TLC again. I recorded Trinity and Beyond when they first aired it, not much more than ten years ago, and a bit MORE than ten years ago, they used to run The Secret Life of Machines semi-frequently.
Fox, at least, is consistent…they’re like an emotionally tippy friend who keeps hinting at being suicidal when they want attention, but never does it.
I vote for MTV and TLC. I used to put MTV on for the music and the same with CMT. I haven’t seen a music video in years. And I, too, remember when TLC was “The Learning Channel”. Lately, all I’ve been learning is What Not to Wear. Now I love WNTW, and I suppose you could argue it’s educational, but “Say Yes to the Dress” and Duggars and The Amazing Uterus? Give me a break.
Lately I’ve been wondering if the Discovery Channel in Canada has begun the slippery slide.
Recently they’ve been showing “Destroyed in Seconds” which is essentially a collection of clips of trailer parks getting smashed by tornadoes and whatnot.
When they started showing stuff like Alf and The Cosby Show, they lost their way. They should have looked backwards instead of forwards, I think people would rather see You Bet Your Life or Laurel and Hardy than Roseanne.
I vote AMC.
It went overnight from “American Movie Classics,” showing classic old films, to showing stuff like Predator and Smokey & The Bandit. Then they finally gave up and just started calling themselves AMC, ceding the classic film market to Turner Classic Movies.
Now, I love some of the stuff they show, but it’s no different than what you find on TBS, TNT, or Spike TV. I miss the classic movies.
Well, except for the five seasons of one of the best TV shows ever made, The Wire.
I loved the first 6 or 7 episodes of FOTC last year, but the searies started to limp a little in the second half. This year, the guys are still very appealing and funny, but it doesn’t have the same laugh-out-loud factor that it had in the beginning. Not sure if that’s them, or me.
As for the OP, i think it has to be AMC or the History Channel, although the prevalence of shitty reality shows—from American Idol to Survivor to Supernanny to Biggest Loser, etc., etc.—on the major networks have turned them all into shit.
And NBC? Dudes, it’s time to let the Law and Order franchise die an overdue and undignified death. I loved it for a long time, but it’s done. Perhaps one of the most interesting marks of its irrelevance is that the combined murders on a single season of the three L&O franchises is now (and has been for a few seasons) greater than the number of actual murders in Manhattan over a single year.
You totally win this thread.
It’s pretty far down the slope. Essentially they’re running repackaged versions of “World’s Deadliest Whatevers” and “When Critters Attack”. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be discovering from watching them, except maybe that it’s a bad idea to drive a speedboat at 250 mph in rough waters.
The Wire was the greatest show in the history of television. I love Flight Of The Conchords. And I’m also a big fan of True Blood.
For me, it would have to be TLC. I have no memory of the last time I watched anything on there, and it used to be one of my favorites.
NBC.
83 years old, one of the big-3 American Networks. Ten years ago they had 5 of the top 10 shows in primetime. And now, they’re planning on showing Jay Leno five times/week.
While some of the other networks may have fallen, the difference between their highs & lows is lesser and the amount of time to get there is greater
Food Network used to be great - now it’s just stupid competitions. Who cares if the 11 foot cake can be moved 3 feet to another table?
The Applebee’s commercial-competitions are just dumb.
Court TV is now court free.
MTV and VH1 are the worst though. Music Television and Video Hits with no music and no videos. Sad.
Another vote for AMC.
Since this is yet another series of rants/laments against networks which have let us down in some way or another, I’d like to raise a point. Why couldn’t a network cater to the hardest of the hardcore audience, instead of trying to cast their net indiscriminately wide to get whatever viewers they can? [Insert caveat about the current economy and how it may temporarily at least stifle/punish such innovation and experiments]
Say someone comes along with a new Sci-Fi network, but instead of wrestling and an endless parade of mindless Monsters vs. Idiots movies, they instead decide to appeal to the highest common denominator, which means wall to wall shows with the [YMMV] general high quality of Farscape, Battlestar, and Babylon 5, some Japanese anime and such, along with cutting-edge movies made by top young indie directors trying to make a name for themselves? Wouldn’t they get a rabidly fanatical audience in short order, one which is likely in the top 50% of income and thus very attractive to advertisers? And then on top of that you’d think they should get enough more casual viewers to make it worthwhile WRT the bottom line. Aren’t Tim & Tammy Jones, ages 30, making $100,000 a year combined, better for you than 4 bumfucks in their parents’ basements watching wrestling who make a collective $80,000 a year? Why doesn’t some network somewhere attempt this? Or am I showing my idealism a bit too much again?
Dude, it’s a TV network. They’re not taxing your income. Besides, the 4 losers in the basements are going to watch a lot more advertisements than your Timmy & Tammys.
I have to say VH1. I used to love shows like Legends or Behind the Music, and they used to have a lot of cool rock documentaries too. But now it’s nothing but I Love Money, Sober House, The Greatest…or spinoffs thereof.
I have to admit, though, that I do have a soft spot for Rock of Love, as I was a big Poison fan back in the day.
My understanding is that SciFi had it thrust upon them by corporate.
NBC Universal had signed a contract with whoever produces that wrestling program, with the intent of putting it on USA Network. Eventually, they decided that the content was more “adult” than they were comfortable putting on a general-interest network like USA. With a contract to fulfill, they put it on the more-adult-skewing network that they own, which happened to be SciFi. I’m pretty sure they recognize that wrestling =/= science fiction, but they’re just trying to put the show on the air, as they’re contractually obligated to do.
What I remember reading is that SciFi (and NBC Universal) is stuck with it until the contract expires.
Wrestling aside, SciFi is such a mixed bag for me. Some of their original series (Stargate SG1, Battlestar Galactica, Farscape) have been among my favorites, but others (Lexx, not to mention their cheesy horror-based reality shows) have been pretty horrible. And, don’t even get me started on those awful Saturday night movies!!!
If Tim and Tammy need a car, they buy one car. If four bumfucks need a car, they buy four cars. Even if three of the bumfucks don’t need a car, the fourth bumfuck will still buy as many cars as Timmy and Tammy.
As for the network that’s fallen the worst, nobody could fall as far as NBC. The cable networks that have fallen the worst compared to what they originally set out to do are A&E and Bravo (MTV is worse, but A&E and Bravo started with higher goals.) . The cable networks that stayed close to their original mission but fail miserably at it are TVLand and AMC.
You have said better than I did, kunilou, what I see to be the case.
NBC!
And the other stuff, too.
The issue’s all about how many people are in that hardcore audience, which directly drives what the network can charge for its advertising space.
The sad fact is that, in most cases, the networks we’ve described, which have “lost their way”, did so intentionally. They found that the high-concept programming may have had a loyal core of viewers, didn’t get a lot of viewers. Fewer viewers -> lower ratings -> lower rates that you can charge for advertising on your network -> losing money.
Why does SciFi run cheesy psuedo-horror reality TV? It gets more viewers. Why does AMC show Caddyshack? It gets more viewers. Why did MTV go away from music videos in favor of “The Real World”? It gets more viewers.
I love Lingo as much as the next guy, but I’m getting really tired of GSN pushing classic gameshows off the air in favor of their original stuff and all the gorram poker.
And the sad part is how simple it would be for GSN to win back my love. Four words, GSN:
Joker’s Wild
Classic Pyramid