Did Networks alienate the male audience like Disney is accused of doing? Reality TV killed it for me. My wife watched them. I went back to video games and sports.

"Was 1984 TV better than 2023 TV?" Obviously. But then again, life in 1984 was better than life in 2023. By "1984" I mean : the Ronald Reagan era. Not the Orwellian society where we are heading! 😬

I grew up with Airwolf, Knight Rider and the A-Team. I pretty much was nurtured by those shows.

I was 9 years old in 1984 and wasn’t allowed to watch TV during a school night but come Friday and Saturday, I would watch almost without stopping. I miss those days.

I was 26 in 1984. I eagerly awaited such well executed shows asNewhart, Cheers, Magnum, Cagney and Lacey, Moonlighting, Simon & Simon, V and Mike Hammer... and even enjoyed lighter fare like Riptide or Hardcastle and McCormick. For one thing, there was much less cookie cutter mentality. I watched a few shows the other night and noticed that so many actors were the same height, weight, possessed similar facial characteristics and even had the same amount of stubble on their cheeks -- I blame that last on Miami Vice. And the characters were all as one note as the actors. You could never confuse Magnum, Rick, TC, or Higgins ... but I swear you could swap dialogue for most current characters and never notice.

Well, in the 80'a I actually watched TV, now, rarely if ever

My wife had never seen Miami Vice before, so we started watching it in Tubi. She was blown away at how good it is, even if some of it seems a bit dated.

To answer your question, "Was 1984 TV better than 2023 TV?" The answer is YES!!! I was born in 1974. Many of the stories had a message but the goal was never to "put a chick in it and make her Gay." But in 2023 there are some good movies and shows that are being squeezed out a good show. There seems to be a culture war taken place.

I was an 11 year old nerd in '84. Back then PBS was fantastic. They ran great British shows and documentaries. And the UHF channels ran cool old movies and shows. Pretty great!

It's no longer about creating a quality product, it's about advocating for woke ideology.

Knight Rider is a beautiful example of how networks got it right in the 80s and just being lost in wilderness in '20s. Every reboot of the show, ventured further and further away from what made the original great. Case in point the last reboot of KR. Where it became more Transformers than anything else. They course corrected in the last season, realizing it was more about good character driven stories, but by then audiences had walked away. And making KITT a Ford Mustang and all the Ford vehicle tie ins was kinda on the nose and really obvious. KITT is Pontiac Trans Am, and should always be so.

To answer simply. Yes. There were actual stories and characters we cared about. What happened to the series where every show was a one off story ? Every show whether 30 min or hour had a beginning, middle and end. With the occasional 2 parter and if something from the past came uo in a new episode it was COOL and unexpected. Today they take a 30 min show and drag it out for 8 1 hr episodes. It could be the landscape now that allows for way more garbage than was sustainable by the past and its programming structure.

“Kolchak: the night stalker” was one of my favorite shows as a kid. It probably wouldn’t hold up now, but back then, I loved it!

I am hearing this roll call of 1984 TV shows and I am amazed. We were spoiled. We had no idea how good we had it. I basically stopped watching TV in the 1990s with few exceptions.

The biggest difference was that content in the 1980's was more diverse in that it served a wider audience of all ages. Studios today focus on too narrow of an audience to cater to the advertisers that will pay the most money.

In a word, yes! I was 9 years old in 1984 and there were so many good shows on TV. Honestly, I've given up on TV pretty much since around 2010. These days, I only use my TV for watching my DVDs and Blu-rays. Occasionally I'll watch an old show (like classic Star Trek or the 80s-90s spin offs TNG, DS9 or Voyager) or reruns of classic comedies, but overall I can live without regular TV. Part of it is there just aren't any shows I like anymore or feel I can relate to. The bigger part is, I'm getting older (48 now), and there are just other more constructive things I'd rather do with my time than watch TV or movies. Life is too short, and I'd rather spend the time appreciating nature outdoors, walking my dog, reading uplifting books - things like that. I feel like watching TV and movies just serves as one big distraction from the more important things in life. Just my personal opinion.

