True..now i watch anime and buy DVDs..

That's completely right, I remeber not to long ago, maybe few years, theyy were really funny and interesting shows.
And in my country there was quite a lot of anime gettint to TV, but now looks like it's stopped
So yeah people aren't taing seriously TV anymore.
What I do like are the new formats in HD and panoramic screen that is gettintg better ad better every time.

Poey

I actually don't watch much live television anymore. I watch a lot of shows (such as anime... and The Office :D) but they're on DVD and whatnot.

Mmm hmm. Except I watch them on the internet instead.

Sigh, TV wasn't seriously as good as it used to be. Ads used to be interesting, thought provocative, witty and funny, but now, it plainly just isn't no longer. TV shows have degraded to a point wherein it's just copies of old ideas mismashed together. There still are some shows that are mind-numbingly as good (as if they keep on getting new ideas), some are new improvements over old elements , but a LOT are just plain irritatingly bad, repetitive, and wrong, sitcoms are thrown back and forth, dramas and plots are mixed with E.R. themes or crime solving themes, clearly no more creativity and imagination, but, are we not responsible sometimes? PIRACY is rampant, I know, I'm being hypocritical here, but we have to understand it's partially our fault. Everybody does it? If you say that, then everybody would be doing it. Back to my point though, Piracy will degrade the entertainment industry, the companies lose profit, they have to lay off writers, they hire cheaper less talented ones, no more new ideas. We then blame them for overpricing DVD's or having numerous ads, without those ads or priced the show wouldn't be as good! Look from different perspective, you might think all they want is money, that may or may not be true but, at least we get what we pay for right? This is the same concept with Video Games, Books, and of TV Shows. Life is expensive yes, but, we're not the only ones living on this planet, we can not always assume we are not at fault. They sell what they sell and we GET what we PAY for.

Thanks for reading my opinion.

You are a German? That's so cool. I like to know people from other countries. In my native country, there are cartoons but no anime on TV. We read manga though.
I agree with you that programs on TV is getting worse but not in your aspect. We don't have many channels, only 3 or 4. In my country, they have educational programs which I like. Probably most people don't like it because they tend to think anything related to education is boring. But movies dominate the channels. Back then, I really loved the movies, but now not very much. I loved to watch documentary films, discovery channel, and channels about other cultures. Now, TV channels still consist of those things but they also include bad things such as sexual scenes or extreme violence. In my country, unlike others, sex-related issues are very private and embarrassed to discuss. Never in my life had I heard of sex discussing in my family. I was extremely disappointed. Probably my country is changing, changing like the industrial countries. But it seems to me that my country learn more bad things than good things from industrial countries.

Every freakin old Action movie that is shown on TV nowadays is cut or edited. I mean in the past, I used to record some kick ass Martial Arts movies on VHS tapes,... only to be confronted with the hard truth that the best scenes were cut as soon as I bought them on DVD or saw them from "other internal sources" (so to speak)

I never really knew how hard for example 36th Chamber of Shaolin was cut in it's TV version in compariason to the DVD version...

from those days on I never ever watched any Martial Arts movies on TV anymore, but saved up for the DVD version.

Action TV sucks these days, even discovery channel shows are a more favorable options than watching cut version of my favorite action movies...

Maxi-Ryu99

Every freakin old Action movie that is shown on TV nowadays is cut or edited. I mean in the past, I used to record some kick ass Martial Arts movies on VHS tapes,... only to be confronted with the hard truth that the best scenes were cut as soon as I bought them on DVD or saw them from "other internal sources" (so to speak)

I never really knew how hard for example 36th Chamber of Shaolin was cut in it's TV version in compariason to the DVD version...

from those days on I never ever watched any Martial Arts movies on TV anymore, but saved up for the DVD version.

Action TV sucks these days, even discovery channel shows are a more favorable options than watching cut version of my favorite action movies...

Ah... Discovery Channel... You've got to love it. If I want to watch movies, only channels like Turner Classic Movies, which show movies uncut and without commercials, are a decent alternative to DVD.

As for television shows, there hasn't been anything really good in the way of new TV shows in years. No new sit-coms, new action shows are usually just CSI clones.

It's a sad state.

Tv the drug of a nation breeding ignorance and feedin radiation..
go check out the 1976 movie 'network'

heres a 'lil quote from said movie
"We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat like the tube. You raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness -- you maniacs! In God's name you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion.

"So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I am speaking to you now. Turn them off!!"

Honestly, I don't know, because what I watch on TV now is vastly different from what I used to watch, so it's hard to say. When I was younger, I watched anime on Cartoon Network -- Rurouni Kenshin, Tenchi, Sailor Moon, Dragonball, etcetc -- among other cartoons/animations. I didn't really watch anything else, so I don't know how they used to be. Now, I choose not to watch my anime on TV, and I prefer to watch them on my laptop or from DVDs, subbed. The only TV I really watch are three shows on and off (House MD, Top Chef, and 24), and then Discovery Health or the Food Network. Oh, and there are the occasional times when I get really bored, decide to watch reality TV (Housewives of Whatever), only to cringe and cry to myself about it afterward.

So really, it's hard to say, IMO.

I haven't actually sat down and regularly watched TV for...well, years, and I don't miss it.

Everything I end up seeing (whether it be the constantly devolving Cartoon Network or some new reality/drama show) just bores me and screams to me how creativity died in its little box back in the 1990s.

The only shows I actually watch if the TV even gets a chance are the classics: Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Seinfeld, George Lopez :P

'Sides, if I watched TV actively, my anime and games would be completely neglected XD

True. TV nowadays seems to like broadcasting, at least here in Portugal, the same movies over and over again, and tv shows that make us want to sleep in front of the tv. Right now, just so you can have an idea, I only watch 2 or 3 tv shows per week (on a programming of 24/7)

T.V is almost all reality shows, who sucks

The quality of the TV shows today has declined compared to how it was 10 years ago, most of the shows that are running nowadays are reality-tv, wich I pretty much hate. I miss the good old days when I actually liked to watch tv..

My tv is used for video games and a movie every now and then
cuz all that other stuff is horrid, people tell me that there really is good stuff but i guess i always miss it, most of the stuff i watch is on hulu which leaves cable for the news

It all comes down to the same thing everything else in the world does: Money.

Traditional TV shows are incredibly expensive to produce. You have to consider not only the pay to talent and crew (which nearly always averages in the millions), but also overhead costs (such as electricity, food, equipment, sets and location), and whatever deals are worked out with the network or production companies handling the syndication.

Reality TV is very cheap. No talent cost- huge savings! The 'talent' is usually competing for something so they 'work' for free. Back in the first few days of reality TV production cost was low as well. They would use a couple of cheap field cams and a minimal production crew. Of course now that there are hundreds of reality shows they too are vying for viewers so the cost is starting to rise.

Both types of programming are suffering because of the economy. People aren't buying stuff so advertisers are beginning to stop advertising both locally and nationally. DVRs and internet viewing aren't helping. People don't like watching ads and aren't buying the products advertised so companies are having to find other ways to reach consumers. Therefore no one is paying for the TV shows to be produced.

So stop your bitching. It is your fault that TV sucks. How do we change? We probably never will. You will see a rise in high quality programming on paid channels (such as HBO and Showtime). You will also see a rise in original (crappy) internet programming. Televsion as we know it will eventually evolve into something entirely different than it is currently.