old shows being messed with

[Jeffhs]

I'm in Lake County, Ohio, 35 miles east of Cleveland. Our cable system (Time Warner) does not carry Movies! yet, unless it is available only on a tier of service I don't have (my cable service is expanded basic).

I also notice that the cable networks are shortening the programs they carry and are running more commercials. I don't like it, but that's the way it is. I get around the problem by watching my favorite shows (mostly old ones from the '60s and '70s) on DVDs, which are uncut for the most part and, of course, have no commercials. The only use I have for the broadcast networks, 99.9 percent of the time, is for their world news broadcasts and newsmagazines.

I realize full well that OTA TV stations/networks and cable networks must run a certain number of commercials every hour to stay on the air, but I also believe these commercial breaks are getting out of hand. The broadcast networks can only run a certain number of commercials due to time constraints, but local stations and cable networks seem free to run as many of those infernal things as they deem necessary, at the expense of the programs themselves.

OTA and cable networks may be required to show a TV program's credits, but I wonder why they show them, in many cases, in small boxes and even smaller type that is nearly impossible to read unless you are only a few inches away from your TV. I guess that's how they comply with the regulations, whatever they may be. However, on programs such as the Law and Order series on USA and WGN America, the credits are shown in their entirety during the show itself, taking up about the first ten minutes of the broadcast. I just ignore them.

One other thing I've noticed is that network and cable programs are run one after another, with no commercial breaks or station breaks. OTA television stations, however, handle the hourly ID requirement by running a station identification slide during one of those commercial breaks. The reason networks and cable run programs back-to-back without interruptions may be so that people won't switch channels between programs. Television networks are concerned with ratings and with money, so every network tries their darnedest to get folks to watch that network.

The day has not yet arrived, however, when people can watch all four broadcast networks and PBS at the same time. RCA did have, in 1970, a prototype of a TV, the "Showcase 70", that could display four channels at once, with the ability to switch any of those screens to the 25-inch main screen at any time, but the set never went into production. Picture-in-picture, popular on many high-end sets of the '80s, was another attempt at showing more than one channel at the same time, but it disappeared when CRT TVs were replaced by flat screens.

BTW, one thing I've noticed with NBC's world news broadcast at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time is that they do not use a title slide, "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams", at the end of the program as they did for many years, although they do show that title slide at the beginning of the broadcast. What is shown at the end of the newscast is a slide with the logos of the social media services NBC has accounts with, as well as a disclaimer, "Copyright 2014 NBCUniversal Media." I guess since NBC is now owned and operated by Microsoft, they decided it is now more important to advertise the social media sites than the program itself at the end of the broadcast.

[Chip Chester]

Jeffhs wrote: " I guess since NBC is now owned and operated by Microsoft..."

Umm, nope. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBCUniversal

Some creative programmable remote work might get you your 4-screen tracking TV, though. Except now, it would need to be about 30 screens...

Chip