I was thinking about posting an RTN thread today when I found this one.
When I got my first converter box in October, the only "good" I could find was the RTN subchannel. (7.2 in Detroit). It reminded me of the low-budget Detroit UHF channels of my youth (WXON-20, WKBD-50 & WGPR-62). Given the crummy digital signal, the pixelation and freeze-ups reminded me of poor UHF reception.
It was great to see shows like Kojak, Dragnet, Adam-12, Emergency!, and so on. At 11 PM they ran Night Gallery. I had told my girlfriend about this show, but she had never seen it (She's about 10-years younger than me). The first time we watched it together, it was a really trippy episode about a witch that needs to move into a young body by midnight... It scared the crap out of my girlfriend... She said she couldn't believe they'd run stuff that scary on TV. Not to mention the frightening theme song and psychedelic graphics.
Then it gradually started to suck. Night Gallery was pulled and replaced with some LAME-ASS talk show.
Kojack got bumped for a low-rent version of Regis & Kathy Lee.
Instead of late-night with Jim Rockford, we got late night with Billy Mayes infomercials.
There are still a few good shows so I hope it survives, but I imagine that part of the problem is they seem to program the channel using a dart-board covered with old TV guides. Not much logic applied.
Example: There are at least a few guys like me who could care less about the dozens of boring football games on the big networks all weekend. So what might be a good alternative? How about a block of shows like...
Rockford Files
The Hulk
A-Team
Knight Rider
Afternoon Movie-The Original Gone in 30 seconds (1974)
Etc.
I swear I've seen most of those shows on RTN, just packaged randomly with Leave-it-to-Beaver or Marcus Welby. But what does RTN offer on the weekends?
Nancy Drew
Hardy Boys
Might as well watch paint dry and save CRT life!
So like everything else, it seems to start out pretty good, turns to crap and then disappears.
