[78-L] end of 525-line television ^

[Royal Pemberton]

The exponential increase in the number of channels on cable during and
after the 1980s looked to me like one place where the quality of
things on offer went down on average, due to the need for so much more
content to simply keep programming on 24/7.   Enter junk programming
like 'infomercials'.

I'm old enough (I'll be 45 next month) to remember when television in
places like Atlanta or New Orleans meant each of the big three
networks plus NET, later PBS, had places on the VHF dial, and in
addition there would be a single independent station on the lower
reaches of the UHF part of the tuner.  And that was all there
was--five whole channels!  Antenna reception was decent on the VHF
channels, a fuzzy, snowy PITA on the UHF.

The indy station would have a few syndicated shows, some cartoons, and
lots of old movies.  But what I'm really getting at in saying all this
is, with so few outlets for programming, there wasn't an attitude of
taking viewers for granted; it seems like they really tried hard to
come up with programming with a wide appeal, and excellence at every
artistic and technical level.  And somehow, there seemed to be a bit
of magic in what they came up with that you don't experience anymore.

On 1/10/09, Steven C. Barr <stevenc at interlinks.net> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Royal Pemberton" <ampex354 at gmail.com>
>> Peoria, Illinois is another city stuck in an all-UHF ghetto AFAIK.
>>
> As far as I remember, Peoria (I grew 40 miles from there, and we
> watched most Peoria stations...!) was, indeed, all-UHF...as was
> almost all of central Illinois!
>
> The story was/is...around 1950-51, the FCC declared a "freeze"
> on assigning new TV channels...because they had already given
> out all the twelve VHF channels within distances that might cause
> inter-station interference. Around late 1953, the FCC started to
> pass out UHF (14-83...later 14-70, after 71 to 83 were given
> to cell phones...which means that if you have a channel 83, you
> can eavesdrop on cell-phone traffic!!)...so that cities like Peoria
> could get TV channels (and us folks in Waynesville could waste
> our time watching TV...net LOSS!!).
>
> Sorry, fo'kses...Having lived through the introduction of TV,
> followed by its eventual (and inevitable...?!) ubiquity...I blame
> television for the drastic deterioration in the life of us humans...!!
>
> FEH!!
>
> ...stevenc
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