I had done research a few years ago and had found that in the '80s we had to sit through maybe 11-12 minutes of ads per hour of TV. (It was about 8 minutes/hour in the '60s) but nowadays, up 'til abot 2019 anyway, commercials chew up _twenty_ minutes of view time every hour. Back then it was tolerable because TV was overall good. Not any more. Far more advertising and far less effort put into programs. Out of curiosity, I should probably time the PlutoTV ad breaks for an hour. They don't seem nearly as frequent... or maybe because watching higher quality programming blunts the edge a bit, I don't know.

Ironically we stream a lot of the older shows in our household in our viewing line up right now. Stuff like Murder She Wrote, Knight Rider, and Magnum. Thanks for what you do Chato!

For me those old shows are a return to a happier less woke time and that is why they still do so well. A lesson for todays content creators could learn a valuable lesson from these timeless classics.

1984, alone, was better than the entire 1st quarter of the 21st century.

Man, I miss quality television with long-lasting shows and really lengthy seasons of 26, 24, 22 episodes. They always told us shorter seasons equals higher quality. I think we can all see with today's current line up of shows that was a competely false argument. Another great video, Paul!

I was 33 in 1984, not even middle age, yet. Owned a home, still had the possibility of children, loved my husband passionately, teaching myself to cook, sew, etc etc. My aging parents were a responsibility. An intriguing video, Mr Chato. I wasn't watching TV a great deal, even then. I remember longing for some real entertainment, but it wasn't TV, most of the time. Movies in the theater were still entertaining and we had enough disposable income to enjoy them. I always hated commercials, I think that is one reason I rarely watched TV. My husband watched more TV than I ever did. Mainly reruns but even he wasn't that much of a TV watcher and he was teaching himself computer programming, in his spare time. More than likely his Apple 2. VHS was available (checked, it came out in 1977) I bought Star Wars on VHS, Star Trek movies, for an example, as soon as available. I would, I remember go to the mall and buy a tape now and then. There was an increasing variety of mediums and the only limitations were if the shows and movies were available and money. Buying the new device to play the various mediums was always an issue. Slowly, we stopped going to see movies in theaters and started to buy the Tapes (and when DVDS became available..) I think the networks were slowly being out bid for our entertainment dollars all through the 1980s-2000s ... but it was a very slow process and I finally stopped going to theaters in 2006. The golden time for TV for me was either in the 1960s when I was a teenager or the late 1980s and 1990s. We always benefited from our local library... books, tapes, books on Tape, books, CDs by 1982-84. I loved books on CDS and would listen as I did my needlework and housework. It was a time of transition, as you said... and, we had to carefully watch where we spent our few entertainment dollars ( remember the high mortgage rates?)

As a kid growing up in the 80's, Airwolf, A-Team, Duke's of Hazzard, Magnum P. I., Knight Rider was peak television and will never be surpassed. Then came Baywatch. Oh we all loved Baywatch.

knight rider and airwolf had the 2 best themesongs for a show ive ever heard, still get me going after so many years

Always good to hear your views, having an opinion without condemning someone's anything is refreshing.

Another changing factor is the serialization of television shows. Use to be tv shows were episodic. You could miss a few episodes and not feel lost when you returned. Only soaps like Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing were serialized. Action and comedy shows usually weren't. Probably because it's a format that didn't lend well to syndication where a lot of times episodes would be played out of order.

Me and my younger brother watched alot of Kolchak reruns when we were kids 😂 got a laugh out of me when you ended with that

It’s almost impossible to communicate to people today what a total and complete cultural juggernaut The Cosby Show was in those days (I know, I know, but we had no idea back then). Truly. EVERYBODY watched that show and you could make a show a hit just by floating it in TCS’s time slot fumes. And not just for a season - for _years_ . The only thing that rivaled it in cultural significance was perhaps the MASH finale. Seinfeld and Friends were similar later on, but they were imitators when it came to the grip TCS had on people’s Thursday nights. It crossed *all* demographics . I can’t think of anything that approaches that now. Game of Thrones came close, I suppose. For awhile. Until….the dark times. Until the eighth season. It’s strange to think about now. But I don’t know that anything will be that huge again. Why? There’s something about people having to all tune in at a certain time on a certain day that just feels better. Communal. Now, we’re all just sort floating in space.

