In the golden days of yore, at least in the US, there were 13 television channels and just four networks (including PBS). When a new show came out, it would be on one of those networks that every TV owner across the nation could see.
I remember as a kid going to school the day after “The Wizard of Oz” had been on, and pretty much everyone in my class had watched it. I also remember blowing my little 8-year-old mind as I watched it, thinking about how almost every single kid in the country was doing the exact same thing at that very moment. Not just doing the same thing, but experiencing the same emotions. [Okay, give me a break, here: I was a little kid at the time and hadn’t learned about differing time zones.]
I “cut the cable” many years ago. I won’t claim to be a pioneer in that movement, but let’s say I was an early adopter, canceling my cable subscription sometime in 2009 or 2010. By then Netflix had already been offering video streaming for a few years, followed shortly after by Amazon Prime, and I had a sizable collection of VHS tapes (and later, DVDs), so I didn’t see the need for more TV-viewing than that. And as more and more of us moved from cable to streaming, what used to be a mere four-network media galaxy became a universe of more than 200 streaming services (here’s a list).
With that enormous expansion of viewing options, we have all gained access to more programming, but we have also lost that commonality among people based on what aired the night before.
Back when everyone in my class had watched “Wizard of Oz” the night before, we’d all have a similar frame of reference the next day, a subtle commonality in the undercurrent of our consciousness. Now, with the universality of our media diets almost completely scattered, that commonality is gone. The zeitgeist is less universal, and we’re just a little less connected.
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As long as I’m talking about television, let me take this opportunity to link to my lists of favorite TV Shows and Films. And if you still have a collection of DVDs and wish you could view them in a more convenient way, see my posts about Plex.