Technological improvements aside, I don't think media has improved in content quality. There are or were (recent) trash show a bunch a dozen (CSI, NCIS, House of Lies, all these 'Let's talk to the suspect and get a confession' Whodunnits, vigilante shows with always the same stuff every week like Burn Notice or Leverage...). Of course there are also imported formats who don't appeal very much due to lack of cultural background (e.g. Magic City).

At least they already made fun of these shows in one of these shows itself. See the evolving concepts of the show-in-show 'Doctor Danger' Diagnosis: Murder:

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Station Identification - it used to be that just after a commercial break, a television network might remind viewers what channel they were watching. A few seconds of that then the show was back on, uninterrupted until the next set of commercials. Now some channels stick channel logos on the screen -while the show is on. With some remaining for the entirety of the program. Other networks go so far as to have animated graphics, like race cars or chickens or whatever, run across the bottom of the screen for a few seconds and more. Flashy graphics intruding on the show, diverting our attention from the program, to tell us of some other show to be watched, at some other time. Often these station tags and in-show advertising blocks our viewing of information, imagery, and subtitling. i bleeping hate this.

As a viewer, i am oft frustrated to not be able to see an interviewees name etc, or some subtitled translations, or some detail or imagery a videographer has captured. As a content producer, i'd be pissed if it was my camera and editing work they were vandalizing with their station tags. Of the programs i favor, the Discovery and History networks are the worst offenders. Subsequently my viewing of their programs has plummeted (but also, they really really suck now). i hope that people will look back from the future and feel thankful that they are not subjected to intrusive in-show ads and "station identification" - (Does anyone really forget what channel they are watching? If so,

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Commercials - With advent of the internet, i figured it wouldn't be long before length of commercials was reduced. In internet-time, 30 seconds is significant. Multiply that by 5+ and it becomes an eternity. i was stubborn to use an ad-blocker because i do feel that content providers are due some monetary consideration for providing my entertainment. But they go too far and just this year i finally installed one (i cut cable years ago, everything i have watched in the last 6-7 years has been online. i don't hate commercials, i just hate their content and length).

The most effective commercial i have ever watched, was a 5 second ad for Sprint. Generally when a commercial break comes up, i tab out to another browser window to surf the net for 2-5 minutes. And i mute the PC. Then come back and continue the program once the spam is gone. But one time there was no audio coming from the ad. i had already tabbed out, and though just a couple seconds had passed, i was curious as to why the ad did not run. i tabbed back expecting to find a stalled ad. Well that ad had no audio, and no moving pictures. Just six letters spelling the world Sprint. That was it.

That silent five second ad managed to do what no other ads had done in a looong time - it got my attention, in positive way. And had i not known who Sprint was, i would certainly have done a net-search on it. But non-intrusive audio would have been okay as well. Five seconds is plenty of time for an advert. That ad left a favorable impression which might tip the balance in a future buying decision. Spammy obnoxious ads however, prejudice me against those companies. The worse they are, the easier it is to remember. Hard to forget i find the distasteful spam to be. They most definitely affect my purchasing decisions in ways unintended by the sponsor.

If each commercial break was comprised of 5 second slots in groups of no more than 6, i would not bother to tab out. If the audio of these commercials was not noise offensive, then i would not bother muting them. Thirty seconds and we'd be back to program. Those ads would be viewed by me, everytime. Other variations would work, like three ten second spots. But not much more. 45 seconds is enough to check email, or scan a forum listing. 30 seconds is a bit short. However, if these commercial breaks occur at a rate of more than one per ten minutes of viewing, i might likely stop watching the show altogether. Perhaps once "internet TV" demographic finally gets big enough (it is huge now), we will see short commercial breaks. i hope people from the future will cringe at what we now are subjected to.

i realize my post above (#18) is off the topic. i'll edit as OP wishes. More to the threads point...

i too ponder trends. Hair and clothing styles, music and story telling, language and art, etc. i've many thoughts on this which will go unsaid here, but far as some of the why of it, i tend to think towards our ego minded species seeking change for the sake of it. Some motivations may include a feeling of elitism, sophistication. That by nature we measure our worth against others. That to feel satisfied with self we seek to judge self as superior to others.

