The Death of Broadcast TV

[Lebowski]

With the news that Citv is coming to an end after 30 years of broadcasting i definitely feel like we are in the midst of a big shift in how TV is being presented and consumed by younger audiences.

https://www.itv.com/news/2023-03-10/itv-announces-closure-of-citv-in-favour-of-streaming-only-childrens-content

Citv will be replaced by a streaming only service called ITVX Kids, dodgy dodgy name aside (ITVX sounds very much like an adult subscription service) it feels like their making the right choice here by ditching the channel and going for a more streaming based solution.

It got me thinking though, i never put the TV on to watch things when their on I'm fully reliant on streaming services and catch up despite growing up under the older system. My kids think that broadcast tv is not for them and see the Virgin media box as something of a relic which makes me think we are in the start of a shift to a move away from broadcast tv.

Outside of LIve sports i can't see how live TV will remain relevant or how company's that provide TV channels will continue with diminishing audiences, can you imagine a future where british institutions like Channel 4 and BBC are fully online streaming based with no live variant?

[charlesr]

My daughter has a big TV in her room. She doesn't use it any more and just uses her phone to watch things. I guess because she can continue watching while walking downstairs to the fridge.

I've not had a TV license for about ten years now. My Gf has Sky which is a novelty - series record is pretty cool and grabbed the whole of Fringe over a few months. But the live stuff has no appeal and the service is so expensive (well, the everything package she has is). I want to sit down and start watching something from the start when my dinner is ready. Not have to pick from all the rubbish that's on and of no interest to me.

[Dogg Thang]

Streaming works better in almost every way for everyone.

Except the streamers. And people making the content.

[Baseley09]

Agree, we have virgin and when my contract comes to an end that will likely be the end of having cable TV, I sniped the aerial ages ago so no freeview either, that'll be that.

[Neon Ignition]

Beginning of a road that see's ITVX Kids discontinued too. Dumb idea

[charlesr]

Agree, we have virgin and when my contract comes to an end that will likely be the end of having cable TV, I sniped the aerial ages ago so no freeview either, that'll be that.

Shooting the cable from a mile away seems a bit extreme. You could have just used wire cutters.

[Asura]

Our latest TV isn't even fully tuned in.

I have a Chromecast.

[Yakumo]

Our latest TV isn't even fully tuned in.

I have a Chromecast.

None of my personal TVs have ever been tunned in. But that's because Japanese TV really does suck balls. It's either news, a ****ty drama with poor acting and over the top BGM, some nobodys walking around then eating something, a quiz show featuring the same "famous" people or boring politics.

Yep, Japanese TV has sucked since 1998. It hasn't evolved at all. On the bright side, the pre-staged reality shows are free of scumbags. I guess that's a plus point.

I should point out that the living room TV and son's TV are tuned in though.

[Hirst]

From an outsider perspective, Japanese TV seems to mostly consist of a few celebrities (picked from a pool of about 20 of mostly attractive women but also that permanently angry-looking big guy in drag) reacting to a pre-recorded video of something and then it keeps showing their reaction in a little inset window. Every other comment will also appear on the screen as text. It’s also not that wacky and is surprisingly dull, like a British “magazine” show but just with more of a running commentary.

For me, TV died when the stupid talent shows and celebrity stuff started growing in frequency and running time. Something that in the 90s would have been a 30 minute slot suddenly took up 2 hours and wasn’t just on once a week, but pretty much every day. And then buffered by some spin-off show where some other people talk about what happened. Just pushed out all the content and made prime time completely unwatchable. Good riddance.

[Yakumo]

From an outsider perspective, Japanese TV seems to mostly consist of a few celebrities (picked from a pool of about 20 of mostly attractive women but also that permanently angry-looking big guy in drag) reacting to a pre-recorded video of something and then it keeps showing their reaction in a little inset window. Every other comment will also appear on the screen as text. It’s also not that wacky and is surprisingly dull, like a British “magazine” show but just with more of a running commentary..

you are so right. That is a vast majority of Japanese TV. Same no talent faces on everything. The fat drag queen is always on TV because women find him entertaining. There's actually 3 drag queens on Japanese TV that are popular. I don't get it. They're not funny and all follow the same never changing act. In fact, that goes for the majority of Japanese comedians too. I **** you not, they're that predictable that you can say what comes next before they do it.
I've lived here since 1998 and can honestly say TV then is identical to now. The only stuff I like watching are the Karaoke battles as they do tend to have some good singers doing 80s and 90s pop.
Sadly there's a server lack of special interest shows.

