Local TV is an afterthought

Comments

• Salix Babylonika

  2014-02-26 05:51:05

  https://i.imgur.com/IoGc2jA.jpg

  Local TV by and large just isn't very interesting. It's mostly locally-oriented news stories (which can be gotten in a more reliable and simpler to read format from newspapers), random edutainment, and infomercials, in my experience.
  
• Sredni Vashtar

  2014-02-26 05:56:51 edited 2014-02-26 05:57:17

  “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”

  Local PBS is OK, but I have NPR for that (Fresh Air, bitches!). There is MIND TV, which can be pretty cool, but that's basically unstructured public access madness. Like spots on Chinese opera and student documentaries on landmarks and stuff.
• One-Winged Eagle

  2014-02-26 10:23:10

  Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.

  Local TV here is the most boring thing in the world.
• glennmagusharvey

  2014-02-26 11:16:02

  I sometimes feel bad about the local programming -- especially when it's things that actually matter such as town council meetings, and no one pays attention to them.
  
• Tachyon

  2014-02-26 15:52:50

  ^{i will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch}
  

  i don't even know what constitutes local TV, really
  
  we get local news broadcasts, and i believe the listings are slightly different depending on where in Britain you are... i know in Wales you can get Welsh-language programming, for instance
  
  but 'local TV' as an entity, well, i'm not sure what that is
  
• Princess Alice

  2014-02-26 15:54:09

  You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022

  Maybe it's just the city I live in, but it seems like there's not much to local programming anymore aside from newscasts...
• Tachyon

  2014-02-26 15:59:07

  ^{i will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch}
  

  Wikipedia said:

  Many local television stations in the United Kingdom ceased broadcasting due to a lack of viability, but some stations are still being broadcast.

  
  this explains my ignorance, maybe
• lee4hmz

  2014-02-26 16:47:04

  ⚠ THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS

  Back in the early days of US television, when the networks broadcast only at certain times (or, in ABC's and PBS's cases, not at all because they didn't exist yet), there was a lot more programming produced right there at the station. Into the 1970s and 1980s in some markets, you could still find things like locally-produced kids' shows and even the occasional talk show or drama, though you mainly found that on the better-funded network affiliated stations. Independent stations (ones that weren't beholden to one of the Big Three) typically had much tighter budgets, and ran whatever they figured would attract viewers (especially if they could barter ad time to get it instead of paying licensing fees), which is why old movies and sitcoms were staples on most of them.
• lee4hmz

  2014-02-26 16:49:43

  ⚠ THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS

  As I understand it, commercial TV in the UK works similarly to how PBS does here; each station is its own entity, there aren't really any "owned and operated" stations (at least, before Granada ate up all the other franchises and renamed itself ITV :P), and shows from outside the fold are "sponsored" in by one station or another.
• Tachyon

  2014-02-26 16:51:54

  ^{i will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch}
  

  Sounds about right, yeah.
  
• Imipolex G

  2014-02-26 18:04:58

  Touch the cow. Do it now.
  

  TV is a wasteland