TL;DR: 301 of the top 400 cable TV shows (for a random week in July) aired on one of these four networks: ESPN, Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Sports and news, not at all shocking. The only things that aren't worth watching after the fact.
Sports and entertainment. None of those are news imo
Call it whatever you want, it doesn’t affect my point. Not much value in watching something CNN aired 3 days ago, right?
No value in watching something CNN is airing in 3 minutes. It's all trash made to control Americans
OK we get it, TV news is trash. I'm not really talking about the quality of it, I'm just explaining why it's still one of the few things keeping old-school cable going. If you're the kind of person who watches TV news, you watch it that day. No one's going back in time and watching every single episode of Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow just for kicks.
If the majority of cable channels were owned by someone other than the same conglomerates that own streaming networks and broadcast channels — would there be better programming on cable?
No, I genuinely don't think that would matter. The quality of what's on TV is dictated by the customer. Execs will air whatever as long as it brings in viewers and ad revenue. They'd air a 24-hour special on paint drying if it could pull in enough eyeballs.