[teddymeow]

I discovered, after watching the Japanese version of Lego Masters, that the subtitles used in Japanese TV are called Telops and somebody at the University of Helsinki has done a project on them:

English Use in Japanese Variety Television Shows : Focus on Telop

[Asura]

For me, TV died when the stupid talent shows and celebrity stuff started growing in frequency and running time. Something that in the 90s would have been a 30 minute slot suddenly took up 2 hours and wasn’t just on once a week, but pretty much every day. And then buffered by some spin-off show where some other people talk about what happened. Just pushed out all the content and made prime time completely unwatchable. Good riddance.

I once read there was a specific example of this, which was discussed a great deal at TV production companies etc. at the time, particularly in the US.

I'm paraphrasing as it was a long time ago, but it was that you could make 4 seasons of Airport, the reality TV show following a bunch of random people in a specific airport as they go about their daily lives, for the price of 1 episode of Firefly. And, for a time, Airport was a shockingly popular show.

[dataDave]

I actually really miss things being on a strict schedule, especially now with a son who has absolutely no concept of keeping time.

I’m not a fan of the ability to binge stuff, either. Streaming services should have parental controls in place to limit the amount of episodes someone can watch any given day/week.

[Asura]

I actually really miss things being on a strict schedule, especially now with a son who has absolutely no concept of keeping time.

I’m not a fan of the ability to binge stuff, either. Streaming services should have parental controls in place to limit the amount of episodes someone can watch any given day/week.

I do wonder...

OK, this is going to seem like a weird thing to say, but when was the last time you were genuinely bored?

I remember, a lot of time, as a kid, being bored. Like just genuinely, mind-numbingly bored. I remember one afternoon where I was at a child-minder's job and basically just had to sit in a room, with nothing to do, for four hours - due to a scheduling clash. I remember literally counting all the floorboards and tiles on the ceiling, I was that bored. I remember a day in the summer of what must've been ~1994, when it was so hot and there was nothing to do, and I had to go get a bus through a new-build housing estate on a weekday at noon, and it was so quiet it was like a liminal state, and you'd think that hour took ten. I remember days of school where it was chucking down, there was nothing on TV, and I'd already spent 3 hours on Virtua Fighter 2 and was just bored. I might even sometimes grab my guitar, or get out a pencil and paper and sketch, or something else creative, but even that only gets you so far. But still, I remember this was a regular occurance; waiting for buses, waiting for school to start...

I realise that this has changed since I got a smartphone. These days, the only times I'm ever truly that bored is when I've got to get a connecting train, or something, and I mistime things, and due to that, I've got to turn off my phone to conserve battery. This happened to me a couple of years ago, and I was at a small train platform, in the middle of nowhere, alone for practically the entire duration, for 3 hours. The fact I remember that is emblematic of how rare this is now.

But related point - and due to the above, this is not meant to be judgemental - but I've observed that kids in my family simply CAN. NOT. DEAL. with being bored. Their parents go to enormous lengths to make sure they never have to simply ask them to sit still and shut the hell up for half an hour, because they know the kids simply can't do it without acting up.

And again, not a judgement, because this just how the world has changed. Part of me suspects they just never had those formative experiences of boredom. And I worry about what that means.

[Neon Ignition]

Me and the missus have talked about this a fair bit recently, that we're increasingly wondering if our kids development would be better off if we made an active effort to force them to be bored. The readiness of access to content on demand means there's a constant expectation that they can just hop onto Youtube or a kids kindle etc They're not the best when it comes to playing with toys or sitting through long form film and TV

That's before you get to the quality of the content. I refuse to accept it's a generational repeat of what everyone says about the younger gen - the stuff they watch that is popular on Youtube is actually ****