavy handed political virtue signaling in shows, excessively graphic cursing and sex scenes. I love the traditional tv model, I'm open to streaming, let's just make sure what we're doing now isn't crappier than what we had.

The audience chooses what it chooses, and whether any one of us likes or detests it, that’s where we are. There is still plenty of original syndicated fare that’s not Springer or courtroom shows, but when you’re the fifth or sixth place broadcaster in a world where your audience is also watching streaming, recordings, on-demand and the like, lower cost options are what you need to not take a loss. The advertising market has splintered and continues to splinter. There’s no going back. Spending money you don’t have and will never recoup isn’t going to work.

There’s a lot of wistful, rose-colored-glasses nostalgia in this thread. And perhaps a bit of “get off my lawn” as well. Trying to apply the model of broadcasting from decades ago into today’s world isn’t going to work. The audience has changed. Technology has changed. Yet the broadcasters should operate like it’s 1982? How does that work? The ecosystem is much larger, and people do not—and will not—watch content the way they once did. That’s not a bad thing; it’s the nature of the world. If you try to cling to the old ways, you’re hastening your demise.

Feels silly to make changes when they say they'll be moving into their new building within a year. But, then again, it's always silly season in Southwest Florida TV news.

I will say this...both and all sides have their issues.

Been weekend only since spring when NewsNation went news all day/night long M-F.

I think a lot of the issues with creative quality is the big element of industry politics being involved. Yeah. Digital isn't always better in my opinion.

Good.

Dagmar Midcap out at KNSD says goodbye during the 4pm newscast with a farewell video each day this week while she was in Madagascar

ESPN announced that the great Barry Melrose has been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and is stepping away from the network.