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Old 05-08-2017, 12:02 PM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
<----Zenith C845
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
Posts: 4,035
I agree that TV isn't what it once was before cable, satellite, etc., and is getting worse by the day. Like VK member Titan1a, I don't watch much standard TV these days, only certain shows on the broadcast networks (I have Time Warner Starter TV service, which is local broadcast channels only), their subchannels, and DVDs/VHS tapes. Time was when I would watch a lot more TV than I do now; however, the only things I watch on broadcast TV these days are the evening news (NBC Nightly News and, occasionally, Dateline) and an occasional network program.

NBC's Dateline news magazine is not what it used to be, either. This was once a respectable magazine program, but it, like most of NBC's recent programming, has gone so far downhill, IMHO, that it isn't funny. One thing I don't care for with Dateline is the promotional announcement the network runs for it; it always end with the phrase "#Don't Watch Alone", which appears just below the NBC peacock before the promo ends. This phrase, which I personally believe is overblown hype, implies that every edition of Dateline has stories with the potential to scare viewers half to death. I do not agree with that reasoning; in fact, I think most Dateline segments are the result of well-done reporting, meant to inform viewers of current events and issues--not to scare them.

I remember when NBC's news magazines such as Chronolog, Weekend, Comment!, Monitor (the TV adaptation of the old NBC Monitor Beacon radio program, which aired from 1955-1975 over the former NBC Radio Network; "Monitor" on TV lasted only one season, IIRC), et al. were on a par with, and just as good as, CBS' Sixty Minutes in the '70s; they aren't any longer. No wonder NBC's ratings are so low these days, unless the network has sunk so low that all it cares about now is delivering junk programming to its 200+ affiliates across the US. They even had a jingle which was a takeoff on their "NBC - We're Proud!" slogan of about five years ago. The new jingle replaced the word "proud" with "LOUD", and the network actually seemed proud that their ratings were, at the time, about two years ago (and are, even as I write this) lower than a snake's belly and are probably dropping almost daily.

IMHO, they had better darn well watch their step, as they are skating on thin ice at this moment and could find themselves in real ratings trouble, if they aren't in such trouble already. I read online somewhere, I don't remember where, a comment (probably, even likely, in regard to the network's programming) in which a viewer stated, "NBC = Nothing But Crap!"

While I personally don't think NBC's programming is that bad--yet, anyway, it may be and probably is headed in that direction. I can see a day coming, again if the network doesn't shape up, and soon, when NBC will cease to exist as a television network, leaving America with just two commercial broadcast networks. NBC may be feeling the pressure from today's wide variety of viewing choices not available 50 years ago, such as cable networks, video on demand, DVDs, and so on, and may have reached the point where they simply don't care anymore about ratings or what happens to the network.

No wonder NBC retired its "Proud N" logo some years ago; that, and the issues over the network's "N" logo of the time ('80s) being identical to a similar logo in current use by an educational TV network in Nebraska. There was a time when NBC had a right to be proud of its programming; unfortunately, however, that time is long gone, and the peacock's only significance these days is its value as an iconic identifier of NBC, which was, after all, America's first broadcast network (NBC radio from 1926-'86, NBC television from 1948 to the present day and, hopefully, well into the future).

The NBC peacock is known world-wide, and the network has no intention of scrapping it any time soon, even though it has done away with such iconic symbols as the NBC color peacock, which was shown in the '60s-mid-'70s before every NBC color program, the "NBC snake" which was shown, again through the '60s until 1975, after every NBC-TV program, and other artifacts of the network as it was in its glory days. The NBC peacock is still shown, after NBC shows, in a much smaller form these days, often with the bird's feathers all one color, although the network still uses a peacock logo with the bird's feathers of different colors, especially as a network "bug" in the lower left corner of your TV screen. The peacock's colors disappear seconds later, and a nearly transparent version of this iconic NBC logo appears for the duration of whatever program is being shown on the network at the time.
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Jeff, WB8NHV

Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002

Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten.
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