Wide World of Women

You can safely say very bad--that is, if I had extra room to type in those four letters on the subject line.

I was going through some piles of paper and noticed a card that was left over from my grandparents, when they were the first people in our family to subscribe to cable back in 1982.

We had only 36 channels, and it was a set-up box that looked like this:
http://smartfixsolutions.blogspot.com/2012/04/technology-throwback.html

You simply moved the lever to access that specific row and you had to push hard on whatever button that particular station was entered.
If you didn't push hard enough, or the lever was stationed halfway up or down, static would appear.

With Lisa Robertson leaving QVC on Friday night, here were some of the channels that were around then and what has changed since, with some corresponding clips to underline my point:

- Nashville Network, later would become SpikeTV

- People That Love, originally an inspirational channel, take your pick on what channel has taken over that moniker .

- FNN was the original Financial News Network, only on during the business day. After hours, some markets took you to BET. FNN of course, would dissolve by the end of the 1980's and become, for better or for worse, CNBC.

- On June 21, 1982, this little known news channel would surface:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnmjRIfZgPI

Satellite News Channel definitely gave CNN and Headline News (originally started as sister cousin CNN2) a true run for its' money in their 16 months on the air before saying farewell a few days before Halloween 1983:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M9Lr_SyGGo

By the time Jerrold came out with its' digital Starcom VI system, it was definitely a true golden age for cable TV viewing.

I can safely say that with the drastic and yes, depressing changes that took place to Nickelodeon (early 1990's), MTV (with the introduction of reality shows like The Real World, (early 1990's), Headline News (with the departure of very popular newsreader Lynne Russell), TWC (with Jen Carfagno introducing Friday Night movies, along with the subsequent historical weather reality shows that would follow), and to some extent--the USA Network, originally a home for game shows by day and NHL hockey by night--but has gone heavy on female crime dramas most of the time, QVC midas well take their place in line under the past banner of formerly great cable channels, but is no longer the case.

Remember when A&E stood for ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT & A&E & Bravo were highbrow snobby type channels for the fine arts!

Now its Storage Wars (Which I do Love!) & Gays Guys for Real Housewives who are so fake its not funny ( Which I DONT Love!) 24/7


You are old if you remember MTV Playing MUSIC VIDEOS & know what a VJ is!

How about WHT the Business channel by day scrambled movie channel by night & if you didnt have it trying to see boobies through the scrambled signal!

When HSN gave out toots, & had cool hosts (Even if you knew those sportscards were scams right Hans?) & did real lingerie shows & I dont mean shapewear!

I think Bruce thought of this night & was onto something with 57 channels & nothings on

Yeah things started going south on cable when the big conglomerates started swallowing up the channels - now they're just recycling bins for their popular shows.
Once upon a time the Weather channel was about weather, Travelchannel was about travel, and you might actually learn something watching TLC. Possibly the only network that's true to it's name is the Game Show Network. Even one of my faves, ID Discovery is beginning to jump the shark - getting a bit campy these days.

I hear you.

Classic case in my world:
United Cable existed from 1981 to around 1992
TCI bought them out (TeleCommunications, Inc.) and that lasted until 1999, when AT&T Broadband purchased their entities.
That lasted until 2004 when Comcast swallowed up the remainder of the American cable TV market.

The oversaturation of channels is mind boggling, no question about that.

TCI was in the KC area in my part of the metro and the office was in Overland Park. But other parts had American Cablevision. TCI was better than AM cable. But TCI and AM cable were both bought out in 1999 to Time Warner cable in KC. Another outfit then came in to compete called Everest TV, but it abruptly was sold off in 2009 to SureWest. That was a mistake because then in 2013 SureWest was sold to a very bad business called Consolidated Broadcasting so quality and service has gone downhill with each new company. Olathe was with AM Cable but they got sold off to Comcast in 1999 or 2000 where as Leawood had AM Cable and TWC took it over.
Now in comes the controversial Google Fiber and I won't go into to them, but I know that Leawood will not be taking on the service and Overland Park has been debating still over having them. My city is taking them.

