ESPN invented an absolutely genius gold mine when they were providing 24/7 sports coverage, basic commentary, and except for that SHUT UP. In the middle of the night, you could turn on ESPN and often find an obscure sport from some place you never heard of. Remember those days? Then they developed an elite who had to improve their offerings. Now, I don't know how anyone who enjoys sports can even watch the mess they've created.
Same thing happened to MTV. Used to be all music. Then the videos got all out-of-control sensationalist drama. Does that station still exist?
Back in those days, the weather station was 24/7 weather, a weather geek's dream.
Whatever happened to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?
Does MTV even have music videos anymore? I thought they have mostly reality shows about people acting like idiots and girls getting pregnant???
I believe it was ESPN that experimented with broadcasting a pro football game with only play-by-play and no commentators or analysts. Refeshing, it was but it just didn’t catch on.
Yeah I remember those days and they are long gone. I tuned out of ESPN in about 2006.
As for MTV... I tuned them out in early 1985.
To your point, I used to love watching the outdoor fishing and hunting shows on Saturday mornings on ESPN. Now some of it moved to ESPN II over time but regardless it was must see TV in my house for 20-years.
Then about 5-6 years ago someone made the decision that fishing and hunting shows wouldn’t appeal or worse yet were offending the PC coastal elites so they were all dropped.