"From department store to dollar store." That's basically it, isn't it? I almost teared up remembering the 1984 stuff, which I watched a lot of, even as a kid. Compared to all the reality schlock and cookie cutter crime things they spew out now that was a golden era.

The theme songs alone of virtually any of those 80s shows beats nearly the entire artistic output of 2023.

A good number of those 1984 shows made it across to the UK and were massive hits. I was 14 then, and loved The Dukes of Hazzard, Magnum PI, Kenneth Johnson's "V", and my mother adored Cagney and Lacey (as did I). Airwolf was popular with my younger brothers and we were all addicted to Knight Rider. I don't think we're addicted to anything now. I'm a lifelong fan of the BBC's Doctor Who (mainly of the classic series), and even that has been flagging of late. If the soft reboot doesn't save it in the coming months, there will be nothing for me.

I agree with you on partnering with Netflix, it was much better when studios licensed their libraries to it, instead of hoarfing them for their own streaming offers

I was a teenager in 1984, and I remember almost all those shows that you listed. People say now that there was so little on "back in the day" because there were only 3 networks, but there was a lot to watch. And the networks competed for our attention. The sorting out of what my family and I watched was sometimes a serious matter indeed. I miss the shared cultural experience that network television fostered. I really like hearing what you have to say from a former TV executive, Chato.

What I absolutely hate about modern TV shows is that they stretch out one storyline throughout a whole series. I really like to old style TV shows where there is one story per episode. A week later when the next episode airs, it a brand new story. I don't mind the odd cliffhanger that continues a week later. Stretching a story more than 2 episodes is too much.

Chato, THANK YOU, for the walk down memory lane in regards to these shows. I watched a lot of the shows you listed and still watch them today on DVD or whenever I can find them streaming. Personally, I think the days of quality TV Programming/Writing are dead and gone. Replaced by fan fiction writers with no lived experience, or reality TV garbage that just encourages bad behavior to drum up viewership. Which in turn has helped in the decline of civilized society. And I hate it when they try to revive the glory days with an updated version of a beloved series or movie, modernized for today's world and political agenda. I have said since day one when streaming was getting started. Someone out there needs to do a retro streaming service that only shows TV Series' and Movies from say 1920 up to 1999, and nothing newer, and had literally everything from that year range. I would be willing to pay up to $100 a month for a service like that. And cancel my subscription to everything else.

Well duh!! The 80s had morals.

Got rid of my cable back in 2009. Never looked back. Been using social media for news and entertainment ever since.

YES 1984 TV still had talented people who could write an original compelling story with believable characters, today IMO today it all feels like badly written fan fiction and everything is a reboot, and when the original versions are so much better than the watered down garbage they want to shovel down our throats, why should we waste our time watching it

As someone who was born in 73, I’d say yes, shows had messages, wasn’t overly political and executives didn’t put a chic in it and make’er ghey and if they did it wasn’t in your face. Alot of the shows had real cheesy dialogue but it was entertainment, most of the young kids tuned in to see the car, van or bad guys get beat by the A Team. I pity da fools

I havent watched commercial TV for 15 years. I dont miss it one bit. I dont listen to commercial radio either. My life is blessed.

Enjoyed the video. 1984 was one year before I was born but later when i started watching TV I basically grew up on old shows: Wonderful world of Disney, original Adams Family, Green Acres, (mostly my grandparents era) etc. I then transitioned into more updated shows; tons of cartoons in the 90s, a lot of PBS (reading rainbow got me hardcore into reading). Its been many years since I owned a TV but I do find myself lately reminiscing how much I enjoyed the old stuff compared to nowadays. Also, kinda related/unrelated, your way of speaking vividly reminds me so much of Andy Rooney during the end of 60 minutes giving me a strong hit of nostalgia when I used to watch it at my grandparents house.

Like in Stephen King's Gunslinger series - the world has moved on. Centralized entertainment is over. Now those of us who always felt left out can find our entertainment wherever it is.

