• skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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    14 days ago

    You know the Dead Internet theory? Where like 80% of the internet is just bots talking to each other and there are no humans involved?

    American Cable TV has already reached the equivalent of that. It is a vehicle for advertisement. The whole industry is primarily propped up by advertisers in order to have a platform for their advertisements. Hardly any human eyes are on them anymore, because anyone out there who is still watching TV shows is overwhelmingly likely to be watching those shows on Netflix or Hulu. But the ads must flow.

    Mostly the only people who are still seeing these are older folks, who are one of the easiest markets to market to. So there is still, arguably, some value in this. But realistically speaking if you’re advertising on cable TV and your target market is anything other than folks 70+ years old, you’re wasting your time. The whole thing is one big advertiser circlejerk. I believe this is why we now get less than 20 minutes of actual content during a 30-minute programming block. Air time has been shrinking to make room for more ads for a couple decades at least.