Best Era of Cable/Satellite In General

[TimK2003]

It\'s been discussed several times about when GSN\'s best years were, but what about cable &/or satellite in general?  This isn\'t just limited to when the best game show programming was on cable, but all genres.

 

My vote for cable TV\'s best era was a year or so either side of 1988:  USA had a great line up of game show reruns and cartoons (and as bad as some of their original Canadian imports were they don\'t look so bad when you pair them up against some of the more modern disasters originals). CBN aired some game shows, and other cable channels like Lifetime & MTV/VH1 created some decent original shows.

 

Nick @ Nite brought us some great vintage programming without 2-5 hour blocks of the same show, and there was also a great niche channel, Ha!, that gave us even more TV show rerun options.

 

Other choices for best cable era???

 

/Thank goodness channels like AntennaTV and MeTV still have the Nick @ Nite spirit of the late 80s.

 

 

[BrandonFG]

I\'d have to go along with 1988-90. That\'s when I really discovered cable, and like you said, you had a nice mix of originals and reruns for the game show buffs. But the one thing I love about that era is that cable channels had more variety and took more chances. Instead of the same stuff on 12 different channels, each network had its own niche programming, and even showed the obscure one-season wonders from time to time.

 

That being said, I wouldn\'t mind seeing cable in its more experimental era, i.e. the late-70s/early-80s.

[Vahan_Nisanian]

I would say cable television was at its best from 1980 to 1995.

[TLEberle]

I would say cable television was at its best from 1980 to 1995.

How would you know? You weren\'t even born yet!

[Vahan_Nisanian]

Okay then, 1987 to 1995.

[trainman]

It was at its best right before USA started putting a transparent version of their logo on-screen for 15 seconds going into and out of commercial breaks, and ruined everything.

[Vahan_Nisanian]

It was at its best right before USA started putting a transparent version of their logo on-screen for 15 seconds going into and out of commercial breaks, and ruined everything.

 

Then they changed it so that the logo would stay there for the entire segment.

[DrBear]

Where have you gone, Danger Mouse? We miss you, Todd Donoho and \"Time Out For Trivia.\" Oh, The Learning Channel, when did you give up on the joys of education? Robin Meade, you\'re a hottie, but you\'re no Lynne Russell. When MTV didn\'t stand for Moronic Teens Vomiting. When my converter box would fill HBO\'s off hours with C-SPAN. So long, Cubs and Braves every day during the summer, AMC, you were TCM before TCM. I remember sitting in a bar with our news editor, and we were both able to sing the Nick at Nite \"My Three Sons\" commercial. FROM MEMORY. There was experimentation, not sameness, not brand extensions. There were not 17 Discovery Channel spinoffs, 12 Fox Sports Channels, three C-SPANS, ESPN 8 \"The Ocho,\" or Skip Bayless, for that matter. There was CNN\'s Crossfire, the only example of talking heads shouting at each other, something that now fills entire networks. There was Australian Rules Football!

 

It was tremendous, my friend.

[TLEberle]

Just a note, there\'s still Aussie Rules.

[Loogaroo]

The saddest thing about this discussion is the sweet spot so many people are talking about - the late \'80s to early \'90s - was the exact same period of time that our household didn\'t have cable. (We unsubscribed in 1990; didn\'t get it again until about \'94.) So I missed out on most of the fun. By the time we got it again, Nickelodeon and MTV had already started their downward trends, and USA was about to phase out the game show reruns. As an \'80s kid, those were the only two channels that really mattered to me.

[Craig Karlberg]

Ah, yes!  The late 1980s/early 1990s were the best as far as varied programing goes.  It wasn\'t relegated to cable.  When our house had satellite in 1985, it was great to see what movie channels were around before they got \"scrambled\"(we later had to subscribe to those channels to \"unscramble\" them).  I mean, where else can you see movies like The Gods Must Be Crazy during the day & some \"B-type\" movies late at night.  This all came before PPV & on-demand were common.

 

As far as game shows, USA & CBN were the best at their afternoon blocks.  On satellite, I\'ll never forget watching Trivia Trap on a channel called TV Heaven.  The Nostalgia Channel had one called Let\'s Go Back which was neat to see.

 

And whereas MTV & VH-1 filled my musical needs, Video Hits USA on satellite did the same thing.

 

Even sports was a thing of beauty.  Fron Aussie Rules Football to beach volleyball, sports was second behind game shows for most viewed on satellite(with movies at #3).  And when some of the sports channels went off the air, sometimes  I hear some music that\'s often associated with the \"Sports + Network\" ticker.  Those were fun times.

[Jamey Greek]

I should say the 1980s to the 1990s.  I for one, took it for granted, yet I do regret it.  VH1 rerunned episodes of American Bandstand in the mid 90s, Pop-Up Video, Archives, the big 80s, etc.  Also, My Generation and Rock and Roll Jeopardy!  And Jeff Probst with long hair!  Speaking of, he was on FX when they reran 70s and 80s TV shows and their studios were a New York apartment.  Another future game show host came out of FX Tom Bergeron.  


Alao, we can\'t forget E! Which groomed a future game show host in Todd Newton.  Also they reran shows like WKRP and One Day at a Time as well as Alice.  I heard they were going to expand their sitcom lineup, but they shelved plans once Talk Soup and all took off.  Also, E! In the early 90s showed reruns of Star Search, and Bloopers.


TV Land was good when they reran short-lived 80s and 90s shows.  (I.e Leg Work, Day by Day) Also, I miss their Ultimate Fan Search game show.

[Jamey Greek]

Oh yea, VH1 Classic was great during it\'s early years when it was all-music vids all the time.

[BrandonFG]

The saddest thing about this discussion is the sweet spot so many people are talking about - the late \'80s to early \'90s - was the exact same period of time that our household didn\'t have cable. (We unsubscribed in 1990; didn\'t get it again until about \'94.) So I missed out on most of the fun. By the time we got it again, Nickelodeon and MTV had already started their downward trends, and USA was about to phase out the game show reruns. As an \'80s kid, those were the only two channels that really mattered to me.

\'94 was when we got rid of cable, and it stayed \"off\" for six years. I still have some fond memories from 1994-99 (watching it at my grandparents\' places), including FAM\'s daytime block of reruns in summer \'95.

 

I may be in the minority, but I consider the downward spiral at the point networks started squeezing credits and inserting pop-up ads to get more advertising in. That was 1999 or 2000.

 

Being among a bunch of geeks, was I the only one who watched the original Prevue Guide channel for entertainment?

[cmjb13]

I remember watching Nickelodeon in the late 80\'s and a few minutes after 8pm, I would get snow as it would cutover to Nick at Nite which for whatever reason, we were unable to get. (assuming it was a separate subscription)