I have Xfinity Cable with HBO Max, Paramount+ with Showtime, Netflix, and Amazon Prime and I’m like, “I hope there’s a re-run of Columbo on.”

"The Night Stalker" is awesome though, mostly due to McGavin's performance as Kolchak but also due to the often goofy monster-of-the-week presentations from the sewer monster pere mal fait to the headless biker to android Mr. Ring. I've got all the dvds!

I know these aren't Chato's highest viewed videos. But these might be my favorite. The differences and similarities between then and now are stark, and his insights from being in the industry are always welcome. The TV Guide videos are great also, especially when viewed in series because you can see the producers and showrunners gaining experience and picking better shows more often over time. Fascinating stuff, to me at least.

Hi Chato. It was a whole unique experience. Most were good, and the Meh were decent compared to today's standards. Getting a Tv Guide was a big deal. It was aimed at entertaining because that was the business as the alternative and albeit competitor to the Big Screen. The actors were not run of the mill. 2001 circa was a Rubuicon moment, downhill thereafter. New media into play. Entertainment is it's purpose but not WHY they are doing it. Get what I am saying Chato? Sounds confusing I know. 1984 - Hey! Make Entertainment, and give them something to like. It has to be good to keep an audience. 2023 - Hey! Make Entertainment but use it for social engineering purposes who cares if it is bad.

Being a child of the 1980's, I would say yes. I will say, if I go back before 1970's, the quality go downs again. But, 1980-2000, was pretty good. It started to go down (in my opinion) when MTV no longer was about music. And it really went bad, somewhere around 2012.

I used to watch them back in 84. I watch no new TV shows now. Haven't for years. Got the entire Married with children series and I'm watching them in order. Those entertain. More wild than 84 stuff. But still their focus was on entertainment.

In 1984, I was 14 and didn't have a television at home but I remember a lot of the shows mentioned as it was common among my friends to watch prime time TV. If I was at their house, I would watch it too. Television was much more of a social experience and far more important to the shared culture back then as there was always a discussion of the previous night's episodes and if you missed it you had to wait for the rerun months later. The ability to binge watch through a streaming service is eroding the cultural cohesion that previously centered around the network schedules. 1984 was a very different time.

Great critique Chato. If you were lucky enough to live in Canada, the Antipodes and a few select locations in the 1980's, then you also received the best of British Television in addition to the top shows from the U.S. Market. Shows like, The Professionals, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Bergerac, Taggart, Minder, Tenko, Rumpole of the Bailey, Brideshead Revisited, Open All Hours, 'Allo 'Allo!, Never the Twain, Attenborough, The Two Ronnies, The Benny Hill Show, Are You Being Served and many many more. Cheers.

Great video! There were at least three times I wanted to upvote again.

In 1983, I lived in a gulag in Siberia and there was only one closed circuit tv channel that broadcasted reruns of Hogans Heroes for us to watch while we ate our moldy bread and cold gruel. Those were the good old days.

I gave up on network TV 10 years ago and now watch only KZfaq, Netflix and occasionally Tubi. Fond memories of 1970's1980's TV, but like the steam locomotive, Network TV is never coming back. RIP.

MEMORABLE That's what TV was back then. Proof, we are still singing the theme songs, remixing them, and longing for those days to return. No one will have any interest in remembering todays AI generated CGI filtered sanitized crap.

When you mentioned Kolchak the Nightstalker, I knew that I had to subscribe to your channel.

The industry should be listening to you for advice

I stopped watching broadcast TV in 2005. It wasn't interesting anymore in Europe, where I live and the costs weren't justified. Funnily, I started watching Magnum PI for the 1st time just last week - because there is so much "good stuff' out there nowadays. I'm enjoying it.

Yes old tv was better. If nothing else we got 22 to 24 new episodes each year. Streaming platforms give us 8 Maybe every 1.5 to 2 years.

I was 16 in 1984. It was one of the best years of my life.

I gave up American TV in 1985, but Seinfeld was worth it to return for that show. I still watch it on a regular basis since it is free online.

so many awesome shows when you grew up in Germany in the 80ies... ❤

I watch exactly one show that's broadcast across cable TV. The Curse of Oak Island. However... I still watch that on the History Channel website, and recently they dropped the need to have a cable subscription to watch much of their content. I can watch the newest episode just a day after it's aired.

