Watching tv used to be a social event. What you saw you may never see again and you couldn’t pause it. If you had to pee or get popcorn you better hurry. The show didn’t have to be that great actually, it was fun being together late at night with family watching the Late Show or whatever. The ability to watch whatever you want whenever you want now means everyone watches their own show in their own room on their own tv.
My family was already doing essentially that back in the '80s, with three televisions (only one color set and one VCR, though) for four people, and two of the three sets in bedrooms. 
In other words, as soon as we could afford to not watch television all-together, we did. 
Each BotNS was a one-night show, and I think they were two hours each, although some might have been three. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the edits were for plugs of “upcoming” ABC programs (although I think the last few were on NBC).
It was called “Battle of the Network TV Stars” because the teams represented the three networks. Of course, there weren’t that many TV performers who would even be under consideration as a “first-class star” (although I think, for example, Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore deserve serious consideration), and the few who were had better things to do than to appear on a shows like these. (That’s why Circus of the Stars eventually folded - it very quickly became Circus of the B-Listers.)
It wasn’t just “TV star week”; up through the early 1980s, a lot of game shows had celebrities as panelists, and yes, there were a few that didn’t have much business being there. Even today, Hollywood Game Night has this problem.
That’s pretty much what I miss as well; the anticipation and excitement’s gone nowadays. Even for first-run shows, they’re either available on Hulu or something else, or on cable networks, they often replay them at a later time slot. So there’s no urgency or excitement about watching the new episodes of a show, which was part of the interest as a kid.
No anxiety either, though. Trying to get homework done before a show came on, having TV taken away as punishment the week part 2 of a 2-part episode-- worse, having 2-part episodes sprung on you out of nowhere, and you really wouldn’t have watched if you’d known. Waiting almost 20 years to see the second part of It’s Your Move’s “Dregs of Humanity” episode, because part 2 was pre-empted by some breaking news, or something, and then the show was cancelled, so you couldn’t see part 2 in summer reruns.
I just don’t see how that’s actually a good thing. Hey, is there some food you like? OK, it’s only available from 2-4 p.m. on June 3 of each year. Is there music you like? We’ll take it away from all of your various devices, and it will be broadcast on over-the-air radio on the first Wednesday of each month. Looking forward to a new book from your favorite author? Well, you won’t be able to buy it, and your library will only have one copy, which you’ll have to reserve ahead of time and there will be a two hour window for you to show up and check it out, and then you’ll only have 3 days to read it.
How would any of that be a good thing?
I super-duper look forward to each new episode of Game of Thrones, and I watch them religiously on Sunday night. But if I miss one, I won’t be screwed! Win win win.
Yeah.
I mean, not “yeah” on Game of Thrones, which I thought was a movie, but yeah on the sentiment. My son goes to bed at 8pm, so I let the DVR get The Big Bang Theory for me, and watch it after he’s asleep.
I’m not saying that DVRs (or VCRs before them) are necessarily bad, but that like others have said, TV watching was an EVENT before, not just a pastime. You had a stake in it, in a sense.
There’s none of that anymore; it loses something when everything’s streamable, pauseable, restartable, and available 24-7, even though it does gain a lot of convenience.
It loses the anxiety you feel over the possibility of missing it, and the disappointment when you do. And the sadness when it’s over.
Are you saying you’d prefer to go back to that way? Or are you just saying that there were some good side effects of the way it used to be?
I’m saying anxiety, disappointment and sadness are bad, and I’m glad we have work-arounds now. I have no wish to go back to the old way,
I sort of miss the squareness of old time TV, with its implication (sic?) that there was a big wide wonderful America out there full of children and housewives, a sort of generic midwest, so to speak. It was reassuring. That was the America that Arthur Godfrey, Garry Moore, Ed Sullivan, the Disney shows, family sitcoms and soaps catered to; and it seems to have vanished. I write this as an easterner and city dweller for most of my adult life, and as someone who, as a kid loved “beatnick” style and anti-Establishment humor, whether of the Mad magazine or Ernie Kovacs kind. Later on, things got hip as Boomers became grownups, yet the center still held, so to speak. Johnny Carson was a more sophisticated version of that generic midwest I was referring to, and with him and others like him gone, TV morphed into a whole new ball game.
I’m not saying I want to go back, but that there are some good side-effects of the way it used to be.
Maybe I’m just getting older, but I remember the excitement about favorite shows coming on fondly, and it’s just a lot harder to get excited about shows coming on, when I know that I can DVR them first-run, or later in re-runs, or if it’s a show I decided to watch after the fact (“Breaking Bad” for example), I can stream them, or watch them in the inevitable eternal syndication.
I mean, I figured I might like “Breaking Bad” (and I do), but I just couldn’t be arsed to bother until recently. By comparison, I didn’t know if I’d like “Star Trek:TNG” back in 1987, but I made damned sure to watch the pilot to find out, because I might not get a second chance.
Not to mention, there used to be a “five year” rule. That was how long a show had to run before it could be picked up for syndication. A lot of shows that didn’t make it not because they were bad, but because they were a little ahead of their time, or were more suitable for a niche market, and not the broad base necessary for network programming before the 1990s, put out a couple of good seasons; others were not especially good, but they show early work of someone who later became a big star. If not for TVLand, and Comedy Central, USA, and several other channels that look for quirky things, and don’t care about the “five season” rule, and run these shows to let them finally find audiences (not to mention Hulu, and other corners of the internet) these shows would just be collecting dust. Forever.
ETA: Yes, I know the “five year” rule got ignored sometimes (Star Trek) but usually not.
I miss when local stations had stuff on in the afternoon other than awful talk shows.
I saw quite a few good movies that I otherwise wouldn’t have on the KTRK/Ch 13 “Million Dollar Movie” that they used to show from 3-5 pm daily. Nowadays it’s just a parade of crap like Judge Judy, TMZ Live and Oprah.
I’m sure however that in this day and age, an ABC affiliate showing movies from the 80s, 90s and early 00s from 3-5 every day would suffer in the ratings vs. the other stations showing the talk shows/stupid reality shows.
In Minneapolis, just about every station had a syndicated afternoon talk show back in the '60s and early '70s: Mike Douglas, Dennis Wholey, Merv Griffin (before he went network). A couple of others were locally produced.
It was the good ones on late at night on the weekends that I really liked: Joe Pyne and his ilk, David Frost, Phil Donahue (before he hit it really big). Joe in particular had some really weird guests that you would never have seen on other talk shows: an 80-year-old nudist married to a hippie babe, the head of the Flat Earth Society, a guy who was running for the post of King of the United States, black militants who demanded the former Confederate states as restitution for slavery, and so on.
Don’t bring her up. She makes parts of my body feel…strange.
Although, I’m not sure if you’ve seen it or not, but, Dark Passage, with Bogie, Bacall and Moorehead, was a great movie. It’s amusing how scary she looked in that one. Even knowing how pretty she was in real life made me take a long look and I could barely tell it was makeup.
ABC in New York had the 4:30 movie. As a kid I lived for Monster Week, Godzilla Week and Planet of the Apes Week.
Reptilicus!