Back in the pre-cable days there were 63 hours of prime time among the three networks. Some was chewed up by sports and reruns. That increased some with Fox and then more with cable channels producing some original content. Now a lot more content is produced which means they are digging deeper for producers, directors, writers and actors. Some will be surprise hits that wouldn’t have been made with the old system, but most is dreck that that would have been correctly dumped in the trash with only 63 hours available.
There used to be 3-4 channels in Indianapolis. VHF
Then UHF came along and gave us programs that needed to be subsidized.
Then HBO came and we could get ad-less shows if we paid a fee
Then cable showed up and we paid a fee and got ads, too.
Now we have 400-500 channels, more charges, more ads, and we get crap served to us.
Entropy wins again.