I watched this video three times. What we've lost in entertainment is mind-blowing. I was a very early cord cutter and now I kinda regret it.

I was thinking the other day that I don't know any network shows from about the last 14 years. The last TV show I remember consistently watching was "The Closer".

Funny thing, today's TV is pretty much as it was 60 years ago. I recently watched Netflix 'Loki', and I had an intense feeling of deja vu. The same arguments, the same technobabble and the same budget limitations that Star Trek in the 60s had.

It is a shame too, Wheel of Time is a fantastic book series. The creators of the show had a complete story of an author, far more talented than they. However, instead of just adapting the book story as is, they had to make it woke and inject their own garbage storylines into it.

Exactly! EVERY network person I knew HATED the switch to "reality shows" because they were utterly unsyndicatable/rerunnable for any real profit. The conversations I had were like those with H addicts--they hated it but they were so cheap and easy they were addicted to them. And as for the ads telling the story? SO True. I know back when I made shows we watched what they put on our show, and when we finally got Coke and the like we knew we were a REAL hit because the mainstream ads had found us and supported us. Now? Oh-Oh-its-Tragic! :)

I was born in 77 but i remember the 10 oclock action line up on fridays. Simon and Simon, Riptide Hunter ect...Also i remember having to stay up past midnight to watch shows like Tales From the Darkside and Monsters. Those were the best.

A pro lem with streaming is the homogenized tone. Its all dark greys and thriller eaque dramas. Back then there was mpre of a wide range of tonal differences and genres . From dark dramas to soap operas to comedies. You could even say this about the movie indistry

Many industries, especially Hollywood are often a decade or generation behind technology. They attempted to combat cable with cheaper 'reality' tv that provided opportunities to the less than reputable in society. Game shows went from day time to prime time, thus killing the potential for more hit shows to take the baton from others that ended, and streaming had the opportunity to boost good successful shows, but Netflix put the breaks on that outcome with their popular binge model formula, which ended up changing the function of pilot season, skipping audience reception during the shows episodic development, and burning tons of cash on shows that were fully produced but ultimately forgotten due to a quick consumption rate. The only thing stopping networks from shifting gears to become competitive again is their own lack of discipline when it comes to developing, testing and broadcasting shows.

Wheel of Time season 2 was only to perpetuate “The Message”

I have been buying all these shows (1984) on dvd, these shows are still worth watching.

I spent my preteen and teen years during the 80s and...MAN, did we kids have it good for quality and selection!👍🏼 The problem I think, is today's Gen Z writers are void of imagination and original concepts. This might be due to being exposed to endless low grade entertainment shows of the 2000s, and spending less time exploring outside and imagining as kids.

I think the biggest difference is three-fold. First is that mentioned Balkanization of programming due to every company wanting to have their own app making it more difficult to try new shows. Under the Netflix model it was much easier to get your show in front of eyeballs. (Edit: I see you mentioned this while I was typing the other points) Second there was just more to choose from as far as genres were concerned. Today all we really have are procedurals or reality programming. The other major difference as I see it is due to these advances in technology de-emphasizing the "family viewing" trend. When we were all watching universal shows like TV Bloopers or Believe it or Not we were together as a family unit. Kids are so overscheduled these days that the "must see" programming just isn't viable any more. Now if you will excuse me I am going to re-watch Babylon 5 again on Tubi...

Could barely recall most of those 1984 shows but DEFINITELY can recall the invention of MTV in 1981 on cable when cable tv became prevalent in the “On TV” format only four years prior in 1977. It was so awesome back then to “actually see” the popular artists singing their top 40’s hits whereas before we were relegated to simply listening to them on the radio or on vinyl.

"In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem; if no-one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team." Yep. From memory. Was the intro on my micro-cassette-based telephone answering machine for years. EDIT: Also, F*ck yeah, reruns of Kolchak.