On the micro subcultures level we certainly can see that people of one group will feel superior to others. Be it length of hair, birth place, skin color, sexual identity, religious and ideological associations, etc. All these things people use against others in ways which reek of elitism. Perhaps this works on the macro scale of civilizations as well. That even among our own affinity groupings, we must be different than those who came before.

You just used the words in the same sentence :)

Can't wait until canned laughter hits the garbage bin. It makes just about every show on TV unwatchable.

Maybe you're just getting old. *ducks for cover* =P

i was born old. :-(

Folks have pretty much nailed what underlies this problem - the novelty factor and circularity.

Novelty is intrinsically wired into the mammalian brain, firing off reward chemicals and elevating awareness when confronted with novel stimuli. Over time it takes more to trigger this response, as we grow accustomed to the permutations of things, and subsequently it takes more and more exceptional stimuli to activate this pathway. You can see this in hypertrophic form on the internet, where trends, fads, and viral memes rise, peak, and fall within an incredibly short lifespan. But regardless of the timescale involved, unless something is fundamentally meaningful (such as a new style of art or music), as it persists it fades from being novel to being pedestrian, then finally to played-out.

Circularity is part of this phenomenon, because we are cyclical creatures and our tastes tend to oscillate between various poles over time. This is a form of long-term novelty, where there is a refractory period that passes and once again a phenomenon can trigger our novelty-hungry pathways. This time it comes with the added bonus of nostalgia, which has reward circuits of its. Also over the intervening period new people have come into the world who have not yet experienced this stimuli, so it is novel for them.

As for those things which do not return, such as the examples the original poster cites, that can be chalked up to cultural and social evolution. Humanity as a whole progresses (hopefully) beyond certain tropes, and they fall out of favour when they become embarrassing or offensive to modern sensibilities.

I wish the weather warning bullcrap would cease.

If people are worried about the weather go to the local weather internet feed. There are not many shows I watch live anymore, so all it does is ruin the TV show I watch now. If there was a tornado tearing through my neighborhood I would have heard it before seeing a TV segment about it. I can understand warning about the tornado, but I don't need to know a thunderstorm is moving through my neighborhood. I will be able to tell that about ten minutes before it hits. And I sure don't need to know about breaking news until I watch the news. If Nuclear War has broken out then yes go ahead and interrupt my TV show for that breaking news, but otherwise local news: FUCK OFF. And Obama I don't care to hear anything from you or any other politician, ever...

And who told you a chill didn´t run through my back when I was replying? ;P

Reality TV, when is it going to die. Please, give me something entertaining to watch and stop making these completely idiotic shows. May all people responsible for unleashing this on the world rot in hell.

A +1 to you good sir. I'm so fed up of filth like this on TV. It's like they are trying to get us to quit watching anything on TV altogether. Between the reality (sic) shows, canned laughter and torrent of spam every 10-15 minutes, it's really hard to keep it on for longer than half an hour.

I'm actually starting to lean towards the opinion of a friend of mine, who says normal TV channels/TV broadcasts will die. It's simply much better to watch series online, when you want, rather than sit through the sh*t on normal channels, spam every so often, and a show at a certain time once a week (ish).

I do not have a TV set since 2008, but I have a beamer, a bd-player, a PC and a collection of movies and series which I can watch whenever and with how many pauses I want.

TV is getting old.
I manage my free time as I see fit without missing something.

Amen to that. I have not had a connected (to either on-air channels or cable) TV since the 1990s. Anything televisual that I want to watch I either buy on DVD or stream to my Xbox or Roku. The few times I have seen regular TV since then have only cemented how right I was to abandon it. Not only have the content and the commercials generally gotten worse, but most channels now put those annoying overlays and pop-ups over everything, ruining what you are watching in the hopes you'll watch more shit.

Related to this thread in general, it would indeed seem that everything old is new again.