My browser crashed so all I was saying in the latter half of my comments was the quality of tv has gone downhill, but it depends on what you want and how much you are willing to pay to get the channels with stuff on them you like. I singled out Ovation because it has started to run a lot of good movies from the past and rivals AMC or F/X movies and reminds me of the old TBS or TNT. But also Ovation ran some concerts over Thanksgiving so it is back to running concert films sometimes and runs two shows in the vain of WGN America and AMC. Right now it is running King Arthur from 2006 then The Three Musketeers from 1993 followed by The Other Boleyn Girl from 2008.

I also then singled out Palladia because it runs actual music programming, but It is not exactly like the old MTV yet it is. Depends what you considered to be the old MTV. if it was just running music videos 24-7, that's not Palladia. Palladia runs old MTV unplugged and maybe some MTV concerts and maybe some music shows that used to be on MTV but not music videos 24-7. it does a lot of music related stuff though like Later with Jools Holland and Live from Daryl's House and concert movies and some biography films. This afternoon it is running Purple Rain then VH-1's You Ought To Know Concert then the BBC Music Awards then MTV World Stage.

I also wrote that to get educational programming one had to get digital tiers to land on channels like Smithsonian and The Science channel. And that History moved a majority of their educational fare to H2. National Geographic has good shows still but some of its content was scrapped in favor of boring reality tv. Then they created Nat Geo Wild! so the animal programing moved their just like Discovery did when Animal Planet began. American Heroes' Channel is pretty good and basically the one channel with a lot of war shows like a new series on The American Revolution. Destination America is also not bad with its educational fare.

There is also Chiller and Cloo which balance each other out by running two genre of shows and movies...horror/sci-fi and mystery/crime shows. UP(formerly GMC) and Family Net have a lot of clean family programming. So it depends what you want. Travel channel is ok in my book, but I found better shows from BBC I player using a VPN like Hola Unblocker. One I saw traveled Italy and the other was in the Mekong Delta.

P.S. In looking further at Palladia's schedule it sometimes does run music videos in a show called Epic Awesome Videos. It rivals the sister network VH-1 classic but it tends to focus on more than just classic artists in rock, pop, R&B and even country. It focuses on all music in English in the USA, Canada and Europe. So it does newer music too. VH-1 Classic Today is running old SNL's from the last 20 to 25 years then Kindergarden Cop then Diner with Kevin Bacon but the channel does a new Behind The Music, Classic in Concert, Rockfest and That Metal Show overnight. At the moment VH-1 Classic seems to run movies, Entourage reruns and SNL around music programming like Totally 80s and 90s Rocked. VH-1 Classic runs more Music Videos than Palladia. Tomorrow VH-1 Classic will run The Pretenders Live, 120 Minutes, Bon Jovi in Concert, more RockFest and the movies Annie and The Goonies and SNL and Entourage overnight with two episodes.

Let's not forget that AMC once stood for American Movie Classics, running classic movies around the clock. That honor now goes to TCM, since AMC has been a powerhouse with Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead.

What about E! pre-1990, when the channel was originally Movie Time? And until Nick at Nite in 1985-86, it was Nickelodeon in the day and A&E at night...on the same channel!

I also remember the Disney Channel having an eclectic mix of programming morning through night, especially their nighttime block which I watched on occasion.

Finally, there's BET. It became the place to be for "Video Soul" and "Teen Summit" (I remember seeing the British comedy series "Desmond's" on there); today...I don't know. BUT...if this board existed in the early '90s, we would've talked about -- and had many caps of -- Sherry Carter and Madelyne Woods!

Actually the predecessor to A&E (ARTS) Alpha Repertory Television Service shared the same channel with Nickeloden from 1982-1984. Then they merged with The Entertainment Channel and became, A&E on Feb 1984. Then in 1985 Nickeloden expanded there programming into the evening hour, A&E became a separate 24-hour cable channel in July.

And Wifetime...I mean, Lifetime? It was a merger of Daytime and the Cable Health Network.

MTV's HA! and HBO's The Comedy Channel joined forces in 1991 to become CTV: The Comedy Network; after they got an "unpleasant" cease and desist letter from a certain broadcast network north of the border, they renamed it Comedy Central.