Probably the issue is that the networks don't try to take risks anymore. Most series are old shows that are profitable (Big brother, amazing race, Grey's anatomies) or sports. Back then was a mix of copying what seemed to success and new ideas. Its a shame we have a whole decade were teh networks decided to not try anything new, maybe in the future. And sorry, you are more amusing that network television 😃 So excuse us if we keep watching your videos.

I was born in 1978, si I remember MacGuyver, The Equalizer, Murder She Wrote, Hotel and 1990s TV movies more. That said, I'll take 1980s and 1990s film and television over most of today's shows. I only watch Reacher, Poker Face and The Gilded Age at present, as well as British crime shows and good audio dramas.

man i have bitched for YEARS now to people about how all the shows i used to love had like 24 episode seasons, and now these cable shows have like 8 episodes and then HUGE long waits until the next season.

The nostalgia tv broadcasters are pure gold. ME TV,antenna tv and 3 or 4 others that play classic tv shows are about all I watch on cable. And the same for streaming TV with watching older shows rather than anything new.

1930s TV was better than today's TV

100% on Wheel of Time. It looks terrible - all it did was make me re-read the books. (At least the first 6 - which are head-and-shoulders better than the rest).

It's amazing how many shows there were, and with that number, you couldn't go wrong, there was a show for you in there somewhere. Night Court was one for me, and still is a favorite of mine decades later. That's not likely to happen to a lot of current programming.

This was a fun walk down memory lane Mr. Chato, thanks! Perhaps you would consider doing a version of this focusing on the Canadian networks then and now, with a focus on the CBC? Mostly what I remember about Canadian tv channels from the eighties, is how much it made me tune into the American channels.

In my opinion, the tipping point came when sitcom actors from shows like Seinfeld were suddenly demanding $1 million per episode per cast member. For a show like Friends, that meant the weekly budget for an episode was $6 million even before anyone else got paid. I think, in an attempt to offset the cost, reality shows became the bread and butter of the networks. No huge overhead, no massive pay checks, just easy, cheap content. And when those reality shows suddenly started doing really well, and the networks realized that they had struck gold, they began to inundate us with more and more brainless reality television. I really think this was when the decline of scripted television became irreversible.

_Scarecrow and Mrs. King_ and _Remington Steele_ were successful cases of making James Bond more appealing to a female audience.

I always love your professional broadcasts, Paul. end. What an insane world.

I work for a syndicated talk show and we recently got completely pumped over a .52 overnight rating. Years ago, I worked for a show that got canceled because it only got a 5.2.

The slow death of the entertainment industry has been painful - and baffling - to witness.

The only commercial tv we watch is MEtv and some western channel my husband found. We don't have cable, no paid streaming services. Most of what we watch is the stuff we grew up watching. Personally, most of what I watch is from uploads on utube. There are loads of wonderful old movies that i watched as a child, along with the dramas and sitcoms my family, friends and I enjoyed. What's offered on commercial tv now is much like what is left in the garden at the end of the season: it's only fit to be plowed under in the hope it will be fertilizer, and maybe produce something better in the spring.

All of my grandma's favorites. ❤

An avalanche of classics from 1984!! Nothing compares today.

I was 11 in 1984. You brought back many good memories of shows I watched and others that were my parents favorites (and sometimes I could watch too). Nowadays, I still watch cable tv, but just a set of programs my wife and I both like. And you made me realize how much more time I spent on YT watching favorite channel content like this.

KZfaq is the new broadcast television, maybe basic cable. The paradigm has shifted.

Love the content !!! Keep up the great work!!!

+1 for shouting out Kolchak!!!

Thanks for the history lesson, Network Executive X!

I grew up on TV in the 80s and 90s. Although the writing on many of those 80s shows really feel like a throwback to the 70s they were done with a lot of heart that today's shows seem to lack. I really wish we could see some of that today.

i was 12 in 84. i wont even try to name off all of the shows you just mentioned that i liked but there were a bunch, but i have really fond nostalgia memories in particular of watching "Ripleys Believe It Or Not" as well as "Thats Incredible" with my father and uncles in the living room around that time. i do want to mention "it's Your Move" as it was a show i really liked and thought was very good but that vanished VERY quickly. i also REALLY loved those first two V mini series.

I appreciate your insight! Thanks