Quote:
Originally Posted by egrand
At that time, TV was only on in the evenings . . .
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That was a good idea. I sometimes wish TV stations would go back to that schedule, as daytime programming on television these days isn't worth watching; as we used to say in the '70s, it is strictly from hunger. Talk shows, game shows (one network station in Cleveland carries a syndicated version of Family Feud, while another has Jeopardy! just before its four p. m. newscast), and other ho-hum fare are all that's on daytime TV anymore (at least here in northern Ohio) after the soap operas. NBC is only showing one, at one p.m. Eastern time, while the other two networks still have three or more soaps before the first newscast of the day.
News at four p. m. is also something no US TV station had until a couple years ago. I wonder how many people actually see these late afternoon newscasts, as most people are still at work at that hour of the day. (Cleveland has two early newscasts, on channels 5 and 8.)
Of course, with all the cable channels available today (including retro digital subchannels), I guess people are finding a lot more entertaining stuff to watch during daytime hours outside of the broadcast networks, including older shows from the days when television was fun to watch.
TV Guide magazine used to publish local and national TV schedules, with listings from 7 a.m. through the end of prime time (11 p.m. Eastern), but not any more. Today, TV Guide shows only prime-time listings for the major networks and cable. The network listings are identified by network, not by local channel numbers as they were years ago. These listings are sometimes seriously incorrect if the networks have unscheduled programming changes, such as Presidential speeches or other special programming that preempts or moves regular shows to later time periods. This happens quite regularly in the summer when local stations preempt some or all of a network's prime-time programming for baseball or other sports; channel 3 in Cleveland, the NBC affiliate, does this without warning. They fulfill their obligation to the network by videotaping the preempted shows and showing them at unearthly hours of the morning, but tell me honestly--who is going to stay up until three a.m. to watch an NBC show that was telecast live during prime time? Digital cable makes it impossible to tape shows on standard VCRs for later viewing, and not everyone has or wants a DVR. Shucks, I don't even have the TV cable connected to my VCR anymore--I have the cable going directly to the set's antenna-cable jack, and I use my VCR strictly for watching old tapes. My DVD player gets far more use than the VCR nowadays. Haven't recorded a TV show in a long time and don't intend to, as, IMO, there is nothing on TV these days worth watching twice.
Isn't there an FCC rule stating that television stations must provide a notice that network programming will be preempted by local shows? TV stations used to do this years ago, in this form or something similar: "[Program title] will not be seen tonight, in order that we may bring you the following [station name] special presentation." The other network stations in Cleveland do just that, but channel 3 just preempts network shows almost at will, without saying a word beforehand. Don't get me started on NBC's habit of preempting their weekend evening news with sports programming. I have often wondered whether NBC feels sports on weekends is more important to their ratings than their own nightly newscast; it must be, otherwise they wouldn't let the sports programming slop over into the six o'clock news hour.